Mercury Ruled Out Again

A new study has just come out in California dismissing the hypothesis that mercury causes autism. In particular, thimerosal, a preservative that was used in vaccines in the last century, was suspected to cause autism. This was a popular belief because children's symptoms frequently became evident between 18 and 24 months of age, just after they received a big round of vaccinations. Those whose children have the type of autism that is regressive (typical development followed by loss of language and motor skills) were often most convinced of this correlation.
The belief that immunizations cause autism is so strong that there are a number of law suits and class-action suits making this claim. But thimerosal was removed from most vaccinations in the early 2000s and this study states that there has been no decrease in the diagnosis of autism.

So many families that I work with are strong believers that immunizations caused their child to have autism. So many more refuse to immunize their child out of fear that they will 'lose' their child to autism. So now children are exposed to illnesses that can easily be prevented. In the past couple of years we've seen a resurgence in some of those illnesses, including smallpox and the mumps.

It must be one of the hardest decisions to make as a parent: deciding whether to risk exposing your child to developing autism, or to other serious illnesses that could be prevented. Hopefully this new study will allow parents to weigh their options with more confidence.

Mirror, Mirror in the Brain...

New research on the neurocognitive front involves the imaging and modeling of "mirror neurons". I first heard about this at an augmentative communication conference last year, but there is more talk on the horizon.
These neurons give us the ability to mimic or mirror actions that we see others do. We set what we see against the information that we already know, and integrate both pieces. This is how we build on current skills and learn new ones. Researchers are hypothesizing that if we can't imitate then, in a sense, we can't learn; or at the very least, learning is more challenging. Brain imaging also seems to be showing that people with autism seem to make very strong, local connections within the brain, rather than associating new information with old.

This all makes sense to me when I start thinking about a boy I worked with who would only eat McDonald's fries in the red "large fries" box, but would not eat any that were out of the box because they were no longer the "right" fries. This example will likely ring true with many who care for children with autism, whether it's a french fry, a stuffed animal, a pair of shoes, a movie, or a car. Object permanence seems unattainable, staying at the level of object transience, e.g. not knowing that the fries are the same, that a ball is still on the table even though a blanket covers it. Personally, I think that this research will ultimately give more ammunition to all of us early intervention proponents because we know that these mirror neurons must function on some level because of course our kiddoes with autism DO learn. And, the more practice given these neurons during the critical learning period (0-3 years old, when the brain is MOST plastic), the better chance a child has to strengthen the connections of all the neural pathways.