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Bravo Monty! Academic results in Autism

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  Some risks are worth taking, however long the journey Academic results are part of most people’s life, whether you love them or loathe them. Most children diagnosed today with autism will do just fine at school, but this was not always the case.   Those born 20 or 30 years ago and diagnosed in early childhood with autism are usually in a much less fortunate position. Today’s post is about level 3 autism and what the Lancet Commission want to call Profound autism. The new idea is that if by age of 8, a child with autism still has severe intellectual disability or minimal language then he/she can be best described as having Profound Autism. In other literature the term SDA (Strictly Defined Autism) was proposed.   I t means what was called autism back in the 1990s and earlier. You can have severe autism with any level of IQ, which I think many people may not be aware of, or even accept.   Monty and his Academic Results The “bravo” for Monty comes from Dr Ben-A...
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Autism in Norway: The 7-fold increase in Autism linked to Maternal Migration

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  The Olso to Bergen line is one of Europe’s most beautiful railways   I did have another sense of déjà vu, when I read about the big spike in autism in one city in Norway.   Norway is a very expensive country, but well worth a visit.   We enjoyed it.   One of Monty’s former 1:1 assistants emigrated to Norway to work in their excellently funded special needs therapy system.   A decade ago, there was a peak in media interest in Somali autism clusters in Sweden, Minneapolis and San Diego. Refugees had been taken to live in far away lands, with very different environmental conditions.   They soon started to produce children with a very high incidence of autism. This was a surprise to all the academics and a shock to the parents.    The Somali-Swedes even started calling it the Swedish disease, because they had never encountered such children before in Somalia.   Swedish study dissects autism risk in immigrants Swedish migration: ...
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Bumetanide - Biomarkers from Shanghai for Autism responders

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  “three cytokine levels, namely the IFN- γ , MIG and IFN- α 2   … These cytokine levels at the baseline could improve the prediction of the bumetanide responders” “… cytokines had a potential to construct a blood signature for predicting and monitoring the bumetanide treatment in young children with ASD.” “a significant part of the clinical heterogeneity in the treatment effect of bumetanide for ASD is associated with the differences in the immune system of patients”   Autism is a very heterogeneous family of conditions and this is a big part of the reason why all clinical trials to date have failed.   Ideally, there would be a diagnostic test to identify which person will respond to which therapy.   Then you can have a successful clinical trial, because you are only including people likely to respond. Researchers from China have just published their results that suggest that a blood test measuring three inflammatory markers can predict who will respond ...
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