Autism Teachers

Autism gives many unique traits to an individual, and many of these people go on to do great things (it is said Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, and other innovators and scientists had forms of autism). I can’t speak for others - maybe they do want to rid themselves of their condition. But as for the parents and individuals making the decision, think about it: do you honestly want a cure that is going to change the individual you are?

Daniel Tammet is author of two books, Born on a Blue Day and Embracing the Wide Sky, the latter of which came out in January. He is also a linguist and holds the European record for reciting the first 22,514 digits of the mathematical constant pi.

When I was a child, my behavior was far from being what most people would label “intelligent.” It was often limited, repetitive and antisocial.

I could not do many of the things that most people take for granted, such as looking someone in the eye or deciphering a person’s body language, and only acquired these skills with much effort over time. I also struggled to learn many of the techniques for spelling or doing sums taught in class because they did not match my own style of thinking.

These are the first three in series of short videos of a lecutre by Julie Matthews that address the value of special diets in the management of Autism.

Despite this relatively high frequency, scientists do not understand the mechanism of this serious developmental problem. What they have discovered is that autism is one of the most heritable mental disorders known. In other words, autism appears to be largely genetic in origin, and most autistic children inherit the disorder from their parents.

In the case of PKU, geneticists have determined that retardation is due to genetics (a mutated phenylalanine hydroxylase gene) and the environment (a phenylalanine-containing diet).

In the case of autism, the likelihood that the sibling of an affected child also would be affected is between three and six percent.

High autism rates have been found in Somali imigrants living in Sweden and in Minnesota.  What does Sweden have in common with Minnesota, besides wolves and snow?  They are both at high lattitudes and get low sunlight, especially in the winter.  Swedish researchers have proposed that vitamin D deficiency may play a role in the high incidence of autism found among Somali immigrant children.  Vitamin D is made in the skin from sunlight. 

Herndon et al report that children with Autism Spectrum Disorder consume significantly fewer servings of dairy products than children without ASD, although both children with ASD and those without were deficient in vitamin D.  Dairy products in the United States are supplemented with vitamin D. 

Several medical-cultural trends may have combined to produce vitamin D deficiency in pregnant women, infants, and children, possibly predisposing children to autism: widespread use of sunscreen and avoiding outdoor exposure during peak hours, and reduced consumption of fatty cold-water fish by pregnant women, due to fears of mercury contamination.