> The invention of the smart phone and proliferation of social media also means that more parents (and grandparents!) are addicted to their phones, social media, games etc.
What a comprehensive collection ... I hope I'm in the right frame of mind to be commenting at the moment, as I have been advised by my son's preschool recently to seek an ASD assessment. It does mean I've been thinking a lot about all this.
(1) I wonder if perhaps there is more weight to the increasing maternal age part than one might expect ... a shift so drastic across population levels could well be expected to account for a significant proportion of the increase.
(2) I don't know enough to comment on the vaccine hypothesis... but I made my own choice (to vaccinate) based on research that the single highest risk factor for developing autism was being exposed to German measles in-utero. The same is probably true for other viruses (I caught Covid almost immediately after finding out I was pregnant, despite leaving to self-isolate alone in an unoccupied house).
(3) Advanced maternal age means greater likelihood of placental abnormalities which has been shown to be a risk factor (I had both bilobal placenta and a suspected partial abruption during birth).
(4) I have been thinking a lot about Bettelheim, since I found his main hypothesis (to respond to YOUR unique child, and never treat them like a puzzle box that requires an instruction manual) so useful. I do wonder, in his observations of "refrigerator mothers", if he simply failed to follow his own conclusion to its logical end: was he watching the dyad of relating differently, of a mother responding to her child as he/she required? My son responds far, far better to calm, conversational instructions than overly emotional, whether negative OR overly positive.
(5) I'm interested in this hypothesis at the moment, autism as a bifurcation from socially-mediated development to cognitively-independent development (https://larivierre.substack.com/p/what-if-the-dsm-5-got-autism-wrong?selection=02de0b1b-797c-4e82-8c18-2ca2e408d453). Yes, the issue of absolutely severe cases throws a spanner in the works here (I do wonder if the future will see the separation of ASD and Aspergers as a huge mistake) In any case, have known my son is different from about four months (despite my being a SAHM, no preschool until 1000 days, living on the coast away from pollution, being nutritionally aware and mindful of screens, and all the other knowledge you get from training as a psychotherapist). This article describes very well what I have observed about thinking, relating and exploring differently, while still absolutely being intelligent and relational.
(6) One aspect I also think gets frequently overlooked is changes in society. I’ve been having a lot of conversations about this recently, and realised just how many people in my family in older generations probably have ASD. Generally, life went something like this: stay at home with Mom until age 5, the only real expectation was that one could walk and talk by the time you go to school and half the time you were raised by older siblings as much as parents. Nobody is watching your development and milestones with hyper-awareness. If you struggle at school, it sucks but only a small top percentage of students are expected to go into higher education. You can leave as early as 13-14, and start to learn a trade. Someone gives you detailed orders and instructions all day and there’s few complex social plates to spin. You tend to get a diagnosis when you hit problems with the system. So I believe this is playing a role too, if you struggle at school today everyone freaks because OMG YOU WILL FAIL AT LIFE if you can’t perform in this way (in addition to increased awareness and broader diagnostic understanding).
Apologies for the wall of text, perhaps my own neurodiversity is showing. In short, I'm a walking advertisement for trying to mitigate all the risk I could as a late-30s AuDHD mother, but am in the process of accepting that I have very likely failed. Perhaps I am more dysfunctional than I know, or less warm and loving, or have some terrible unconscious wishes. I don't believe so, but I am prepared to entertain the possibility.
The problem with the "refrigerator mother" theory (I prefer "cold parenting" because it's silly to single out mothers) is that the parents who are most willing to accept it as a possibility, it is far less likely to apply to. Clinical research and case studies consistently support that parents with Cluster B disorders cause the most damage to their children and are the most likely to abuse and/or neglect their children -- and people with Cluster B disorders are extremely unlikely to take any responsibility.
Somebody showed me a neurodiversity training video from their work once. In it, a mother of a severely autistic boy gave a presentation about her experiences. She was terrifying. No emotion in her voice. Flat affect. Psychopath eyes. She showed a clip of her son screaming in pain from constipation -- even though she was taking the video, she never attempted to comfort him. The son seemed distant and terrified of her. In another clip, the kid was with a support worker and acted so differently, he made more eye contact with the worker, seemed happy, was smiling, was engaged in the activity they were do (some sort of art). He liked her. The mom admitted she only fed her son chicken nuggets, muffins, and onion rings. No wonder he suffered severe constipation and had significant brain damage.
This is an example of a case where the mother (she was a single parent, dad was out of the picture -- so you could also blame him for that) quite clearly caused and/or exacerbated her son's autism with cold, neglectful, and irresponsible parenting. He ended up in an institution, and she parlayed the fact that he was "the most severe case in British Columbia" into a career as a neurodiversity consultant. She didn't even seem to care that her son was removed from her care.
I prefer the way modern proponents of the theory discuss it (e.g. Miller, Erica Komisar, even Gabor Mate) -- they focus on cultural factors (e.g. poisonous pedagogies) and the positive effects of warm, attentive parenting, and avoid blaming individual parents.
Argh. We end up talking past each other. I see you doing a lot of post hoc ergo propter hoc.
I really like Miller, loved her insights when I was still unraveling my own family (profoundly miserable neurotic mother and very emotionally abusive narc father). However -- seizing on something some weirdo pulled out of a hat, saying, well, I have seen that too, or my colleagues have, that just does not cut it. Show me the solid research. Super solid. Not the usual psych fuzzy theorizing.
Yes, nasty parents often cause harm to their children. Some kids pull through, others don't. But don't confuse it with a cause of autism.
And btw, nasty psychiatrists and other conmen cause harm to parents. The very name of this crapola!
I included lots of links to evidence for cold parenting as a cause! It's taboo to study now, and it would be difficult to really prove it with a study in humans because it would be highly unethical. Some animal studies support it as a cause.
Honestly, the main people responsible for the cold parenting epidemic are doctors, psychiatrists, and parenting book authors! Have you read my essay "The Dark History of Parenting Books"?
So I looked into references and links, and don't see nuthin. Basically, people say, oh, some of the few kids we studied seemed to have cold parents.
Loved the take-down on mamamia. Would have copied it here but it won't let me. :-)
If you ever see a study saying we carefully examined, say, over a long period of time, 5 thousand families of profoundly autistic children, and 3/4 of the parents were "cold" according to this uniformly applied relatively objective criteria, let me know. Nothing unethical here.
Gadz... I am turning into quite the hater of the psych professions. The more I know... the worse they look.
Studies have found higher rates of psychopathology (including personality disorders) in parents of autistic children. The issue with any study of this is that one can argue that it's evidence for a genetic cause (and other factors, such as diet and environmental toxins, would also run in families). It's basically impossible to really study in a meaningful way. Especially as parents with personality disorders -- in particular narcissism and psychopathy -- are frequently very good at "masking" and putting on the role of the loving parent in front of clinicians and other professionals.
No, I haven't yet. I am working through the history of psychiatry now. Quite the horror show.
The rhesus monkey stuff shows that sadistic researchers can profoundly damage baby monkeys via brutal mistreatment. It does not prove anything about autism. I have seen the films. Abhorrent. In the 70s it was shown to all psych students as evidence how clever the researchers were...
Even if you lived in Sicko Land and took 100 kids and treated them the way those bastards treated the monkeys, and they ended up damaged, it still wouldn't prove anything about autism.
In the old days, there were a number of kids who had been dumped into the woods to fend for themselves at a young age (viz the Wild Boy of Aveyron). They ended up damaged, particularly language-wise. Again, it shows nothing about the causes of autism...
I'll look at your links, but I think I'll just find more speculation. The harm to mothers this hypothesis has done is not speculation, that is plain for anyone to see.
The issue is "autism" as it is used today doesn't really have a clear definition -- there's the one in the DSM, but as I tried to illustrate, there's multiple pathways to that behaviour profile. It's not one condition. There's no definitive test for it. It's diagnosed and self-diagnosed based off observable behaviours and how much a person relates to the descriptions of autism they see in the diagnostic criteria and on social media.
"Autism" has been shown to be highly co-morbid and have considerable symptom overlap with multiple conditions that ARE considered to primarily caused by early childhood neglect and trauma, including borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, and eating disorders. Gastrointestinal issues are also common in both autistic people and in traumatized people, as are migraines. "Autism" also shares considerable symptom overlap with the folk diagnosis "Complex PTSD", which is 100% considered to be caused by early childhood trauma.
Overlapping characteristics of the "autism" and "Complex PTSD" include sensory sensitivities, increased amygdala activation, difficulties with emotional regulation, substance abuse, self-harming, dissociation, suicidality, and increased risk of future victimization, chronic feelings of emptiness, lack of interest in peers, repetitive play, outbursts/meltdowns, and difficulty sleeping. Both groups also are at increased risk of developing acute PTSD from traumatic experiences in adulthood, which is linked to abnormal amygdala development.
So one could reasonably argue that many people are being diagnosed with "autism" when "Complex PTSD" would be a better fit -- but that's not a diagnosis in the DSM so they get stuck with or start identifying with the "autistic" label instead. But I suppose the definition of "autistic" I am using is basically ... anyone who is diagnosed with or self-diagnoses with autism based off the DSM criteria.
One psychiatrist, Tanveer Ahmed also points out that many families are seeking autism diagnoses when a diagnosis of trauma (or “personality quirks” or “shyness”) might be more appropriate:
“I might be a psychiatrist with an expertise in autism, but I no longer know what it means. Every day families arrive with their struggling children. Sometimes the children are having trouble forming friendships. Other times they may be a little eccentric, taking an interest in anime or insects. A proportion are behaving badly at school, stretching already frustrated teachers in unruly classrooms. Most have at least one parent with a diagnosed mental illness or are from conflicted families.
In the past I would have described such presentations as related to personality quirks, or shy kids who will improve with temporary support. Others need strong boundaries and structure. Now, even before I have begun my assessments, I must contend with a diagnostic elephant in the room, that of an autism label linked to lifelong government funding. The families presenting know it too. They come having already staked out their symptoms, having filled out questionnaires, and knowing that only certain categories of severity will guarantee NDIS support. There is enormous pressure for me to play my part. I have strong incentives to do so, given resisting will only strain the therapeutic relationship.
Like most health professionals advocating for their patients, I’ll call a kid whatever it takes to get them the services they require. Even if I think the real problem may be linked to social anxiety or family dynamics, I can still recommend all the same treatments, just under a label of a permanent disability […]
[…] Even if the child has significantly improved, raising questions about whether they really qualified for an autism diagnosis, there is absolutely no incentive for families or treatment providers to withdraw the label, threatening large chunks of funding.
This dynamic gives a clue to how the costs of the National Disability Insurance Scheme have run out of control. In particular, the autism diagnosis implies a permanence of symptoms and can entrench the sick role for perpetuity.”
I perhaps wanted that to sound more contemplative and less despairing, erin. I think that any possibility should be considered, because in the final analysis it is not up to me whether I am a good mother, it is up to my son and his experiencing of our time together when he is grown enough to have the perspective to judge. An eye cannot see itself, and we all know examples of people who lack self-awareness in how they come across (I mean, it's a pretty solid part of neurodiversity, so I am likely to be more disadvantaged here than most).
Once something can be considered thoughtfully, no matter how terrible or frightening, it can be attended to and perhaps mitigated. If we can get some time with a good, warm, intelligent psych and they have some insights for me to be better with him, that is a good outcome I think.
This is a great comment -- and highlights that -- OF COURSE -- I missed some stuff.
While I don't know your son, I'll throw it out there that I know a few kids -- mostly boys -- who were told to go for autism assessments when, from knowing them, I don't think they are autistic (maybe they have some sub-clinical traits but nothing parents need to be concerned about). I think some teachers and doctors are over-diagnosing it in kids who are just a little high energy, sensitive, and perhaps a bit more mechanistic than average. One of my cousins had some "autistic" traits as a little kid, and I think he could have been flagged if he were a child today -- he's now got a great job and is happily married and I don't think he meets the criteria for even high-functioning autism / Aspergers. He's just ... an engineer! I also see parents on social media claiming their kid is autistic based on "symptoms" that are ... within the range of normal kid behaviour. As well, a minority of kids who have been diagnosed with autism outgrow the diagnosis with attentive, loving parents (sometimes addressing any environmental or dietary issues is required). Boys mature slower than girls and I think a lot of boys in particular are receiving diagnoses when they're just a little less mature than their peers. (E.g. boys born in the second half of the school year are more likely to get diagnosed with ADHD).
It also appears that autistic traits are more likely in the offspring of mothers who had stressful childhoods -- regardless of how they themselves parent their kids. So some sort of epigenetic effects. The lingering Lyonization thing and imprinted gene theory probably fits in here, especially for male kids.
(1 / 3) I'm not sure about maternal age, but from what I read the evidence is stronger that advanced paternal age matters more. But I completely forgot to talk about role fertility treatments might be playing -- I believe IVF is correlated with increased autism risk (though that could be confounded with the underlying reasons for needing it). Birth trauma also increases the risk ... pregnancy complications in general. Probably especially in boys.
(2) Also a great point -- maternal infection and fevers increase the risk of autism and other complications in children.
(4) I'm not sure, I should probably look into Bettelheim more. He clearly had some good points, but ultimately I think the idea that the best way to treat autism is to separate mother and child is misguided and harmful (except in cases of extreme abuse and neglect, which is not the case most of the time).
(5) I'll read the article before commenting!
(6) Agree with all of this.
I use this rubric loosely, but generally speaking, if parents are willing to entertain the refrigerator mother theory, to talk about it, and have put in effort -- despite any traumatic upbringing they might have had -- to be warm, attentive parents, I doubt that's the issue. It's when parents freak out and start name-calling and insist it's a myth when you bring it up that I start to wonder if it applies. From reading your work and our interactions, and this comment, I tend to assume you're a pretty good mom.
Thank you for your very kind words. I hope I'm a good mother to him, in the final analysis it is him who gets to say, but we seem to have a really lovely dyad happening and have a lot of fun together.
We're really lucky to have good support whatever happens with the assessment, and my son's preschool are just interested in supporting him however he learns. Their attitude is focused on early intervention and getting support and funding for the pair of us to work with speech therapists and a psychologist if needed. Long waitlists, and by the time you are sure you need it you've wasted a lot of time. The link in (5) describes almost perfectly the way he seems different, as I understand it as his Mom, but he is highly relational and emotional (including understanding others' emotions) and loves a good joke. You also pick up on the question of male-female coded development, which I wonder a lot about but don't know enough to comment on.
I must have cut out the most important bit of (1-3), excuse the pun - the increasing rates of C-section delivery (which has been shown to be linked) both elective and emergency, as childbirth has become more medicalised and intervention the norm.
I briefly mentioned C-sections! The mechanism as to how they would directly contribute to autism (lack of microbiome transfer, disruption of oxytocin in the mother, more difficult recovery postpartum) is evident, but I suspect there's also some confounding factors. E.g. maternal age, birth complications and other birth trauma in the case of emergency C-sections, maternal body type (smaller hips, which may be correlated more with autistic genes -- this is just speculation, but my post "The Androgynous Mind" sort of explains), and confounding variables in the women who elect a C-section.
Argh sorry, probably why I went back and re-read and took it out!
I don't have a scientific paper reference yet, and maybe there isn't one (I'm going to have a rather big list next time I make it to the library). But I also wonder about the difference in what happens with the placenta in a C-section vs a natural birth (I assume it has to be different when it has not naturally been released by the body) especially knowing how much of a difference something like delayed clamping can make.
Now I'm going to have to go off and check out The Androgynous Mind...
It's also very, very hard to do immediate skin-to-skin for most mothers (not safe when you can barely lift your head and hands and your whole body is shaking like a seizure).
As you've clearly spelled out, there's unlikely to be a single definitive *cause*, but I'm on a bit of a research binge (for obvious reasons) and I reckon I'm a reasonable example of someone who's low-risk in a lot of the measures mentioned in this piece. We're on tank water (no fluoride and UV filtration), no daycare, live far away from city pollution near the coast, mindful (albeit not pedantic) about plastics, make as much from scratch as I can (baking bread, stewing apples and veges), lots of extended family help, co-sleeping, breastfeeding (albeit with supply-issue topups as there was no way to safely source extra breastmilk), and hopefully (given therapist training) not a complete fritter where it comes to attachment, containing, empathy and responsiveness.
Life is just like that sometimes.
But as you say, perhaps he is also "just an engineer" (I did laugh at that). Certainly he is very, very keen on machines including having a frightening fixation on getting my keys and trying to pop them in the ignition of my car (he knows exactly which one on the ring it is, too)!
I appreciate all the research you have done and your comments here. However, all of this, and all of the research, is looking for the needle in the haystack or needles in the haystack, when those on the autism spectrum are only a different part of the haystack.
Let's say the haystack is lopsided built terribly high on one side and very low on the other side. Here comes wind, rain or whatever and it's going to have less defense and success as a haystack. A quick and not great illustration but will function well enough. Nature is not crazy. It does not amplify something to the degree autism spectrum individuals are being amplified for no good reason.
I became aware of this situation going on when I was teaching third grade in 1997/8 when all the diagnosis were being made as deficit conditions: ADD, ADHD, dyslexia, Asperger syndrome, and autism.
They are all here for a different reason: our haystack is near collapse; take a look at our world. Now, the emphasis is neatly Only on left brain actions: linear letters numbers, thoughts, concepts hierarchy, differences, separation, low and high, hot and cold, in and out… Better or less than…
What I saw in my classroom was certainly not deficit. These children are open to the right brain and the intelligence of the heart like an open satellite dish. They do not have a filter of sorts that would linearize all of the stimulation that is coming into that satellite dish. From the satellite dish they receive indicators, inspiration, ah-ha's, loving hands-on experiences and animals, nature, wanting to help the world deeply in anyway they can. This information is coming from life to them, as it used to come to us.
Since they do not have a linearizing system, they are overwhelmed by too much information, too many facts and figures, sound, bright colors, and language and movement being linear skills, they are slow with both.
I could not find again the one paragraph I read from a man who was saying above that right brain skills need to be honored as children. Waldorf, Montessori, Piaget all knew that right brain experiences are of life itself, the child having the chance to learn the laws of nature and personal interactions etc., these functioning fully and to be honored up until at age 7 when the left brain kicks in with more left brain detailed information, as schools used to honor in 4th grade.
These kids are here hardwired to be as they are, allowed to follow their passions and interests supported totally as being receptive individuals. With that they excel with their realizations and discoveries, wanting to share with others, and they learn linear things they need to do so, to write, communicate. And, when doing so, they lose their sensitivity to being overwhelmed for they are in their meant-to-be-focus that fills them fully and the others around them with the knowledge they have gained.
So many of the great individuals in history, Mozart, Einstein, Poe, Shaw, Lincoln, Henry Ford, Churchill, Nelson Rockefeller, Woodrow Wilson, Rodin, Sonny in our current lives, and most of the people now who set up tech, originally left school to do this stuff and now having children with autism, it running and deepening in families.
People who are here on the spectrum are here to help balance our world again back into connection to people and the land, looking for how to create wellness for all. When you leave connection there is an emptiness and we look everywhere to fill it buying this or that or grasping this power or that. That does not bode well for people or the planet, and has not.
Our world needs a shift, and that is back to the balance of the intelligence as we were given as human beings, for we have left the connection of the right brain and we are seeing the devastation that results from leaving the sense of connection and honoring other people and their connection and instead are creating separation, havoc, and destruction.
I'm glad you posted this comment, because honestly, there was a lot more I wanted to write about autism and didn't because this is a Substack post and not a book!
Anyway, while I agree with Iain McGilchrist that autism can be characterized by left hemisphere dominance and right hemisphere dysfunction, something he fails to acknowledge in his work is that many, if not most, spiky talents seen in autism are actually RIGHT HEMISPHERE skills, such as spatial reasoning and musical ability.
So I would actually modify his theory to clarify that while SOME right hemisphere dominant abilities are typically impaired in autism (non-verbal communication, eye gaze, connection to one's own body, connection to others, and connection to nature and healthy food from nature), others are frequently enhanced. This suggests not right hemisphere hypofunction (as he suggests) but instead that some parts of the right hemisphere overdevelop at the expense of others. And yes, autistic children with these right hemisphere skills are not well served by the school system (the exception possibly being in mathematics, but frankly math in grade school is taught in a very left hemisphere way to the detriment of all students).
In addition, as I briefly mentioned, it seems that at least one subtype of autism (the four subgroups model strikes me as too simplistic and reductive, but it's still useful) is associated with increased sensitivity and more neuroplasticity -- and thus, higher intelligence but also increased sensitivity to the environment. In other words, what could be adaptive and beneficial genes in a healthy context interact with a toxic environment to cause significant difficulties. It's likely this is the group you were disproportionately working with.
Touching something wrong again with mis-writes, but you get the gist. Thanks for your conversation about all this. GREAT book to read: The Spark, by Kristine Barnett. Every child, even the most involved with "autism symptoms," has an inner spark which needs to be followed, for it can be there finding of their personal reason for being here.
Hi Peggy, I looked up Kristine Barnett, and isn't she the mother who adopted a child with dwarfism from Ukraine and then subsequently abandoned her after insisting she was secretly an adult masquerading as a child? DNA evidence later supported that the child was, in fact, a child. The adoptive daughter claimed Kristine was abusive to her, and Kristine's ex-husband backed her up and implied Kristine was a narcissist.
I'm pretty wary of any parent who turns their child's autism diagnosis into a career for themselves -- not just the social media parents, but also those who write books, especially if it's centred around what a great parent they are. The autistic/gifted child overlap can be caused by a combination of early childhood emotional neglect and parents pushing cognitive tasks on their children prematurely (e.g. teaching them to read before they turn two), as this disrupts brain development. Many gifted autistic kids have abnormal lateralization of the hemispheres (e.g. language being more in the right hemisphere, when it should be in the left, abnormal corpus callosum development) which supports this. If a child associates academic achievement with love, there's a significant risk of issues later on. Many highly gifted children who fit this profile have significant struggles as adults.
I also think you're focussing on the subgroup(s) of autism that are more the result of nurture and genetics, and less the result of poisoning. Yes, every child is special, and seeing what is special about them and nurturing that is wonderful, but many kids who are being diagnosed with autism are victims of one or more kinds of environmental or pharmaceutical poisoning, or severe nutritional deficiencies. That's an issue. If the toxins and diet were resolved, the kid would still be special ... but also a lot healthier.
Regarding right brain "dysfunction" -- you can use "atypicality" if you prefer, but I don't think it's correct to say it's not an issue. An impaired ability to make and sustain friendships and romances, chronic anxiety, disconnection from one's own body, a chronic sense of emptiness because of an impaired ability to make meaning in the world -- these are all distressing symptoms for many people, very common in autism, and all associated with right hemisphere dysfunction. As a kid, I was very locked inside myself for a while, and probably fit the criteria for high functioning autism. Being told I was special by teachers and having my cognitive gifts nurtured was okay, but it didn't actually help me. I wanted to not have migraines, not have gut issues, to be less anxious, to have comfortable relationships I felt secure in. And all of that took realizing that there were issues with me that I needed to work on. I put in a lot of work, and I'm healthier and happier now, happily married, very capable of making friends and connecting to others.
Regarding the desire to help others -- yes, this is common in autism and it's a myth / misunderstanding that autistic people lack empathy. There are three loose types of empathy: compassionate (desire to act on behalf of others), affective (mirroring, feeling what others feel), and cognitive (theory of mind skills). Only cognitive empathy / theory of mind is impaired in autism, and similarly compassionate empathy is often enhanced (using Badcock's model, this is because TOM is associated with mentalistic cognition, impaired in autism, while compassionate empathy is mechanistic, associated with the task-positive network, often enhanced in autism; using McGilchrist's, it's because TOM is mostly right hemisphere based, compassionate empathy is more left hemisphere based). However, the theory of mind impairments in combination with high compassionate empathy are still an issue, as many autistic people are driven to act on behalf of people and causes they don't really understand -- this leaves them very vulnerable to exploitation and manipulation.
This is all faulty, Meghan. You did not successfully look up the Kristine Barnett I was speaking of who wrote the book "The Spark." Unfortunately, instead you took a wrong lead and dashed off into multiple, endless ways of thinking that ignore and defy the real perception of what autism is and who Kristine Barnett is and proved, in her son, and in helping other autistics.
Endless, non-stop thinking, is not our best intelligence. Thinking is meant to create structures of thought and form after having seen the underlying truth of connection and perception. This is what you're missing here, the underlying true perception of
what autism is.
Children saw the Emperor was wearing no clothes, whereas the adults were lost in endless mutual erroneous perceptions, building upon what they shared with each other, they not seeing the true reality of direct and true connective perception.
While I agree that autistic intelligence has contributed a lot to society and there are many benefits to it, I'm wary of any narrative that suggests it's preferable or superior to "neurotypical" cognition. That strikes me as a dangerous form of supremacist thinking.
Last and excuse me. Answers cannot be linearly sought; they must be intuited. This because they are living in the realm of non-linear definition, in the realm of poetry, discovery; the inner, not outer.
Non-verbal communication, language is linear, they not understanding the patterns of usual exchanges, overwhelmed, and stop talking around 2 years old because going into the receptive silence instead.
Eye gaze too overwhelming to take in. Connection to own body: probably are so emersed in it, it not "seen" by them; connection to others attested to by Grandin, and their desire to help others, she saying they don't have the same tools, but shows up differently, maybe even poetically: Kim Peek (Rain Man) when I asked about his father's living care for him: "my father and I share the same shadow." Healthy food: who knows what their taste buds prefer?
Many thanks for your article. Autism is very broadly defined so that it encompasses many people and is based on symptoms rather than cause. It may range from mild to severe. To say do vaccines cause autism is the wrong question, rather it should be do vaccines cause harm, all sorts of harm.
The answer is yes, sometimes shots clearly do to a lesser or greater extent. Occasionally they cause death, although how occasionally is a problem because the medical profession as a whole will not consider vaccines could cause death.
As regards vaccines it is not so much they cause harm and death sometimes (they do) but that it is assumed that they do any good. The masses are persuaded of benefit based on advertising, manipulation of statistics and rebranding of diseases, which when closely examined are suspiciously similar.
The truth is vaccines have never been of benefit to health, they have merely been made to appear so. A vaccine must by definition cause disease, even if only mildly, to allegedly train the body, but no training occurs. If we poison ourselves we are poisoned and will not gain by doing so. We must neutralise the poisons every time.
Vaccines are utterly pointless, and as we don't know what is in each vial (no one checks before hand) taking them is like playing Russina roulette.
My father had autism + propensity towards major depression and negativism, and I do as well, so I figured the traits are all essentially a cut and dry matter of deterministic genetic lineage.
That there are possible influences from the environment, is intriguing but makes sense with the truly wide range by which autism expresses itself.
of the "solitary forager", whereby there were moments in hominid history during which resources were scarce and tribe organization highly unstable, and in such circumstances it was better for someone to stake it out on their own and become an obsessive expert on trapping rodents and identifying edible mushrooms. That family instability and caregiver coldness would trigger such genes makes sense as an alert that this sort of environment may be present.
I think the solitary forager thing would fit with the Yamnaya hypothesis?
In the aftermath of the Ice Age, it also makes sense to me that autistic behaviour / genes might have been selected for in middle and northern Europe.
There's also some research finding that autism might be slightly more common among blue-eyed people. (Though that could be explained by high functioning autistic genes seemingly being more common in Europeans generally). The Celtic "changling" myth has been interpreted as potentially being a magical explanation for autism, and in those myths, blue-eyed and blonde children were especially vulnerable to being "stolen by the fairies".
Most of the Yamnaya had brown hair and eyes though.
Very thorough work here! I knew a lady who cared for two very large non-verbal teenage boys. Their autism was blamed on their mother taking lithium during pregnancy but the autism didn't show up till they were two and their younger sister was fine. I think the cluster B parents are evidence of the deterioration of genes down generations, girls are born with all their eggs and everything that happens to them happens to their eggs. This means we even spend a short time in our maternal grandmother's womb, being affected by whatever is going on in her. Boys get autism slightly more often than girls (though this gap is closing) and I think it might be due to a detox or defense process we have as the carriers of the eggs. Maybe estrogen is protective, fat is the great storage facility for toxins. Maybe it was lithium for those boys, or maybe it was everything they ever went through in their mother's body including contraceptives, plus lithium plus accumulated vaxes. It's funny we blame depression on a single chemical because we can drug it, but actually it could be just circumstances but we really like to blame things like cluster B on just a flawed personality. We do stuff we don't know why, and we only have what we know to explain it, because it *must* be something we know about. But these excuses are very often unconscious 'there's just something wrong with you, you're bad' leading to more incoherent behaviour and people wanting to help less and less. There's no pill so probably you're just an arsehole. In reality the cluster B behaviour could be what the deterioration of genes looks like right before autism and adhd.
It is a sneaky trick to make parents think if it turns out to be pills or vaxes then it will be considered their fault. Same as making parents support transition by saying their kids will commit suicide so they go all in on that stuff. Dedicated parents will be the death of us hahaha. If only we could harness more of that energy towards finding the real reasons. Unless you checked the 'Yes Please Autism' box, this is not your fault.
This is a really good point about Cluster B "personality" disorders -- yes, they tend to be viewed as personality flaws, but it's generally accepted that they arise out of childhood dysfunction and trauma, early childhood stress. And when you dig into the literature, personality disorders are actually associated with many of the same nutrient deficiencies as autism, just less severe. Borderline personality in particular is correlated with higher rates of conditions like chronic fatigue ...
Perhaps in families with intergenerational "coldness", dysfunction, child-neglect (including of diet etc), as you say, the gene starts to degrade, increasing the risk with each generation of various psychological conditions and health conditions (and probably homosexuality and asexuality too).
Cannot explain the spike in autism severity -- that has to be environmental and pharmaceutical -- but it still makes a lot of sense to me intuitively.
Your work is a breath of fresh air, as I’ve said before. I have my own self-interested reasons for feeling the way I do, but I’m so tired of the discourse being polarized between “the only thing that should be called autism is a profound disability, every other use is a new invention” and “if you think you’re autistic you’re probably #ActuallyAutistic!!”.
Yep yep yep. The former isn't really accurate if you are familiar with the literature -- if anything, more profound disabilities (probably caused by poisonings and severe nutritional deficiencies) are being labelled as "autism" to obscure environmental and pharmaceutical causes when they have a different causal profile than the cases in the original descriptions from the 1940s (because all the major causes of poisoning and most of the offending foods didn't exist yet). As for the latter, a lot of those people probably have some autistic traits, but exist somewhere in the nebulous area between a personality disorder and autism.
Ok, so I worked through the rest of it. I found it very well organized and extremely thorough. Good stuff on Kennedy.
If being inbred played a role, the Amish would have higher rates, not lower.
What blew me away is that girls don't get profound autism. I had never heard of it! But all the kids I read about who were autistic were boys. I just never connected the dots! So whatever it is, is it something that boys' less sturdy genetic endowment makes them uniquely vulnerable to? It must be... It will take me a while to wrap my head around that! Thank you for the stimmulating essay.
Yes, I think the inbreeding hypothesis is likely incorrect -- or at the very least, it would require more intense inbreeding than is typically seen in religious populations like Muslims and the Amish. If the Habsburg family had a lot of autism, there are multiple other plausible explanations for this besides inbreeding (and they were way more inbred than basically any other group).
Girls can get profound autism! It's just far rarer -- and I'm guessing in almost all cases, a result of some kind of poisoning and severe nutritional deficiencies. Kanner and Asperger wouldn't have seen it because the factors causing it didn't exist back then. Genetically, nurture-wise, and prenatally, boys are far more vulnerable than girls. A lot of this has to do with the X chromosome.
Re vaccines: I have heard it said that the unvaccinated Amish have virtually no autism. It would be easy to confirm. But nobody has. Why is that? It's almost as though they'd rather not know...
If true, then it could still be that other factors play a role. The Amish don't eat particularly healthy (lots of sugar and carbs) but they do have unique and healthier lifestyles overall. In any case, if true, research could focus on those other factors as well. Will Kennedy direct such a study? It wouldn't even be that complex and expensive, or long. I am not holding my breath. (If I were him, I'd send out researchers secretly and discreetly getting the stats with Amish help. You could do just Lancaster county, and compare with the incidence among the Englishers there! To get the ball rolling.)
Also. I have heard that often (how often?) the onset is sudden and marked. This seems to signal a unique envirnmental contributing factor. Kids don't just wake up and lose their speech.
If I lived during a time of smallpox, I would vaccinate in a heartbeat. Probably with killed polio as well.
The rest of it seems rubbish. Vaccinating against common childhood infections that create natural immunity? No thanks. Vaccinating against fast mutating upper resp. infections is rubbish; useless or flat out harmful. Oh and two tetanus shots are said to protect for life! And they push them on you incessantly. So many lies, so much hype. It's really quite disgusting. Turning babies into pincushions...
I've seen the argument that Amish have no autism, but also read that it's a myth -- what seems to be agreed on is that they have lower rates (I read about a third of the national rate). There's lots of confounding variables there though, so I'm not sure how meaningful the studies would be. More useful would be looking at vaccinated vs unvaccinated in the general population and controlling for as many confounding variables as possible, with the largest sample size possible. So would be a bit pricey.
Yeah, I'm with you -- why are we vaccinating against chicken pox?! And it's hard to believe anything in the mainstream about vaccines when you catch them in obvious lies and fear-mongering, such as claiming that illnesses are more serious than they are.
That so many parents report that their child changed after vaccination strongly suggests that vaccines can be a trigger. I think there's a lot of risk factors for vaccine injury that should be investigated and discussed more, because assuming that vaccines remain an option for those who want them. parents need better information on how to take care of their children before and after vaccination to minimize the risk of adverse effects.
And doctors need to be less corrupt. Did ya see the story of the toddler recently who died after the doc gave her (I think) 8 shots in one, cuz she "missed the last wellness check"? WTF. Why we jab babies at all is beyond me. Their immune systems are undeveloped, and shooting unknown stuff into their brand new selves seems barbaric.
I don't know what to make of the situation with healthcare workers. I think most get into the profession out of good intentions, but there's definitely a narcissism issue in the medical field. The training is bad. I've gotten so much bad advice from healthcare workers (which I tend to ignore) but I've never gotten the impression it was because they were trying to do harm.
Same here. There was a time when I was constipated for 3! weeks and nobody helped me. Not the hospital I was in for other reasons, not the others I turned to. One nurse told me I should do a diet that turned out to be for diarrhea. Did she even listen to what I was saying? Finally, someone told me to do a mineral enema, and it worked. Three weeks! I did not think it was possible. And that was such a simple straightforward issue...
But when you tell them you helped yourself with alternative x, they start berating you.
Oh sweetie, by now I am the world's expert on constipation remedies! :-D I have done so many. My best mainstay now is aloe ferox, and slippery elm. Works beautifully, does not cramp, is not habituating, and is good for the gut. I never do over the counter stuff. Senna cramps, and cascara sagrada is too weak (in my case).
I finally got over my years' long constipation with the help of colonics to get out the worst of it, and then the aloe. Taking thiamine also normalizes the gut. (Etc. I could go on forever, haha!)
Hah. I rarely get berated, but I can be pretty intimidating. I've actually had healthcare workers pull out their phones or a notepad to take down book and article recommendations from me.
I'd like to see more explanations for why there are significantly higher levels of the vaccine adjuvant aluminum found in the brains of autistic individuals...
Oh! And genetics. The MTHFR mutations I mentioned also impair detoxification and affect glutathione levels. There's probably other relevant genes too.
Low Vitamin D would also be a factor, which ties into the low sun exposure. Low Vitamin D can cause low glutathione (and vice versa!). So I guess low magnesium would also be a risk factor. Everything is so interconnected in our bodies, so could be a lot of things directly or indirectly impacting the ability to detox.
I can only speculate, but these are the factors I suspect:
(Given that almost all children receive childhood vaccines, and so both the autistic group and the control group in these studies would be vaccinated, assuming the researchers controlled for that as a confounding variable).
-- Low glutathione levels. Glutathione is needed to detoxify aluminum and other heavy metals. So a child with low glutathione would have an impaired ability to do so.
-- Poor diet. Glutathione levels can be impacted by low Vitamin C and a poor diet -- as refined sugar consumption depletes Vitamin C, it would also cause lower levels of glutathione. Vitamin C deficiency appears to increase the risk of vaccine injury.
-- High levels of stress. Stress depletes both Vitamin C and glutathione, as well as magnesium, iron, and B vitamins. This is where the "early childhood emotional neglect" theory comes in play, as well as other factors that may increase stress (e.g. immigration to a new country especially if you do not speak the language and there are significant cultural differences, poverty, all types of dysfunction, etc).
-- Tylenol given before and/or after vaccination. Tylenol depletes glutathione and can cause liver damage.
-- Other types of chronic immune stressors such as chronic illness or infections -- these would deplete glutathione and impair a healthy immune reaction to vaccines.
Impressive research!! For me, the most important part was naming that we're dealing with different types of autism, so it's likely there are multiple causes for different clusters of symptoms.
Relatedly, my most recent essay was about how autism diagnosis is a social constructed label. That doesn't mean it's not real, of course, it's important to diagnose it so we can treat it (whatever treatment entails for the person) especially in severe cases. But it's also not real in the same way catching an influenza virus is real, so we can't treat it like that, as if there is one cause and one solution. We're taking a collection of symptoms we assume are related, but it's hard to "cure" something when we don't even nessecarily agree on what we're referring to since the diagnostic criteria changes.
> The invention of the smart phone and proliferation of social media also means that more parents (and grandparents!) are addicted to their phones, social media, games etc.
They may even be reading posts like this!
What a comprehensive collection ... I hope I'm in the right frame of mind to be commenting at the moment, as I have been advised by my son's preschool recently to seek an ASD assessment. It does mean I've been thinking a lot about all this.
(1) I wonder if perhaps there is more weight to the increasing maternal age part than one might expect ... a shift so drastic across population levels could well be expected to account for a significant proportion of the increase.
(2) I don't know enough to comment on the vaccine hypothesis... but I made my own choice (to vaccinate) based on research that the single highest risk factor for developing autism was being exposed to German measles in-utero. The same is probably true for other viruses (I caught Covid almost immediately after finding out I was pregnant, despite leaving to self-isolate alone in an unoccupied house).
(3) Advanced maternal age means greater likelihood of placental abnormalities which has been shown to be a risk factor (I had both bilobal placenta and a suspected partial abruption during birth).
(4) I have been thinking a lot about Bettelheim, since I found his main hypothesis (to respond to YOUR unique child, and never treat them like a puzzle box that requires an instruction manual) so useful. I do wonder, in his observations of "refrigerator mothers", if he simply failed to follow his own conclusion to its logical end: was he watching the dyad of relating differently, of a mother responding to her child as he/she required? My son responds far, far better to calm, conversational instructions than overly emotional, whether negative OR overly positive.
(5) I'm interested in this hypothesis at the moment, autism as a bifurcation from socially-mediated development to cognitively-independent development (https://larivierre.substack.com/p/what-if-the-dsm-5-got-autism-wrong?selection=02de0b1b-797c-4e82-8c18-2ca2e408d453). Yes, the issue of absolutely severe cases throws a spanner in the works here (I do wonder if the future will see the separation of ASD and Aspergers as a huge mistake) In any case, have known my son is different from about four months (despite my being a SAHM, no preschool until 1000 days, living on the coast away from pollution, being nutritionally aware and mindful of screens, and all the other knowledge you get from training as a psychotherapist). This article describes very well what I have observed about thinking, relating and exploring differently, while still absolutely being intelligent and relational.
(6) One aspect I also think gets frequently overlooked is changes in society. I’ve been having a lot of conversations about this recently, and realised just how many people in my family in older generations probably have ASD. Generally, life went something like this: stay at home with Mom until age 5, the only real expectation was that one could walk and talk by the time you go to school and half the time you were raised by older siblings as much as parents. Nobody is watching your development and milestones with hyper-awareness. If you struggle at school, it sucks but only a small top percentage of students are expected to go into higher education. You can leave as early as 13-14, and start to learn a trade. Someone gives you detailed orders and instructions all day and there’s few complex social plates to spin. You tend to get a diagnosis when you hit problems with the system. So I believe this is playing a role too, if you struggle at school today everyone freaks because OMG YOU WILL FAIL AT LIFE if you can’t perform in this way (in addition to increased awareness and broader diagnostic understanding).
Apologies for the wall of text, perhaps my own neurodiversity is showing. In short, I'm a walking advertisement for trying to mitigate all the risk I could as a late-30s AuDHD mother, but am in the process of accepting that I have very likely failed. Perhaps I am more dysfunctional than I know, or less warm and loving, or have some terrible unconscious wishes. I don't believe so, but I am prepared to entertain the possibility.
"Perhaps I am more dysfunctional than I know, or less warm and loving, or have some terrible unconscious wishes."
This, this is exactly why I detest the refrigerator mother hypothesis. Been doing damage to mothers for 75 years now.
The problem with the "refrigerator mother" theory (I prefer "cold parenting" because it's silly to single out mothers) is that the parents who are most willing to accept it as a possibility, it is far less likely to apply to. Clinical research and case studies consistently support that parents with Cluster B disorders cause the most damage to their children and are the most likely to abuse and/or neglect their children -- and people with Cluster B disorders are extremely unlikely to take any responsibility.
Somebody showed me a neurodiversity training video from their work once. In it, a mother of a severely autistic boy gave a presentation about her experiences. She was terrifying. No emotion in her voice. Flat affect. Psychopath eyes. She showed a clip of her son screaming in pain from constipation -- even though she was taking the video, she never attempted to comfort him. The son seemed distant and terrified of her. In another clip, the kid was with a support worker and acted so differently, he made more eye contact with the worker, seemed happy, was smiling, was engaged in the activity they were do (some sort of art). He liked her. The mom admitted she only fed her son chicken nuggets, muffins, and onion rings. No wonder he suffered severe constipation and had significant brain damage.
This is an example of a case where the mother (she was a single parent, dad was out of the picture -- so you could also blame him for that) quite clearly caused and/or exacerbated her son's autism with cold, neglectful, and irresponsible parenting. He ended up in an institution, and she parlayed the fact that he was "the most severe case in British Columbia" into a career as a neurodiversity consultant. She didn't even seem to care that her son was removed from her care.
I prefer the way modern proponents of the theory discuss it (e.g. Miller, Erica Komisar, even Gabor Mate) -- they focus on cultural factors (e.g. poisonous pedagogies) and the positive effects of warm, attentive parenting, and avoid blaming individual parents.
Argh. We end up talking past each other. I see you doing a lot of post hoc ergo propter hoc.
I really like Miller, loved her insights when I was still unraveling my own family (profoundly miserable neurotic mother and very emotionally abusive narc father). However -- seizing on something some weirdo pulled out of a hat, saying, well, I have seen that too, or my colleagues have, that just does not cut it. Show me the solid research. Super solid. Not the usual psych fuzzy theorizing.
Yes, nasty parents often cause harm to their children. Some kids pull through, others don't. But don't confuse it with a cause of autism.
And btw, nasty psychiatrists and other conmen cause harm to parents. The very name of this crapola!
I included lots of links to evidence for cold parenting as a cause! It's taboo to study now, and it would be difficult to really prove it with a study in humans because it would be highly unethical. Some animal studies support it as a cause.
Honestly, the main people responsible for the cold parenting epidemic are doctors, psychiatrists, and parenting book authors! Have you read my essay "The Dark History of Parenting Books"?
https://thecassandracomplex.substack.com/p/the-dangers-of-reading-too-much-part-df8
So I looked into references and links, and don't see nuthin. Basically, people say, oh, some of the few kids we studied seemed to have cold parents.
Loved the take-down on mamamia. Would have copied it here but it won't let me. :-)
If you ever see a study saying we carefully examined, say, over a long period of time, 5 thousand families of profoundly autistic children, and 3/4 of the parents were "cold" according to this uniformly applied relatively objective criteria, let me know. Nothing unethical here.
Gadz... I am turning into quite the hater of the psych professions. The more I know... the worse they look.
Studies have found higher rates of psychopathology (including personality disorders) in parents of autistic children. The issue with any study of this is that one can argue that it's evidence for a genetic cause (and other factors, such as diet and environmental toxins, would also run in families). It's basically impossible to really study in a meaningful way. Especially as parents with personality disorders -- in particular narcissism and psychopathy -- are frequently very good at "masking" and putting on the role of the loving parent in front of clinicians and other professionals.
Examples of studies:
https://www.neuroscigroup.us/articles/APT-1-101.php
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18450879/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022395622002618
As well, the trait profile of neglected and abused children described by Alice Miller and others is very similar to that of high functioning autism.
Severe autism cannot be explained by cold parenting alone.
I honestly think the diagnosis should be trashed altogether and instead different names be used based on the identified causes.
No, I haven't yet. I am working through the history of psychiatry now. Quite the horror show.
The rhesus monkey stuff shows that sadistic researchers can profoundly damage baby monkeys via brutal mistreatment. It does not prove anything about autism. I have seen the films. Abhorrent. In the 70s it was shown to all psych students as evidence how clever the researchers were...
Even if you lived in Sicko Land and took 100 kids and treated them the way those bastards treated the monkeys, and they ended up damaged, it still wouldn't prove anything about autism.
In the old days, there were a number of kids who had been dumped into the woods to fend for themselves at a young age (viz the Wild Boy of Aveyron). They ended up damaged, particularly language-wise. Again, it shows nothing about the causes of autism...
I'll look at your links, but I think I'll just find more speculation. The harm to mothers this hypothesis has done is not speculation, that is plain for anyone to see.
The issue is "autism" as it is used today doesn't really have a clear definition -- there's the one in the DSM, but as I tried to illustrate, there's multiple pathways to that behaviour profile. It's not one condition. There's no definitive test for it. It's diagnosed and self-diagnosed based off observable behaviours and how much a person relates to the descriptions of autism they see in the diagnostic criteria and on social media.
"Autism" has been shown to be highly co-morbid and have considerable symptom overlap with multiple conditions that ARE considered to primarily caused by early childhood neglect and trauma, including borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, and eating disorders. Gastrointestinal issues are also common in both autistic people and in traumatized people, as are migraines. "Autism" also shares considerable symptom overlap with the folk diagnosis "Complex PTSD", which is 100% considered to be caused by early childhood trauma.
Overlapping characteristics of the "autism" and "Complex PTSD" include sensory sensitivities, increased amygdala activation, difficulties with emotional regulation, substance abuse, self-harming, dissociation, suicidality, and increased risk of future victimization, chronic feelings of emptiness, lack of interest in peers, repetitive play, outbursts/meltdowns, and difficulty sleeping. Both groups also are at increased risk of developing acute PTSD from traumatic experiences in adulthood, which is linked to abnormal amygdala development.
So one could reasonably argue that many people are being diagnosed with "autism" when "Complex PTSD" would be a better fit -- but that's not a diagnosis in the DSM so they get stuck with or start identifying with the "autistic" label instead. But I suppose the definition of "autistic" I am using is basically ... anyone who is diagnosed with or self-diagnoses with autism based off the DSM criteria.
One psychiatrist, Tanveer Ahmed also points out that many families are seeking autism diagnoses when a diagnosis of trauma (or “personality quirks” or “shyness”) might be more appropriate:
“I might be a psychiatrist with an expertise in autism, but I no longer know what it means. Every day families arrive with their struggling children. Sometimes the children are having trouble forming friendships. Other times they may be a little eccentric, taking an interest in anime or insects. A proportion are behaving badly at school, stretching already frustrated teachers in unruly classrooms. Most have at least one parent with a diagnosed mental illness or are from conflicted families.
In the past I would have described such presentations as related to personality quirks, or shy kids who will improve with temporary support. Others need strong boundaries and structure. Now, even before I have begun my assessments, I must contend with a diagnostic elephant in the room, that of an autism label linked to lifelong government funding. The families presenting know it too. They come having already staked out their symptoms, having filled out questionnaires, and knowing that only certain categories of severity will guarantee NDIS support. There is enormous pressure for me to play my part. I have strong incentives to do so, given resisting will only strain the therapeutic relationship.
Like most health professionals advocating for their patients, I’ll call a kid whatever it takes to get them the services they require. Even if I think the real problem may be linked to social anxiety or family dynamics, I can still recommend all the same treatments, just under a label of a permanent disability […]
[…] Even if the child has significantly improved, raising questions about whether they really qualified for an autism diagnosis, there is absolutely no incentive for families or treatment providers to withdraw the label, threatening large chunks of funding.
This dynamic gives a clue to how the costs of the National Disability Insurance Scheme have run out of control. In particular, the autism diagnosis implies a permanence of symptoms and can entrench the sick role for perpetuity.”
Link here: https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/ndis-has-made-autism-label-the-diagnostic-elephant-in-the-room-20230501-p5d4ht
I perhaps wanted that to sound more contemplative and less despairing, erin. I think that any possibility should be considered, because in the final analysis it is not up to me whether I am a good mother, it is up to my son and his experiencing of our time together when he is grown enough to have the perspective to judge. An eye cannot see itself, and we all know examples of people who lack self-awareness in how they come across (I mean, it's a pretty solid part of neurodiversity, so I am likely to be more disadvantaged here than most).
Once something can be considered thoughtfully, no matter how terrible or frightening, it can be attended to and perhaps mitigated. If we can get some time with a good, warm, intelligent psych and they have some insights for me to be better with him, that is a good outcome I think.
This is a great comment -- and highlights that -- OF COURSE -- I missed some stuff.
While I don't know your son, I'll throw it out there that I know a few kids -- mostly boys -- who were told to go for autism assessments when, from knowing them, I don't think they are autistic (maybe they have some sub-clinical traits but nothing parents need to be concerned about). I think some teachers and doctors are over-diagnosing it in kids who are just a little high energy, sensitive, and perhaps a bit more mechanistic than average. One of my cousins had some "autistic" traits as a little kid, and I think he could have been flagged if he were a child today -- he's now got a great job and is happily married and I don't think he meets the criteria for even high-functioning autism / Aspergers. He's just ... an engineer! I also see parents on social media claiming their kid is autistic based on "symptoms" that are ... within the range of normal kid behaviour. As well, a minority of kids who have been diagnosed with autism outgrow the diagnosis with attentive, loving parents (sometimes addressing any environmental or dietary issues is required). Boys mature slower than girls and I think a lot of boys in particular are receiving diagnoses when they're just a little less mature than their peers. (E.g. boys born in the second half of the school year are more likely to get diagnosed with ADHD).
It also appears that autistic traits are more likely in the offspring of mothers who had stressful childhoods -- regardless of how they themselves parent their kids. So some sort of epigenetic effects. The lingering Lyonization thing and imprinted gene theory probably fits in here, especially for male kids.
(1 / 3) I'm not sure about maternal age, but from what I read the evidence is stronger that advanced paternal age matters more. But I completely forgot to talk about role fertility treatments might be playing -- I believe IVF is correlated with increased autism risk (though that could be confounded with the underlying reasons for needing it). Birth trauma also increases the risk ... pregnancy complications in general. Probably especially in boys.
(2) Also a great point -- maternal infection and fevers increase the risk of autism and other complications in children.
(4) I'm not sure, I should probably look into Bettelheim more. He clearly had some good points, but ultimately I think the idea that the best way to treat autism is to separate mother and child is misguided and harmful (except in cases of extreme abuse and neglect, which is not the case most of the time).
(5) I'll read the article before commenting!
(6) Agree with all of this.
I use this rubric loosely, but generally speaking, if parents are willing to entertain the refrigerator mother theory, to talk about it, and have put in effort -- despite any traumatic upbringing they might have had -- to be warm, attentive parents, I doubt that's the issue. It's when parents freak out and start name-calling and insist it's a myth when you bring it up that I start to wonder if it applies. From reading your work and our interactions, and this comment, I tend to assume you're a pretty good mom.
Thank you for your very kind words. I hope I'm a good mother to him, in the final analysis it is him who gets to say, but we seem to have a really lovely dyad happening and have a lot of fun together.
We're really lucky to have good support whatever happens with the assessment, and my son's preschool are just interested in supporting him however he learns. Their attitude is focused on early intervention and getting support and funding for the pair of us to work with speech therapists and a psychologist if needed. Long waitlists, and by the time you are sure you need it you've wasted a lot of time. The link in (5) describes almost perfectly the way he seems different, as I understand it as his Mom, but he is highly relational and emotional (including understanding others' emotions) and loves a good joke. You also pick up on the question of male-female coded development, which I wonder a lot about but don't know enough to comment on.
I must have cut out the most important bit of (1-3), excuse the pun - the increasing rates of C-section delivery (which has been shown to be linked) both elective and emergency, as childbirth has become more medicalised and intervention the norm.
I briefly mentioned C-sections! The mechanism as to how they would directly contribute to autism (lack of microbiome transfer, disruption of oxytocin in the mother, more difficult recovery postpartum) is evident, but I suspect there's also some confounding factors. E.g. maternal age, birth complications and other birth trauma in the case of emergency C-sections, maternal body type (smaller hips, which may be correlated more with autistic genes -- this is just speculation, but my post "The Androgynous Mind" sort of explains), and confounding variables in the women who elect a C-section.
Argh sorry, probably why I went back and re-read and took it out!
I don't have a scientific paper reference yet, and maybe there isn't one (I'm going to have a rather big list next time I make it to the library). But I also wonder about the difference in what happens with the placenta in a C-section vs a natural birth (I assume it has to be different when it has not naturally been released by the body) especially knowing how much of a difference something like delayed clamping can make.
Now I'm going to have to go off and check out The Androgynous Mind...
I didn't even consider the placenta! I wonder ...
It's also very, very hard to do immediate skin-to-skin for most mothers (not safe when you can barely lift your head and hands and your whole body is shaking like a seizure).
As you've clearly spelled out, there's unlikely to be a single definitive *cause*, but I'm on a bit of a research binge (for obvious reasons) and I reckon I'm a reasonable example of someone who's low-risk in a lot of the measures mentioned in this piece. We're on tank water (no fluoride and UV filtration), no daycare, live far away from city pollution near the coast, mindful (albeit not pedantic) about plastics, make as much from scratch as I can (baking bread, stewing apples and veges), lots of extended family help, co-sleeping, breastfeeding (albeit with supply-issue topups as there was no way to safely source extra breastmilk), and hopefully (given therapist training) not a complete fritter where it comes to attachment, containing, empathy and responsiveness.
Life is just like that sometimes.
But as you say, perhaps he is also "just an engineer" (I did laugh at that). Certainly he is very, very keen on machines including having a frightening fixation on getting my keys and trying to pop them in the ignition of my car (he knows exactly which one on the ring it is, too)!
I appreciate all the research you have done and your comments here. However, all of this, and all of the research, is looking for the needle in the haystack or needles in the haystack, when those on the autism spectrum are only a different part of the haystack.
Let's say the haystack is lopsided built terribly high on one side and very low on the other side. Here comes wind, rain or whatever and it's going to have less defense and success as a haystack. A quick and not great illustration but will function well enough. Nature is not crazy. It does not amplify something to the degree autism spectrum individuals are being amplified for no good reason.
I became aware of this situation going on when I was teaching third grade in 1997/8 when all the diagnosis were being made as deficit conditions: ADD, ADHD, dyslexia, Asperger syndrome, and autism.
They are all here for a different reason: our haystack is near collapse; take a look at our world. Now, the emphasis is neatly Only on left brain actions: linear letters numbers, thoughts, concepts hierarchy, differences, separation, low and high, hot and cold, in and out… Better or less than…
What I saw in my classroom was certainly not deficit. These children are open to the right brain and the intelligence of the heart like an open satellite dish. They do not have a filter of sorts that would linearize all of the stimulation that is coming into that satellite dish. From the satellite dish they receive indicators, inspiration, ah-ha's, loving hands-on experiences and animals, nature, wanting to help the world deeply in anyway they can. This information is coming from life to them, as it used to come to us.
Since they do not have a linearizing system, they are overwhelmed by too much information, too many facts and figures, sound, bright colors, and language and movement being linear skills, they are slow with both.
I could not find again the one paragraph I read from a man who was saying above that right brain skills need to be honored as children. Waldorf, Montessori, Piaget all knew that right brain experiences are of life itself, the child having the chance to learn the laws of nature and personal interactions etc., these functioning fully and to be honored up until at age 7 when the left brain kicks in with more left brain detailed information, as schools used to honor in 4th grade.
These kids are here hardwired to be as they are, allowed to follow their passions and interests supported totally as being receptive individuals. With that they excel with their realizations and discoveries, wanting to share with others, and they learn linear things they need to do so, to write, communicate. And, when doing so, they lose their sensitivity to being overwhelmed for they are in their meant-to-be-focus that fills them fully and the others around them with the knowledge they have gained.
So many of the great individuals in history, Mozart, Einstein, Poe, Shaw, Lincoln, Henry Ford, Churchill, Nelson Rockefeller, Woodrow Wilson, Rodin, Sonny in our current lives, and most of the people now who set up tech, originally left school to do this stuff and now having children with autism, it running and deepening in families.
People who are here on the spectrum are here to help balance our world again back into connection to people and the land, looking for how to create wellness for all. When you leave connection there is an emptiness and we look everywhere to fill it buying this or that or grasping this power or that. That does not bode well for people or the planet, and has not.
Our world needs a shift, and that is back to the balance of the intelligence as we were given as human beings, for we have left the connection of the right brain and we are seeing the devastation that results from leaving the sense of connection and honoring other people and their connection and instead are creating separation, havoc, and destruction.
www.heartcenteredminds.com
I'm glad you posted this comment, because honestly, there was a lot more I wanted to write about autism and didn't because this is a Substack post and not a book!
Anyway, while I agree with Iain McGilchrist that autism can be characterized by left hemisphere dominance and right hemisphere dysfunction, something he fails to acknowledge in his work is that many, if not most, spiky talents seen in autism are actually RIGHT HEMISPHERE skills, such as spatial reasoning and musical ability.
So I would actually modify his theory to clarify that while SOME right hemisphere dominant abilities are typically impaired in autism (non-verbal communication, eye gaze, connection to one's own body, connection to others, and connection to nature and healthy food from nature), others are frequently enhanced. This suggests not right hemisphere hypofunction (as he suggests) but instead that some parts of the right hemisphere overdevelop at the expense of others. And yes, autistic children with these right hemisphere skills are not well served by the school system (the exception possibly being in mathematics, but frankly math in grade school is taught in a very left hemisphere way to the detriment of all students).
In addition, as I briefly mentioned, it seems that at least one subtype of autism (the four subgroups model strikes me as too simplistic and reductive, but it's still useful) is associated with increased sensitivity and more neuroplasticity -- and thus, higher intelligence but also increased sensitivity to the environment. In other words, what could be adaptive and beneficial genes in a healthy context interact with a toxic environment to cause significant difficulties. It's likely this is the group you were disproportionately working with.
Touching something wrong again with mis-writes, but you get the gist. Thanks for your conversation about all this. GREAT book to read: The Spark, by Kristine Barnett. Every child, even the most involved with "autism symptoms," has an inner spark which needs to be followed, for it can be there finding of their personal reason for being here.
❤️
Hi Peggy, I looked up Kristine Barnett, and isn't she the mother who adopted a child with dwarfism from Ukraine and then subsequently abandoned her after insisting she was secretly an adult masquerading as a child? DNA evidence later supported that the child was, in fact, a child. The adoptive daughter claimed Kristine was abusive to her, and Kristine's ex-husband backed her up and implied Kristine was a narcissist.
I'm pretty wary of any parent who turns their child's autism diagnosis into a career for themselves -- not just the social media parents, but also those who write books, especially if it's centred around what a great parent they are. The autistic/gifted child overlap can be caused by a combination of early childhood emotional neglect and parents pushing cognitive tasks on their children prematurely (e.g. teaching them to read before they turn two), as this disrupts brain development. Many gifted autistic kids have abnormal lateralization of the hemispheres (e.g. language being more in the right hemisphere, when it should be in the left, abnormal corpus callosum development) which supports this. If a child associates academic achievement with love, there's a significant risk of issues later on. Many highly gifted children who fit this profile have significant struggles as adults.
I also think you're focussing on the subgroup(s) of autism that are more the result of nurture and genetics, and less the result of poisoning. Yes, every child is special, and seeing what is special about them and nurturing that is wonderful, but many kids who are being diagnosed with autism are victims of one or more kinds of environmental or pharmaceutical poisoning, or severe nutritional deficiencies. That's an issue. If the toxins and diet were resolved, the kid would still be special ... but also a lot healthier.
Regarding right brain "dysfunction" -- you can use "atypicality" if you prefer, but I don't think it's correct to say it's not an issue. An impaired ability to make and sustain friendships and romances, chronic anxiety, disconnection from one's own body, a chronic sense of emptiness because of an impaired ability to make meaning in the world -- these are all distressing symptoms for many people, very common in autism, and all associated with right hemisphere dysfunction. As a kid, I was very locked inside myself for a while, and probably fit the criteria for high functioning autism. Being told I was special by teachers and having my cognitive gifts nurtured was okay, but it didn't actually help me. I wanted to not have migraines, not have gut issues, to be less anxious, to have comfortable relationships I felt secure in. And all of that took realizing that there were issues with me that I needed to work on. I put in a lot of work, and I'm healthier and happier now, happily married, very capable of making friends and connecting to others.
Regarding the desire to help others -- yes, this is common in autism and it's a myth / misunderstanding that autistic people lack empathy. There are three loose types of empathy: compassionate (desire to act on behalf of others), affective (mirroring, feeling what others feel), and cognitive (theory of mind skills). Only cognitive empathy / theory of mind is impaired in autism, and similarly compassionate empathy is often enhanced (using Badcock's model, this is because TOM is associated with mentalistic cognition, impaired in autism, while compassionate empathy is mechanistic, associated with the task-positive network, often enhanced in autism; using McGilchrist's, it's because TOM is mostly right hemisphere based, compassionate empathy is more left hemisphere based). However, the theory of mind impairments in combination with high compassionate empathy are still an issue, as many autistic people are driven to act on behalf of people and causes they don't really understand -- this leaves them very vulnerable to exploitation and manipulation.
This is all faulty, Meghan. You did not successfully look up the Kristine Barnett I was speaking of who wrote the book "The Spark." Unfortunately, instead you took a wrong lead and dashed off into multiple, endless ways of thinking that ignore and defy the real perception of what autism is and who Kristine Barnett is and proved, in her son, and in helping other autistics.
Endless, non-stop thinking, is not our best intelligence. Thinking is meant to create structures of thought and form after having seen the underlying truth of connection and perception. This is what you're missing here, the underlying true perception of
what autism is.
Children saw the Emperor was wearing no clothes, whereas the adults were lost in endless mutual erroneous perceptions, building upon what they shared with each other, they not seeing the true reality of direct and true connective perception.
No, it's definitely the same family. See this article:
https://www.nj.com/entertainment/2025/04/where-is-jacob-barnett-now-an-update-on-the-true-story-behind-good-american-family.html
While I agree that autistic intelligence has contributed a lot to society and there are many benefits to it, I'm wary of any narrative that suggests it's preferable or superior to "neurotypical" cognition. That strikes me as a dangerous form of supremacist thinking.
Last and excuse me. Answers cannot be linearly sought; they must be intuited. This because they are living in the realm of non-linear definition, in the realm of poetry, discovery; the inner, not outer.
Thank you for your response. I see the right brain "dysfunctions"differently,
Don't like it when it sends early.
Non-verbal communication, language is linear, they not understanding the patterns of usual exchanges, overwhelmed, and stop talking around 2 years old because going into the receptive silence instead.
Eye gaze too overwhelming to take in. Connection to own body: probably are so emersed in it, it not "seen" by them; connection to others attested to by Grandin, and their desire to help others, she saying they don't have the same tools, but shows up differently, maybe even poetically: Kim Peek (Rain Man) when I asked about his father's living care for him: "my father and I share the same shadow." Healthy food: who knows what their taste buds prefer?
Truth is simple.
Wow this is a great and well thought through piece!
Thank you!
Many thanks for your article. Autism is very broadly defined so that it encompasses many people and is based on symptoms rather than cause. It may range from mild to severe. To say do vaccines cause autism is the wrong question, rather it should be do vaccines cause harm, all sorts of harm.
The answer is yes, sometimes shots clearly do to a lesser or greater extent. Occasionally they cause death, although how occasionally is a problem because the medical profession as a whole will not consider vaccines could cause death.
As regards vaccines it is not so much they cause harm and death sometimes (they do) but that it is assumed that they do any good. The masses are persuaded of benefit based on advertising, manipulation of statistics and rebranding of diseases, which when closely examined are suspiciously similar.
The truth is vaccines have never been of benefit to health, they have merely been made to appear so. A vaccine must by definition cause disease, even if only mildly, to allegedly train the body, but no training occurs. If we poison ourselves we are poisoned and will not gain by doing so. We must neutralise the poisons every time.
Vaccines are utterly pointless, and as we don't know what is in each vial (no one checks before hand) taking them is like playing Russina roulette.
https://baldmichael.substack.com/p/what-is-the-flu-aka-covid-19-and
Thank you for writing this. It’s what I’ve been looking for.
My father had autism + propensity towards major depression and negativism, and I do as well, so I figured the traits are all essentially a cut and dry matter of deterministic genetic lineage.
That there are possible influences from the environment, is intriguing but makes sense with the truly wide range by which autism expresses itself.
There is an evolutionary hypothesis:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22947969/
of the "solitary forager", whereby there were moments in hominid history during which resources were scarce and tribe organization highly unstable, and in such circumstances it was better for someone to stake it out on their own and become an obsessive expert on trapping rodents and identifying edible mushrooms. That family instability and caregiver coldness would trigger such genes makes sense as an alert that this sort of environment may be present.
I think the solitary forager thing would fit with the Yamnaya hypothesis?
In the aftermath of the Ice Age, it also makes sense to me that autistic behaviour / genes might have been selected for in middle and northern Europe.
There's also some research finding that autism might be slightly more common among blue-eyed people. (Though that could be explained by high functioning autistic genes seemingly being more common in Europeans generally). The Celtic "changling" myth has been interpreted as potentially being a magical explanation for autism, and in those myths, blue-eyed and blonde children were especially vulnerable to being "stolen by the fairies".
Most of the Yamnaya had brown hair and eyes though.
Very thorough work here! I knew a lady who cared for two very large non-verbal teenage boys. Their autism was blamed on their mother taking lithium during pregnancy but the autism didn't show up till they were two and their younger sister was fine. I think the cluster B parents are evidence of the deterioration of genes down generations, girls are born with all their eggs and everything that happens to them happens to their eggs. This means we even spend a short time in our maternal grandmother's womb, being affected by whatever is going on in her. Boys get autism slightly more often than girls (though this gap is closing) and I think it might be due to a detox or defense process we have as the carriers of the eggs. Maybe estrogen is protective, fat is the great storage facility for toxins. Maybe it was lithium for those boys, or maybe it was everything they ever went through in their mother's body including contraceptives, plus lithium plus accumulated vaxes. It's funny we blame depression on a single chemical because we can drug it, but actually it could be just circumstances but we really like to blame things like cluster B on just a flawed personality. We do stuff we don't know why, and we only have what we know to explain it, because it *must* be something we know about. But these excuses are very often unconscious 'there's just something wrong with you, you're bad' leading to more incoherent behaviour and people wanting to help less and less. There's no pill so probably you're just an arsehole. In reality the cluster B behaviour could be what the deterioration of genes looks like right before autism and adhd.
It is a sneaky trick to make parents think if it turns out to be pills or vaxes then it will be considered their fault. Same as making parents support transition by saying their kids will commit suicide so they go all in on that stuff. Dedicated parents will be the death of us hahaha. If only we could harness more of that energy towards finding the real reasons. Unless you checked the 'Yes Please Autism' box, this is not your fault.
This is a really good point about Cluster B "personality" disorders -- yes, they tend to be viewed as personality flaws, but it's generally accepted that they arise out of childhood dysfunction and trauma, early childhood stress. And when you dig into the literature, personality disorders are actually associated with many of the same nutrient deficiencies as autism, just less severe. Borderline personality in particular is correlated with higher rates of conditions like chronic fatigue ...
Perhaps in families with intergenerational "coldness", dysfunction, child-neglect (including of diet etc), as you say, the gene starts to degrade, increasing the risk with each generation of various psychological conditions and health conditions (and probably homosexuality and asexuality too).
Cannot explain the spike in autism severity -- that has to be environmental and pharmaceutical -- but it still makes a lot of sense to me intuitively.
Your work is a breath of fresh air, as I’ve said before. I have my own self-interested reasons for feeling the way I do, but I’m so tired of the discourse being polarized between “the only thing that should be called autism is a profound disability, every other use is a new invention” and “if you think you’re autistic you’re probably #ActuallyAutistic!!”.
Yep yep yep. The former isn't really accurate if you are familiar with the literature -- if anything, more profound disabilities (probably caused by poisonings and severe nutritional deficiencies) are being labelled as "autism" to obscure environmental and pharmaceutical causes when they have a different causal profile than the cases in the original descriptions from the 1940s (because all the major causes of poisoning and most of the offending foods didn't exist yet). As for the latter, a lot of those people probably have some autistic traits, but exist somewhere in the nebulous area between a personality disorder and autism.
Discovered this, just now...
https://gingertaylor.substack.com/p/america-discovers-that-severe-autism
Ok, so I worked through the rest of it. I found it very well organized and extremely thorough. Good stuff on Kennedy.
If being inbred played a role, the Amish would have higher rates, not lower.
What blew me away is that girls don't get profound autism. I had never heard of it! But all the kids I read about who were autistic were boys. I just never connected the dots! So whatever it is, is it something that boys' less sturdy genetic endowment makes them uniquely vulnerable to? It must be... It will take me a while to wrap my head around that! Thank you for the stimmulating essay.
Yes, I think the inbreeding hypothesis is likely incorrect -- or at the very least, it would require more intense inbreeding than is typically seen in religious populations like Muslims and the Amish. If the Habsburg family had a lot of autism, there are multiple other plausible explanations for this besides inbreeding (and they were way more inbred than basically any other group).
Girls can get profound autism! It's just far rarer -- and I'm guessing in almost all cases, a result of some kind of poisoning and severe nutritional deficiencies. Kanner and Asperger wouldn't have seen it because the factors causing it didn't exist back then. Genetically, nurture-wise, and prenatally, boys are far more vulnerable than girls. A lot of this has to do with the X chromosome.
Impressive work, thank you.
I am gonna have to read this in sections.
Re vaccines: I have heard it said that the unvaccinated Amish have virtually no autism. It would be easy to confirm. But nobody has. Why is that? It's almost as though they'd rather not know...
If true, then it could still be that other factors play a role. The Amish don't eat particularly healthy (lots of sugar and carbs) but they do have unique and healthier lifestyles overall. In any case, if true, research could focus on those other factors as well. Will Kennedy direct such a study? It wouldn't even be that complex and expensive, or long. I am not holding my breath. (If I were him, I'd send out researchers secretly and discreetly getting the stats with Amish help. You could do just Lancaster county, and compare with the incidence among the Englishers there! To get the ball rolling.)
Also. I have heard that often (how often?) the onset is sudden and marked. This seems to signal a unique envirnmental contributing factor. Kids don't just wake up and lose their speech.
If I lived during a time of smallpox, I would vaccinate in a heartbeat. Probably with killed polio as well.
The rest of it seems rubbish. Vaccinating against common childhood infections that create natural immunity? No thanks. Vaccinating against fast mutating upper resp. infections is rubbish; useless or flat out harmful. Oh and two tetanus shots are said to protect for life! And they push them on you incessantly. So many lies, so much hype. It's really quite disgusting. Turning babies into pincushions...
I've seen the argument that Amish have no autism, but also read that it's a myth -- what seems to be agreed on is that they have lower rates (I read about a third of the national rate). There's lots of confounding variables there though, so I'm not sure how meaningful the studies would be. More useful would be looking at vaccinated vs unvaccinated in the general population and controlling for as many confounding variables as possible, with the largest sample size possible. So would be a bit pricey.
Yeah, I'm with you -- why are we vaccinating against chicken pox?! And it's hard to believe anything in the mainstream about vaccines when you catch them in obvious lies and fear-mongering, such as claiming that illnesses are more serious than they are.
That so many parents report that their child changed after vaccination strongly suggests that vaccines can be a trigger. I think there's a lot of risk factors for vaccine injury that should be investigated and discussed more, because assuming that vaccines remain an option for those who want them. parents need better information on how to take care of their children before and after vaccination to minimize the risk of adverse effects.
And doctors need to be less corrupt. Did ya see the story of the toddler recently who died after the doc gave her (I think) 8 shots in one, cuz she "missed the last wellness check"? WTF. Why we jab babies at all is beyond me. Their immune systems are undeveloped, and shooting unknown stuff into their brand new selves seems barbaric.
I don't know what to make of the situation with healthcare workers. I think most get into the profession out of good intentions, but there's definitely a narcissism issue in the medical field. The training is bad. I've gotten so much bad advice from healthcare workers (which I tend to ignore) but I've never gotten the impression it was because they were trying to do harm.
Same here. There was a time when I was constipated for 3! weeks and nobody helped me. Not the hospital I was in for other reasons, not the others I turned to. One nurse told me I should do a diet that turned out to be for diarrhea. Did she even listen to what I was saying? Finally, someone told me to do a mineral enema, and it worked. Three weeks! I did not think it was possible. And that was such a simple straightforward issue...
But when you tell them you helped yourself with alternative x, they start berating you.
Also, if that issue ever happens again, footnote 31 has alternative constipation remedies (besides MiraLAX, who I argue is dangerous).
Oh sweetie, by now I am the world's expert on constipation remedies! :-D I have done so many. My best mainstay now is aloe ferox, and slippery elm. Works beautifully, does not cramp, is not habituating, and is good for the gut. I never do over the counter stuff. Senna cramps, and cascara sagrada is too weak (in my case).
I finally got over my years' long constipation with the help of colonics to get out the worst of it, and then the aloe. Taking thiamine also normalizes the gut. (Etc. I could go on forever, haha!)
Hah. I rarely get berated, but I can be pretty intimidating. I've actually had healthcare workers pull out their phones or a notepad to take down book and article recommendations from me.
I'd like to see more explanations for why there are significantly higher levels of the vaccine adjuvant aluminum found in the brains of autistic individuals...
https://eccentrik.substack.com/p/new-paper-evidence-showing-childhood
Oh! And genetics. The MTHFR mutations I mentioned also impair detoxification and affect glutathione levels. There's probably other relevant genes too.
Low Vitamin D would also be a factor, which ties into the low sun exposure. Low Vitamin D can cause low glutathione (and vice versa!). So I guess low magnesium would also be a risk factor. Everything is so interconnected in our bodies, so could be a lot of things directly or indirectly impacting the ability to detox.
I can only speculate, but these are the factors I suspect:
(Given that almost all children receive childhood vaccines, and so both the autistic group and the control group in these studies would be vaccinated, assuming the researchers controlled for that as a confounding variable).
-- Low glutathione levels. Glutathione is needed to detoxify aluminum and other heavy metals. So a child with low glutathione would have an impaired ability to do so.
-- Poor diet. Glutathione levels can be impacted by low Vitamin C and a poor diet -- as refined sugar consumption depletes Vitamin C, it would also cause lower levels of glutathione. Vitamin C deficiency appears to increase the risk of vaccine injury.
-- High levels of stress. Stress depletes both Vitamin C and glutathione, as well as magnesium, iron, and B vitamins. This is where the "early childhood emotional neglect" theory comes in play, as well as other factors that may increase stress (e.g. immigration to a new country especially if you do not speak the language and there are significant cultural differences, poverty, all types of dysfunction, etc).
-- Tylenol given before and/or after vaccination. Tylenol depletes glutathione and can cause liver damage.
-- Other types of chronic immune stressors such as chronic illness or infections -- these would deplete glutathione and impair a healthy immune reaction to vaccines.
-- Other aluminum exposures.
-- Hot lots of vaccines and random error.
It is like many neurologic and psychiatric entities entities its multiple syndromes and continuums ...
Impressive research!! For me, the most important part was naming that we're dealing with different types of autism, so it's likely there are multiple causes for different clusters of symptoms.
Relatedly, my most recent essay was about how autism diagnosis is a social constructed label. That doesn't mean it's not real, of course, it's important to diagnose it so we can treat it (whatever treatment entails for the person) especially in severe cases. But it's also not real in the same way catching an influenza virus is real, so we can't treat it like that, as if there is one cause and one solution. We're taking a collection of symptoms we assume are related, but it's hard to "cure" something when we don't even nessecarily agree on what we're referring to since the diagnostic criteria changes.
Exactly! I'm going to check out your essay when I have a free moment.