PLT Test Blog

Today's post is about a new framework to help us all understand what is going on in the world of autism.  If you read a lot, you will have heard of Mindblindness and Mindreading .  It is an interesting idea developed by Borat's big brother, Simon Baron-Cohen. You may recall that Monty's afternoon therapist and pal is called Dule ("Doolay"); well Dule and I agreed a long time ago that at least half of the problem lies not in the mind of the autistic child, but rather in the mind of the "normal" adults. Simon's brother Sacha (Borat) would probably find this amusing, but it is actually true. The Autism Framework of Restricted Vision shows how the adults cannot  see over the long red secret wall.  All they can see is their family doctor, and if they live in the US, their DAN doctor; not to mention quackery found on the internet. Here is what the other characters can see:- Family doctor can see the NICE guidelines DAN Doctor can see the quackery and if...

I have to thank Paul Whitely   for a post on his website that I am hijacking today.   Click on Paul’s name to go to his blog. National Institute for Health & Care Excellence (NICE) NICE is an organisation in the UK, funded by the Department of Health.   They produce excellent guidelines on   most medical conditions for both doctors and patients.   They are all available free on line. NICE & Autism NICE are producing a guideline called:-    Autism, The management and support of children and young people on the autism spectrum.  The guideline is still in the draft stage, but there are two versions:- Full version (790 pages)   Summary (40 pages) You may wonder who on earth is going to read a 790 page document.   The 40 page document does not say a lot, you could summarize it as folows:-   Carers (parents) are unsupported, miserable and financially strained Children should have access to care and therapy, that does not...

It may be a long time since you were in school, but you will most likely remember the maths teacher kept telling you to show your working.   The idea was that you might have got the method right, but got the wrong final answer; at least you could get half a mark. I just asked Ted (aged 12) what happens these day at school if you get the right answer, but the workings were wrong.   Ted debated this with friend, whilst continuing to play a video game together.   The conclusion was that if the answer was right, but the working was wrong, you would not get full marks.   In the field of autism this seems to be a recurring scenario (right answer, but wrong workings).   Somebody finds a therapy that appears to work, and produces some scientific justification, but then along come other clever people and use science to tear apart the proposed justification (or workings). Yesterday while adding tags to this blog, I came across a blog with a delighted parent, who had ...

A couple of years ago, I came across a very useful paper that helps deal with that nagging question all parents of autistic children probably have;   that question is of course what will the future bring?   The paper is called Counseling Parents Regarding Prognosis in Autistic Spectrum Disorder .  It is only three pages long and it is free to download. It is written by a very experienced Neurodevelopmental Paediatrician called Dr James Coplan, naturally he is an American.   He has an excellent website and he has his own channel on YouTube .   There are 4 short videos about the history of treating autism and one quite heavy one about challenging behaviors in autism .   In one he comments that autism is 130 years behind most areas of medical science.   He certainly knows his stuff, but he is not a researcher like us.     Coplan applies four premises:- 1.     Atypicality (how autistic you are) occurs along a s...

Stereotypy is a word you may never have used, but it is there in the dictionary.   In the world of autism, they made up their own word for it; “stimming”.  Stimming does not appear in the Oxford English dictionary, but here is a nice definition from Urban-dictionary . Stim, stims or stimming is short for "self-stimulation". Almost everyone does it (tapping feet, cracking knuckles, twiddling thumbs), but in autistic people these behaviours are more pronounced and may seem downright strange. Stimming is an obsessive behaviour that can get in the way of doing anything else.   If you are wiggling your fingers 10 cm in front of your eyes, not surprisingly, you are lost to the outside world. But there are plenty of other obsessions; here is an eclectic mix:- ·          Tearing up papers into tiny pieces ·          Jumping, rocking, trampolining ·       ...

Nela is Monty’s excellent assistant at school, but today, because he is a bit sick, she came to Monty’s house instead.   Nela also has her own theatre school, which she runs in the afternoons.   Monty loves the theatre, and the curtains in particular. Shortly after Nela arrived at our house, she said “Monty is going to see the Magic Flute”. So how did Nela know that Monty is going to the opera (albeit the children’s version)?   Well, Monty told her, of course.   Now this might not sound much to you, but for me that is worthy of a big WOW.   Autistic kids are not big conversationalists at the best of times.   Even stranger, said Nela, was that he was really talkative all morning. Now when his brother Ted is sick, it is about the only time he ever stops talking. Then I said to Nela, actually it’s not strange at all; it is a proven fact that when autistic kids have a temperature they behave more “normal”.  I said that I would write about in my b...

Today’s post may appear to be just ramblings, but rest assured it is another necessary piece of our jigsaw puzzle. What do you think I have in common with the President of the United States? A.     Peter and Barack are fans of the Discovery Channel show, Myth Busters or B.     Peter and Barack had a drink with both   Michael Bloomberg and Vladimir Putin It was a trick question.   The answer is (A) and (B). For those of you who do not have Discovery Channel at home, Myth Busters is a hit TV show filmed in San Francisco, where Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman set out to test popular myths, to see if they are plausible, confirmed or busted.   Adam and Jamie worked in the Hollywood special effects industry, but they have very unusual backgrounds.  They have a great approach to testing myths/hypotheses and always start with an open mind. If Adam and Jamie were to join us on our quest – they would probably call it a crusade – we would ...

If you were are a 12 year old boy, like Ted, who loves watching the History Channel, you would know all about the Holy Grail.   Depending on your religion, you may know it as a sacred cup linked to certain important Christian events; but there are also Celtic myths about a cauldron with magical powers.   Throughout history, people have been searching for the Grail, from King Arthur to Indiana Jones. This blog is itself a search for the Holy Grail. Monty is a big fan of a well-known picture book series called Meg & Mog .   It is about a nice witch called Meg and her black cat called Mog.   Featured prominently is a magic cauldron, which Meg uses to cast her magic spells.   Just click on the above link and all will become clear. So, we are looking for the Grail Well, if you have struggled through all of this blog from the begining, you already know where to start looking.   California looks pretty hot, but then again there are some rumours about somewhere...