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15 children with down’s syndrome

25 typically developing children

The authors found that all three diagnostic groups showed anomalies in the development of face recognition when compared to typically developing kids.

The children with low (but not high) functioning autism show a disadvantage for identifying eyes but an advantage for identifying mouths. In addition, they were better at identifying eyes and noses when the these were upside down than when they were upside up. This is the opposite of what is expected in typically developing children.

The authors discussed how this may be due to an aversion to looking directly at eyes, especially in upright faces. Therefore, the observed deficiencies in face recognition among the low functioning autism group may not be due to problems in the development of whole face recognition processes per se, but instead this weakness may be due to a natural aversion to stare at the eyes area of the face.

The exclusion by autism self advocates of the intellectually disabled autistic population occurs despite the fact that many persons with Autistic Disorder are intellectually disabled. The ICD-10 mentions this fact expressly in its description of Autistic Disorder:

Autistic Disorder...In addition to these specific diagnostic features, it is frequent for children with autism to show a range of other nonspecific problems such as fear/phobias, sleeping and eating disturbances, temper tantrums, and aggression. Self-injury (e.g. by wrist-biting) is fairly common, especially when there is associated severe mental retardation.

All levels of IQ can occur in association with autism, but there is significant mental retardation in some three-quarters of cases.

There are more than 200 known causes of intellectual disability. Some common examples of intellectual disability are: Down syndrome Autism

The attempt by higher functioning persons with ASD's and Aspergers to disassociate "autism" from intellectual disability helps stigmatize persons with intellectual disabilities including the many persons with autistic disorder and intellectual disabilities.

And some ND's, to counter the fact that most with LFA are retarded, some "famous" autistics like to promote FC as "proof" that they aren't.

My cousin is profoundly autistic. He is around 20 and cannot communicate at all, not verbally or in the written word, and has never said a word. Luckily, his family is smart enough to know that if anyone tries use FC on him they will know it is a scam.If a facilitator told my aunt that P was writing poems and understood Shakespeare she would just laugh. She loves P as he is; she knows reality and doesn't try to force him to be someone he isn't.

The current Wikipedia article still shows a frequency of 25-70% incidence of mental retardation in people with autism.

Yet, the reader is drawn to see not the high percentage (25% is still very high) but the width of the range, therefore there must be something wrong with the ability of standard tests to measure "autistic intelligence".

Mentally retarded IMO comes from the intelligence scales. These do not address the learning styles of all people and are inflexible. I do believe there are better ways to understand how someone learns. I also don't believe there are limits on what we learn, the brain's placisity allows us to learn our entire life.

I've spoken hundreds of parents and it worries me that so many have problems accepting their children as they are and will be.For some intelligence is the magic word, a kind of hidden cure inside their child.But autistic kids with a normal IQ which they can use function better than those with high IQ's they can't use.

I am only concerned about the cases where the FC person NEVER does ANY kind of independent work, which seem to be the majority of FC cases.

Previous studies have suggested between 3 percent and 25 percent of autistic kids recover. Fein says her studies have shown the range is 10 percent to 20 percent.

But even after lots of therapy - often carefully designed educational and social activities with rewards - most autistic children remain autistic. Recovery is "not a realistic expectation for the majority of kids," but parents should know it can happen, Fein said.

The children in Fein's study, which is still ongoing, were diagnosed by an autism specialist before age 5 but no longer meet diagnostic criteria for autism. The initial diagnoses were verified through early medical records.

The researchers are also doing imaging tests to see if the recovered kids' brains look more like those of autistic or nonautistic children.

Imaging scans also are being done to examine brain function in formerly autistic kids.

Results from those tests are still being analyzed.

Most of the formerly autistic kids got long-term behavior treatment soon after diagnosis, in some cases for 30 or 40 hours weekly.

Many also have above-average IQs and had been diagnosed with relatively mild cases of autism. At age 2, many were within the normal range for motor development, able to walk, climb and hold a pencil.

Significant improvement suggesting recovery was evident by around age 7 in most cases, Fein said.

None of the children has shown any sign of relapse. But nearly three-fourths of the formerly autistic kids have had other disorders, including attention-deficit problems, tics and phobias; eight still are affected.