Scientists concluded this in the 1990s, and then had to produce yet another study to unequivocally state it again after every time someone claimed to have found the “cause”.
This is part of the reason it was re-named ASD in the first place; it describes a set of atypical neurological development symptoms, not an identifiable state of being. Kind of like “cancer” describes an atypical cellular reproductive state, not a pathogen attacking your cells. Both can be caused by many different factors or combination of factors.
Of course, with ASD, it doesn’t even mean there’s anything particularly wrong most of the time; just atypical, resulting in a person whose thoughts are weighted differently than historically typical, with less interpretation of social cues and a greater ability to focus.
with less interpretation of social cues and a greater ability to focus.
“ability to focus” is more accurately described as “tendency to focus”. “ability to focus” connotes control over focus, which… from lived experience and what I’ve read, just isn’t generally true. Autistic inertia – the inability to defocus and then focus on a new context – is very real. Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder not just because of an ignorance of social cues but because of how rigid, inflexible patterns of behavior often interfere with daily life.
This seems similar to the phenomenon where antidepressants are only effective for about 15% of patients. The benefit is large for those who benefit. For the rest, they’re no better than placebo, suggesting the drugs treat one of several causes for the syndrome known as depression.
In other words, “Scientists Conclude Both Trump & RFK Jr. Are Utter A**holes For Believing Autism Is Caused By Tylenol, And You Should Be Voting For Democrats Instead”
No. It’s Tylenol… Did these people miss the memo, or…?
Early circumcision, too. See? Multiple causes!
But chief US stientists have discovered that it’s all caused by Tylenol!
That’s not true. RFK Jr recently said it was from circumcisions.
Here’s the source instead of a paywalled news article https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/study-reveals-genetic-and-developmental-differences-in-people-with-earlier-versus-later-autism
Scientists from Cambridge’s Department of Psychiatry found that children diagnosed as autistic earlier in life (typically before six years old) were more likely to show behavioural difficulties from early childhood, such as problems with social interaction.
However, those diagnosed with autism later on in life (in late childhood or beyond) were more likely to experience social and behavioural difficulties during adolescence.
I assume that the paper itself frames this a little differently, because what this is saying is trust there’s a correlation between when traits become noticeable and when people get a diagnosis. Which is what you’d expect. You don’t tend to diagnose people who don’t exhibit the traits required for diagnosis.
Great so now I’ve been downing Tylenol for no reason?
FUCK!
If autism isn’t a single condition, why do we lump everyone who’s autistic into the same bucket? You’ve got the people that like trains and struggle with social cues and are sensitive to sound, and the people who broke their carer’s arm because their DVD boxset of Dexter’s Lab had a disc in the wrong place, and yes both are autistic, but it’s unhelpful because when someone says they’re autistic, you have no idea what that means.
I know there’s levels depending on how much care you need, but nobody’s going “I’m level 1 autistic” in daily conversation. It’s not like cancer where you can say “I have cancer” or “My dad died of cancer” and you can then say “It was prostate cancer”, because everyone knows what that means.
the people that like trains and struggle with social cues and are sensitive to sound
Well there goes the last shred of doubt I had that I’m high masking AuDHD.
It’s not new information, and it’s simple stereotypical stuff, but something about the way you phrased it made it hit different.
My kid is exactly like me, so learning how to deal with my issues is doubly valuable.
If autism isn’t a single condition, why do we lump everyone who’s autistic into the same bucket?
Why do we talk about the autism spectrum like it’s a disease (or a bunch of diseases)? The only problem with autistic people is that they live in a society that is made for non-autistic people and it actively punishes them for being different. Kind of like with LGBT people, though I’d say a lot worse in this case. There’s nothing stopping people in the spectrum from functioning similarly or better than ‘regular’ people, other than the aforementioned society.
I’m with you… it won’t kill them and it’s not progressive. It’s not caused by a pathogen. It’s not a disease like polio or measles.
If a parent would rather have their child die, or no child at all, rather than an autistic child, they shouldn’t have children at all.
If autism isn’t a single condition, why do we lump everyone who’s autistic into the same bucket?
What categories could they use from the start to differentiate subconditions to avoid this? Experts couldn’t say if it was one disease or many, but they could tell they’re all closely related.
Investigating health is hard and only hindsight is 20/20.
Asperger’s used to be a categorisation, but they got rid of it because 1. The guy who came up with it was a Nazi and used it as a means of segregating those he didn’t intend to murder from those he did, and 2. the border between Autistic and Aspergers was pretty vague and whether you got the diagnosis was dependent on the culture of the clinic doing the diagnosing and not any objective criteria.
I dunno, it feels (obviously irrationally) a little bit insulting that there isn’t a categorisation, because by lumping everyone who previously had Asperger’s in with Autism, it doesn’t matter how well you mask, as soon as you mention you’re autistic, everyone thinks you’re one wrong word away from having a meltdown. Nobody sees levels, they see Autism, and what was formerly known as Asperger’s, where the latter are a bit weird, and the former are in need of serious care.
The only reason is that more is known about cancers than about the physiological basis of different psychological conditions. Psychology often has to work at the level of grouping symptoms because it’s difficult and takes a long time to discover any neurological and/or genetic causes behind them.
What about the different STAGES of cancer?
It used to be a binary “you have cancer or you don’t”
We’ve learned more and adjusted the spectrum of cancer severity. Why not the severity of autism (I know it’s not progressive, but it is a spectrum!)
Cancer also has “stages” that people generally are aware of.
It is likely like cancer, a cluster of conditions that resemble each other in the end. Every time I hear someone talk about “a cure for cancer” I say cancer is like car accidents. You could find a car upside down on the side of the road but there could be many causes for it, drunk driving, asleep at the wheel, mechanical failure, hit and run, etc.
Welcome to 2015. This is not new.
Sometimes it’s worth having new studies that add confirmation and detail to conclusions people have already reached. This article does seem to be reporting on new research.
But that’s not what politicians with absolutely no scientific or medical credentials are telling me.
And with that, if possible at all, there is no single fix either.
Get fucked by an umbrella, RFK
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