PLT Test Blog

When Monty, now aged 11 with ASD, was diagnosed aged three and a half we were told that he had autism and “this may be indicative of the presence of an associated learning disability, but it is impossible at this stage to give a prognosis as to his future difficulties” and also “he is not yet able to take part in formal assessments of his cognitive ability. When his skills and ability to share interests with adults and to follow direction/instruction develop, it will be possible to formally assess his cognitive skills using standard measures.” Off the record, we were also told that he might develop epilepsy. We never measured his IQ and he has never had a seizure. With hindsight, it is interesting what they said about it being pointless to try and measure his IQ.  Apparently it is not uncommon to do just that. Improving Cognitive Function This post is about cognitive improvement, so do not be put off by the introduction to MR/ID.  Several regular readers who are using some of ...

Today’s post allows me to cross off several topics from my to-blog list, since I can link them all together. N = 1 or N > 1 If you are the parent of one of more children with autism, you will have a very specific view of autism, since your kind is the only kind that affects you.  This is natural and so for most readers it is case of N = 1. When it comes to everyone else, and what they (should) teach medical students, it is the big picture that matters.  So large clusters of people behaving in a certain way is more significant that any outliers.  If you are the outlier, this is not much consolation. In the world of autism, rather strangely, it is the very rare types that have an established medical therapy.  This ranges from the types caused by rare metabolic disorders to the more common PANDAS/PANS. The large cluster that is classic autism remains untreated. Polypill N = 3 To date I am aware of only a handful of people who have implemented the majority of my sugge...

Today’s post is about epigenetics, a complex area of science, that has been touched upon in previous posts. Since none of us are experts in genetics we will focus on the application of epigenetics rather than going into the excruciating details.  Skip over any parts that get too technical. Some of the interesting studies, that are of more academic interest, I will put in a later post. Epigenetics is just one way in which gene expression (whether genes are turned on or off) can be altered.  There are other ways, which may be equally important. It is evident that epigenetics plays a role in many conditions including autism, schizophrenia, inflammation, asthma, COPD and cancer. Even based on today’s highly superficial review, there is an immediate, practical, therapeutic prospect, worthy of investigation.  Thanks to Professor Peter Barnes in London and again those irrepressible researchers in Tehran, who were actually trialing theophylline for entirely different reasons. Yo...