Professor Simon Baron-Cohen reports on advances in helping children with autism to understand feelings

Autism comes by degrees. People with the milder form, Asperger’s syndrome, display communication difficulties and “obsessional” interests. In severe cases, however, it can be as if your child is locked in a glass bubble, staring vacantly past you as you desperately try to make eye-contact. (…)

WHAT ARE THE CAUSES?

According to a study in The Lancet last year, an estimated 1 per cent of the population lie somewhere on the autistic spectrum. This figure represents an increase over earlier ones but this rise is likely to be due to better diagnosis and awareness of the condition. Autism spectrum conditions result from alterations in brain development, affecting how an individual perceives, learns and communicates. The two main subgroups are autism and Asperger’s syndrome.

Using the latest brain scanning methods such as fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging), studies from labs in Cambridge and London, and confirmed in labs around the world, have revealed that certain brain areas are underactive in people with autism. The amygdala (sometimes thought of as the emotion centre) and the medial prefrontal cortex (involved in social behaviour) are underactive in people with autism spectrum conditions when they are trying to decode another person’s facial expression.

Studies from San Diego suggest that the autistic brain is also growing too fast in early childhood, and researchers in Carnegie Mellon University have found that different regions of the brain are not connected in the usual way. New work from Cambridge suggests that elevated testosterone levels in the foetus, in the second trimester of pregnancy, is associated with a greater number of autistic traits. This finding may help to explain why many more boys than girls develop an autism spectrum condition. In New York, researchers are experimenting with boosting levels of a different hormone, oxytocin. This is sometimes called the “love hormone”, as levels increase in intimate relationships. Elevated levels of the hormone are associated with being more trusting and better able to read emotional expressions. It may be relevant that women produce twice as much oxytocin as men.

Autism and Asperger’s syndrome run in families. If there is one child who has a diagnosis on the autistic spectrum, the likelihood of another child also having a diagnosis is about 5-10 per cent, which is higher than the general population rate. Molecular genetic studies are focused on identifying the key genes that might play a role in increasing the risk of a diagnosis. Studies of twins have established that it is not 100 per cent genetic, since even among identical twins, when one has autism, the likelihood of both twins having autism is only about 60 per cent. This means there must also be an environmental component, but what it is remains unknown. (…)

WHAT HELPS?

(…) The message is that a diagnosis of autism does not mean there is no hope for learning and development. Parents, therapists and teachers wanting to know which methods to try should visit a wonderful new website (www.researchautism.net) that provides impartial summaries of the evidence for or against a different method.

MYTHS ABOUT AUTISM

The MMR vaccination causes autism

There is no strong evidence for this claim. In Japan, for example, although the rates of autism were rising (as they have been worldwide), they continued to rise even after the withdrawal of the MMR public health programme.

Autism is caused by poor parenting

This idea has been disproved. Autism is found in families where other children have been raised successfully, and the fact that autism involves atypical neurological development from the earliest stage shows that it is not a reaction to parental behaviour. (…)

Source: Times Online, UK
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