PLT Test Blog

  We have seen in this blog that many hundreds of different dysfunctions can lead to symptoms broadly diagnosed as autism.   At the same time, the boundary at which people seek to medicalize behavioral problems continues to shift (more ADHD, more autism etc.), making it now hard to know what people mean by “autism”. Rather than grading autism severity 1, 2 or 3, which is the new clinical practice under the American psychiatrists’ DSM5, my scheme might be more useful, since it would also show the variability of the symptoms. I would rate “autism” on a scale of 1 to 100, but would state typical and peak values.  This could be established via an intelligent questionnaire given to parents and teachers.  It certainly would remain subjective and be far from perfect. 0 to 100 scale, with typical to peak Some examples:- Asperger’s plus Sensory Somebody with what used to be called Asperger’s, who attends mainstream school, but has now developed s...

Sometimes the secondary event can completely overshadow the primary event.   The above relates to dust explosions (in large silos containing grain, sugar etc.) rather than autism . As we continue to investigate the science behind autism and associated possible therapies, it is becoming necessary to introduce some further segmentation. I have referred to autism “flare-ups” many times, but even that term means very different things to different people. We now have many examples of autism treatments (NAC, Bumetanide etc), once effective, suddenly stopping working in certain people.  This needs explaining. We know from the research that in most cases, autism is caused by multiple “hits”, only when taken together do they lead to autism. We also see the “double tap” variety of autism, when relatively mild autism later develops into something more serious, following some event, or trigger.   Thanks to the internet, we know have numerous n=1 examples of certain drugs s...