A Baby’s Gaze May Signal Autism, Study Finds | Hacker News Reader

A Baby’s Gaze May Signal Autism, Study Finds

well.blogs.nytimes.com

45 pointsdcre11 comments

I am the father of an autistic child, and from experience, early intervention makes a hell lot of difference in an autistic child's progression towards social/ sensory issues. This might be a breakthrough study.

Just out of curiosity, how old is your child? Where does he fall on the autism spectrum?

I've been an educator for groups of autistic children (as well as other various handicaps)- and it was some of the hardest work I ever did. It must be fucking intense as a parent- respect to you.

My son is now ~7. The hardest part was when he was between 3 - 5 years old. His language hadn't developed at the time, and finding out what exactly was bothering him was really hard. He is moderately autistic.

Yeah its hard to be the parent of an autistic child. Eventually one learns to increase patience and fortitude.

an honest question as i have almost zero idea about autism. what does an intervention consists? therapy, counselling, or something else?

For my family it involved speech therapy, occupational therapy, and early classroom and social experiences.

Autism is a wide spectrum, but it often involves speech delays, trouble empathizing with others, repetitive behaviors, and a desire for ritual.

You can learn more about it here:

http://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism

Autism is a more likely a lot of discrete neurological diseases with some common attributes, not a spectrum.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/neil-s-greenspan/autism-concep...

The reason to call it a spectrum is that the affected have often the same underlying mental and behavioral patterns, but spread across a wide range of severity from high functioning to uncommunicative.

I don't know how helpful it is to draw fine distinctions when the causes and effects of autism are still so poorly understood. For the non-expert, becoming aware that there are many people with related conditions of speech, social, and motor delays and disabilities is a much more important bridge to cross.

I basically buy DSM-V's decision to lump all the autism spectrum disorders under one label for now. It is an acknowledgment that up to now, calling someone Autism Spectrum Disorder or Asperger's Syndrome or Pervasive Development Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified was a highly subjective distinction without a difference. But it did make a difference in terms of the conditions health insurance would cover, to the detriment of the ASD person.

I thought this had been known for a while, how the baby interacts with others?

Relevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEVM6bM-fNs&feature=share&lis...

As a Wittgensteinian (follower of L.W. on the way to P.M.S Hacker) I must simply reiterate:

    Brains do not behave, nor do they fail to behave; humans behave.

Regardless of the neural correlates of developmental disorders, the behavior (map) is not a substratum (territory) – to reinforce this point, check out http://eyewire.org, where our judicious participation guides the mapping of the human brain, in a modular way (starting with the perceptual system). The perceptual system follows (eyes, e.g.) what we believe following entails. ("I believe X means nothing more or less than that I am disposed to behave in certain ways under certain conditions" – where "certainty" involves pre-theoretical commitments emergent by our own evolutionary tract.)

The intensional-extensional domain distinction of the number theory is directly structurally relevant to the discussion of inside-outside (internal-external) behavior of neuroscience. Ultimately, "rules" are ordered, and some are self-organizing (like π): "autism creates itself", as A. Klin notes.

Early detection and adequate knowledge for parents will greatly help in managing an autistic child.

there is a technology for that, that in early stage it can be detected and this is an advantage for parents so they can find remedy as early as possible.

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