PLT Test Blog

It came as no surprise to me that many people involved in high profile mass shootings suffer from mild autism (Asperger’s).  What did surprise me was that so many people with TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) also commit such crimes.   Indeed in a recent study (see later) of 239 killers, 28% appear to have autism and 21% suffered from TBI. Indeed the name used by the Austrian, Hans Asperger, in 1943 for his newly identified condition was “Autistic Psychopathy”, it was only many decades later when his work was discovered for the English-speaking world by Lorna Wing in 1981, that the condition became known as Asperger’s.  Wing did not like the term “Autistic Psychopathy” that Asperger had chosen, because she thought it would apply sociopathic (violent) behaviour to the lay public. Wing recently passed away and the New York Times wrote a nice article about her. Dr. Lorna Wing, Who Broadened Views of Autism, Dies at 85 Her paper, that first established Asperger’s syndrome, is here...

One effective intervention in autism, particularly to reduce stereotypy, is N-acetylcysteine (NAC).  Here NAC is being used as an anti-oxidant in its own right and as a precursor to the body’s own main anti-oxidant, called GSH.  Classic autism is associated with oxidative stress and so NAC should be beneficial. In much of Europe, NAC is seen primarily as a pharmaceutical, in North America, and much of the rest of the world, NAC is primarily just another supplement. As a drug, it is mainly used as a so-called mucolytic agent , and as such is used as a cough medicine, because it breaks down mucus and liquefies it, making it easier to cough up.  It is frequently prescribed by doctors for children, but only in some parts of the world. The problem with NAC, and all supplements, is quality control.  There is pressure to drive down prices and so quality will vary.  NAC is not particularly stable (it is labile) and so it tends to break down and release some foul smellin...

Anyone with a serious interest in autism should also be aware of PANDAS ( P ediatric A utoimmune N europsychiatric D isorders A ssociated with S treptococcal Infections) and PANS ( P ediatric A cute-onset N europsychiatric S yndrome) .  These are two syndromes which have acute onset of symptoms very similar to some of those found in autism.  It is claimed to affect 1 in every 200 children in the US. The good news is that a very thorough and dedicated doctor called Susan Swedo has worked logically through from starting to identify the syndrome, all the way through to treating it.  Good job Susan. Though she insists that PANDAS and PANS are distinct from autism, one can only wonder how many other distinct, but yet to be identified, syndromes exist that also present with autism-like symptoms. Thanks to the efforts of Dr Swedo and the US NIMH ( National Institute of Mental Health ), these two conditions have been remarkably well investigated, in a very short period of time....

The school year is coming to an end and now we get the results of assessment week, the end of year tests. Personally I never liked exams, or rather revising for them, but for teachers, assessment is a big part of what they do.  I used to be asked at the start of the school year for a list of benchmarks to measure my son Monty’s progress during the year, since the usual benchmarks were seen not as applicable.  Then we would spend lots of time discussing the list. Typical kids just follow the standard curriculum and get their standardized progress tests.  If you follow an ABA program, you are constantly measuring performance and you only progress when you master a skill, so it is like continuous assessment. Monty, aged 10 with ASD, goes to a very small international school.  So there is no special needs teacher, no IEP (individual educational plan), just a nice friendly environment.  This works very well because it means you can build your own educational system, ...