It's Time To Listen

"The outcome of any serious research can only be to make two questions grow where only one grew before"...Thorstein Veblen

The small print at the bottom of the graph reads "recent research has indicated that changes in diagnostic practices may account for at least 25% of the increase in prevalence over time, however much of the increase is still unaccounted for and may be influenced by environmental factors." - full story at:   click here for more information from Autism Speaks

When you look at the rise in autism in a graph like this, a picture truly does speak a thousand words.  Parents have long believed this sharp rise in autism to be real, as well as educators, teachers, principals, child care workers, pediatricians, dentists, and anyone who works closely with young children.  In addition, the general population is believing the rise is real and mostly still unexplained, not because of what they hear in the news, but because they see our children in their extended families, in their friend's children, in their neighbourhood, and in the community we share.  And this is happening all over the world.  Pretty much everyone now knows someone with autism.

People naturally are worried and have questions.  If I was pregnant now as opposed to 1998, I would want to know the risks for my baby.  Ten to Fifteen years from now, my daughter, nieces and nephews will want to know their risks when planning a pregnancy.  People have a right to have complete, honest and unbiased communication and open discussion opportunities.  I hope this happens more regularly in the future.

So what are the risks of your child developing autism?  There is no doubt there is genetic influence, that has been known for a long time, but please do not think you are safe because you have never seen autism in your family (parents, grandparents and so on).  It used to be rare and that is why parents of children with autism born in recent years are shocked, confused and terrified when they realize what's happened.  We never expected this to happen.  What we are now learning through recent research is that the environment (womb environment plus environment one year following birth) may play a greater role in the risk than previous research suggested, and a greater role than genetics alone.  The results of a twin study was published online on July 4, 2011 in the Archives of General Psychiatry:  Genetic Heritability and Shared Environmental Factors Among Twin Pairs with Autism, the conclusion:  susceptibility to ASD has a moderate genetic heritability and a substantial twin environmental component.  click here to read Autism Speaks news release on this study .

I am personally delighted to hear of results that may shift the focus of future research (and of course the funding) from genetics only to a combined genetics/environmental approach.  This makes more sense, it has always looked to me and many other parents that genetics alone was not responsible for the sharp rise in autism - something else was triggering it and that's a scary thing.  Thank heavens we may finally be heading in the right direction in understanding what's really going on, and the more we know the more we may be able to prevent this from affecting so many children.

Now moving on to a lighter side.  Today is my father's birthday and he passed away 9 years ago.  He loved his two grandchildren, and was so happy we named our son after him.  They brought him the greatest joy in his last four years of life. 

My dad was most of the time a quiet proper Englishman, and was not all that amused by television.  I think he secretly liked watching tv with me though, and I do recall him really getting a kick out of this extremely funny and popular scene from "All in the Family", he talked about it often and really liked it.  It's about a sock and sock and a shoe and a shoe...it's really funny, Enjoy!

 

We miss you Dad.  But I really enjoyed this laugh with you today.  Got to love Archie Bunker!

Cheers to you,

Linda