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 he/she chooses also the fundamental scientific research. There is a lot of money to be made in various "laboratory" tests, supplements and potions.
- Neurodevelopment paediatricians are basically good. They see everything, they note that the wizz kid researchers rush off to patent their ideas and set up a "Micro Pharma" company to exploit them. They will wait until everything is FDA approved, before they try anything new. Nobody wants to be on the wrong end of a lawsuit, do they?
- Micro Pharma are the start-ups, created by the wizz kid researchers. I wish them the very best of luck, Mr Lemmonier and Mr Hardan in particular.
- Big Pharma is showing some interest in autism and they have some drugs being trialed, but I would put my money on Micro Pharma.
- NICE we covered in an earlier post. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence will tell you in 780 pages what the Neurodevelopment Paediatrician will tell you in a short email.
- Quackery is the lucrative field of exploiting the plight of desperate parents, it seems to be mainly a US-based activity. There are elements of quackery that are actually interesting; the reason being that there are only so many elements in the human brain. If you mess around with enough of them, you may in the end hit on something that does actually work.
My approach is to take off the blinkers, climb over the secret wall and go direct to the data, that is to say, the fundamental scientific research. There is plenty of it.
Coming next is a series on biological markers in autism. These markers should lead us to our final destination.
Parents here in Italy see "psychiatrists" , children with autism see "childhood neuropsychiatrists" then at age 18 they see psychiatrists for adults...many of them are psychoanalysts ,,,what a nightmare!! carla marta
ReplyDeletePeter,
ReplyDeleteI wonder what you think about the concept of mindblindness itself.
I recently went to a kid's birthday party where I met a 11-year old. He was a bit awkwardly dressed and couldn't really make eye contact and tell his name loud enough when I shook his hands. He was more interested in playing with the 4-year olds which was odd in itself. Afterwards I asked my father-in-law if he noticed something odd about the boy and he said it was obvious from the way he talked and walked. I was pretty convinced he was at least mildly cognitively impaired but I later found out that the boy is some kind of chess prodigy and he was so good at academics that they bumped him up two grades. So it cannot be that lack of social awareness is a consequence of cognitive deficits.
In my own 4-year old son with moderate ASD, deficit of the concept of 'self' and 'other' is apparent in the way he talks and acts. His often speaks like a third person narrator ("He is building blocks" instead of "I am building blocks"). In public places, he would act and make the same faces irrespective of whether there is no one else present or if everyone else is watching him in judgement.
I wonder if there is any biological causes to explain this specific impairment and more importantly if there are any good therapies. (Noticed else on this blog that irregular perfusion of blood in the brain might be a cause and HBOT a potential treatment?)
Regards,
Anvesh