AUTISM & CHILDHOOD DISORDERS

Getting That “6 th Sense” with Blue (bad) & Green (good) Decks of Cards

M. Gladwell’s “Blink” and Cognitive Thin Slicing Our brain uses two very different strategies to make sense of many situations and to process the extraordinary amount of data we are constantly processing: (1) conscious and (2) unconscious The latter operates entirely below the surface of consciousness. “Fast and Frugal”: you often know something and respond accordingly before you fully understand and can explain it

“ Epidemic” Increase in Autism: Why?

Vaccine-Autism Saga Origins: Fall 1971 and famine in Iraq - tons of wheat seeds distributed in rural communities, treated with methyl mercury - 50,000 became ill and 6,500 died 1998: Dr. Andrew Wakefield and The Lancet 1999 thimerosal eliminated from vaccines, yet there is no clear connection e.g., 95% of cigarette smokers never get lung cancer (99% of non-smokers never get it) Secret truth about vaccines: they don’t have much benefit for the individual child who receives them. They’re mostly for the good of the community (hepatitis B, polio, diptheria-pertussis-tetanus, whooping cough, MMR, etc.)

Vaccine-Autism Saga: You Cannot Prove a Negative Josh Tenenbaum in Psychology Today: “Coincidences drive so many of the inferences our minds make. Our neural circuitry is set up to notice these anomalies and use them to drive new learning. *There is an old saying that ‘neurons that fire together wire together.’ So you could say that coincidence operates at the level of the synapse, whenever neurons fire at the same time. This “neural circuitry” explains why some parents believe the rise in autism over the past years has been linked to the higher number of childhood vaccines. 90% of children receive vaccines at 15 months of age, the same time that many cases of autism are diagnosed. Inevitably, many autistic children will be diagnosed immediately after receiving vaccines. Alex Donnelly had abnormal levels of mercury in his body; his father thinks there's a connection between vaccinations and the autism he developed. (CBS)

The Secret Truth about Vaccines: “Herd Immunity” Six-year-old William Hansen, at home in Framingham, is autistic just like his brother, Jacob. Their parents are convinced that vaccinations triggered the disorder in both boys. In the summer of 2000,a measles outbreak swept Dublin, Ireland due to low vaccination rates.

Alternative Explanations for “Autism Epidemic” Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and the world's richest man, is thought by many to be the most famous face of Asperger. He has often been seen rocking and tends to speak in monotones–both habits are acknowledged symptoms of Asperger. Microsoft was one of the first major U.S. corporations to offer to pay for behaviour therapy for its employees' autistic children.

Children with Mental Disorders and Education Policy

More Mainstreaming

More Emotionally Disturbed Children are Going to Regular Schools…

…and are Being Mainstreamed

More Parents are Seeking Public Financing for Private Education…and Losing

The New and Thriving “Business” of Treating Autism

More Mainstreaming AND Single-Sex Schools

Bi-Polar Disorder and Medicating Children Why has there been a 4,000 percent increase over the past 10 years in the number of children diagnosed with bipolar? “Use of Antipsychotics by the Young Rose Fivefold” “1 million children now diagnosed with bipolar: sometimes in kids as young as 4 years old”