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Regarding Austism in Girls

I added this exceptional resource about autistic girls, particularly the high functioning - someone may want to build this into a sub-section of its own. Kiwi 18:40, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I've formatted the entry and removed the editorializing. Perhaps Eubulides has journal-published research on the topic to avoid including a popular press link in the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:43, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
Though I formatted it to match, people don't seem too enthusiastic about this link appearing on Asperger syndrome either. Checking it out, my feeling is that it is a valid suggestion for a sub topic, well worth exploring, but a popular press article that will require registration next week (when it is no longer current) is probably the kind of link that should be avoided in accord with WP:EL? --Zeraeph 22:39, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
Correct; anything worth including will hopefully be covered in the peer-reviewed literature. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:50, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
Absolutely ridiculous. It's The New York Times. Anyone with access to a library has access to the material, and the external link will give access to the date, byline, title, and abstract, which is enough to look it up. Nandesuka 16:35, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
I would like to point out that I did NOT use this or suggest the use of this article as something to be used as a source for this topic, but because it focuses on the minority Autism/Asperger population that are female. It is not meant to suggest that every last word is gold-plated and foot-noted, only, as I said, that it used experts and research to substantiate what was written. I offered it as a source of what is currently known or theorized.
Usually articles of this type are not hidden from public view at the Times for many many months, though this being featured in the Sunday Magazine rather than within the Science section, it may not follow form...
Regardless, I include, below, a few explicit factual excerpts and the names of studies and research centers that would help people find other sources for the article. THIS is what this article is important for - that someone wrote on this splinter topic and went through so many interviews with autism/asperger research experts to do so.....
"According to The Centers for Disease Control, there are about 560,000 people under the age of 21 with autism in the United States. (Adults aren’t included because there is no good data on their numbers.) If 1 in 4 are female, the girls number about 140,000. The C.D.C. estimates that about 42 percent of them are of normal intelligence, putting their total at roughly 58,000 (with the caveat that these numbers are, at best, estimates).
Because there are so many fewer females with autism, they are “research orphans,” as Ami Klin, a psychology and psychiatry professor who directs Yale’s autism program, puts it. Scientists have tended to cull girls from studies because it is difficult to find sufficiently large numbers of them. Some of the drugs, for example, commonly used to treat symptoms of autism like anxiety and hyperactivity have rarely been tested on autistic girls.
The scant data make it impossible to draw firm conclusions about why their numbers are small and how autistic girls and boys with normal intelligence may differ. But a few researchers are trying to establish whether and how the disorder may vary by sex. This research and the observations of some clinicians who work with autistic girls suggest that because of biology and experience, and the interaction between the two, autism may express itself differently in girls. And that may have implications for their well-being.
The typical image of the autistic child is a boy who is lost in his own world and indifferent to other people. It is hard to generalize about autistic kids, boys or girls, but some clinicians who work with high-functioning autistic children say they often see girls who care a great deal about what their peers think. These girls want to connect with people outside their families, says Janet Lainhart, a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the University of Utah." But often they can’t. Lainhart says that this thwarted desire may trigger severe anxiety and depression."
personal comment - I found this (and other) description to strike home with me so hard that I am still reeling at how well it describes me. Additioanlly, mild to severe learning disabilities and verbal/emtional developmental delays litter my family --- My grandson is high-functioning autistic, my nephew has Asperger's, my young daughter with severe problems.
"This gender dynamic doesn’t necessarily affect girls with Asperger’s when they are very young; if anything, they often fare better than boys at an early age because they tend to be less disruptive. In 1993, Catherine Lord, a veteran autism researcher, published a study of 21 boys and 21 girls. She found that when the children were between the ages of 3 and 5, parents more frequently described the girls as imitating typical kids and seeking out social contacts. Yet by age 10, none of the girls had reciprocal friendships while some of the boys did. “The girls often have the potential to really develop relationships,’ says Lord, a psychology and psychiatry professor and director of the Autism and Communication Disorders Center at the University of Michigan. “But by middle school, a subset of them is literally dumbstruck by anxiety. (snip) Their behavior really doesn’t jibe with what’s expected of girls. And that makes their lives very hard.”"
"At the University of Texas Medical School, Katherine Loveland, a psychiatry professor, recently compared 700 autistic boys and 300 autistic girls and found that while the boys’ “abnormal communications” decreased as I.Q. scores rose, the girls’ did not. “Girls will have more trouble with social networks if they’re having greater difficulty with communication and language,” she says."
"In a new study published in May, a group of German researchers compared 23 high-functioning autistic girls with 23 high-functioning boys between the ages of 5 and 20, matching them for age, I.Q. and autism diagnosis. Parents reported more problems for girls involving peer relations, maturity, social independence and attention."
"The difficulty may continue into adulthood. While some men with Asperger’s marry and have families, women almost never do, psychiatrists observe. A 2004 study by two prominent British researchers, Michael Rutter and Patricia Howlin, followed 68 high-functioning autistics over more than two decades. The group included only seven women, too small a sample to reach solid conclusions about gender differences, Rutter and Howlin caution. But 15 men — 22 percent of the sample — rated “good” or “very good” for educational attainment, employment, relationships and independent living, while no women did. Two women rated “fair,” compared with 11 men, and the other five women were counted as “poor” or “very poor.”"
"Lainhart has been interested in the relationship between autism and depression. In a 1994 paper, Lainhart and John Hopkins researcher Susan Folstein pointed out that despite the 4-to-1 male-female ratio for autism, females made up half the autistic patients with mood disorders described in the medical literature."
"David Skuse, a psychiatry professor at the Institute of Child Health at University College London, has analyzed data from 1,000 children, 700 of them on the autistic spectrum. “Girls with autism are rarely fascinated with numbers and rarely have stores of arcane knowledge, and this is reflected in the interests of females in the general population,” Skuse explains. “The girls are strikingly different from the boys in this respect.”"

PS

The NYTimes.com was the VERY first place I ever registered on the web. Since they switched to certain content being subscription only, it is also the ONLY place on the web where I pay for content. As a registered user of the New York Times for 9 years, I can assure one and all that I have never once gotten so much as a single email from them. Since I became a "paying customer", the only times I hear from them is when my yearly subscription comes due.

To make this crystal clear -- I have presented NAMES, INSTITUTIONS, and even DATES OF RELEVANT RESEARCH so interested parties can FIND the "original peer-reviewed literature." Is that clear? This is a MAP, not the buried treasure where "x" marks the spot. :o) Kiwi 23:40, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

At the risk of repeating myself, I think it's a VERY good idea for a subtopic, and a great article as a discussion piece upon which to base that possibility. But let's not post it on the article? I guess it really isn't suitable? Particularly as it is only freely accessible for 6 more days. It would set a bad precedent we don't need. You obviously have LOADS of WP:RS with which to start a subtopic ANYWAY.--Zeraeph 00:06, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Hi, Zeraeph. My apologies if you felt my comments were directed at you, for they were not. I must admit that I am not totally cognizant of what is a suitable outside link, and I apologize for any ignorance on my part. However, regarding the six days comment, I have, since my last post, found active links to articles about various unusual child mental health issues from a few years ago, still active and available without any cost.
None of the ones I rapidly browsed, though, had the vast amount of original research referenced as this one did, but other old good articles regarding other childhood mental illnesses that I have posted to support groups in the past are still active. Maybe mental health is an area the Times likes to keep available. PR stuff?
Anyway, did not want my comments to feel personally directed for they were not. I knew that I would have dozens in the next few days feel that I was trying to stuff a lot of half-baked opinion down the throats of this person or the next, so I wanted to spell out my original intent - which was as you yourself fully understood. I am glad that you see that this COULD be a valid subtopic and I truly hope someone with the time and interest finds my subtopic on these talk pages. Kiwi 00:29, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Nothing to apologise for. It's a really good idea for a subtopic and a really good discussion piece. The trouble with popular journalism is that they sometimes say the dippiest things, even when it is otherwise a good article...for instance that article refers to "Classic Autism", as if bit were a recognised condition when it is, in fact a condition that doesn't actually exist! MUCH better to stick to peer reviewed sources... --Zeraeph 00:53, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Not only does Bazelon refer to "classic autism", but she defines the term in a way that I've never seen before (she defines it to mean "autism with mental retardation"), and then she confuses "classic autism" with ASD. Bazelon's estimate of 140,000 U.S. girls with autism is derived by dividing an estimate of the number of U.S. children with ASD by a boy-to-girl ratio for "classic autism", which is an apples-and-oranges error: ASD male-to-female ratios differ from Autism male-to-female ratios which in turn differ from Bazelon-defined "classic autism" ratios. The topic is an important one but I'm afraid I wouldn't trust this piece on the technical details. Anyone who'd like to write this up (I suggest Sociological and cultural aspects of autism as a good home for the writeup) should go to the primary sources as well. I tracked some of them down:

  • Bazelon alludes to PMID 8331044 and PMID 17489810 about sex differences in autism. Other recent research reports include doi:10.1177/1469004703074003 and doi:10.1007/s10803-006-0331-7, with results that don't always agree. As far as I know nobody has published a review in this area to try to make sense of the conflicting results.
  • Bazelon writes about a recent study by Katherine Loveland comparing 700 autistic boys to 300 autistic girls. I couldn't find that study in either Pubmed or Loveland's institution's list of recent abstracts; perhaps it hasn't been published yet.
  • Bazelon alludes to PMID 14982237, PMID 17630015, and PMID 7814308 as well. Autism cites the first one; Conditions comorbid to autism spectrum disorders cites the 2nd one; the last one (which is way older) isn't cited in Wikipedia as far as I know.
  • Bazelon alludes to a study by Skuse with 1000 children. I wasn't able to identify this (perhaps it's not yet published either?) but I admit by this time I was getting tired of checking.

Eubulides 05:55, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

It is completely inappropriate for editors to be substituting their opinions for Bazelon's, even if they believe her opinion is wrong. Rather, find other reliable sources that criticize her argument. It is seems to me that the opposition to this link stems not from concerns about the need for registration, but to the substance of the article. Zeraeph, feel free to rewrite this from an external link into a paragraph with a proper reference. Simply removing it, however, is inappropriate. Nandesuka 16:39, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Newspapers have long been considered a poor source for scientific and medical information on WP. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Examples and (under-development) WP:MEDRS. There are some who consider this the old NPOV vs Scientific POV, but it isn't. The POV might well be the same. It is a question of suitability as a source for an encyclopaedia. There is a long debate on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Reliable sources where a reasonable newspaper article "The Bell Curve" is analysed and IMO found wanting as a source for medical facts on WP.
Eubulides isn't substituting his opinions for Bazelons—he hasn't offered an opinion on the topic. He is merely pointing out a few flaws and pointing towards some further sources for research. The boy/girl ratio thing and the common newspaper technique of citing unpublished results both make me wary of this source.
Journalistic technique demands the author write an article with a point. Therefore, the journalist naturally chooses their sources and shapes their material to make that point. That doesn't tend to make a good source to write a NPOV encyclopaedic article. It may be that all of us here agree with Bazelon's point, I don't know.
On a more general note: Autism is one of the most poorly reported topics in newspapers. Certainly in the UK, I wouldn't trust them to spell the word. Even the normally reasonable Guardian/Observer disgraced itself recently. Colin°Talk 18:00, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I too was amazed at the July 8 Observer piece: its flaws were much, much worse than Bazelon's. The Observer initially defended the article (!) but to its credit eventually removed the article from its website and published a "clarification", and the Guardian published a scathing review by Ben Goldacre. Still, the Guardian messed up on the subject as recently as July 27, when a summary of the MMR vaccine controversy had a paragraph withdrawn after publication; I guess the reporter had borrowed a paragraph from the retracted July 8 Observer piece without knowing it was retracted. Ouch. Eubulides 06:44, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Instead of removing the reference, I moved it to Sociological and cultural aspects of autism. That is a better home for it, as discussed above. As for the technical issues, Autism cites refereed-journal sources that disagree with Bazelon on some points (e.g., Newschaffer et al. 2007 on the male-to-female ratio for ASD, and Burgess & Gutstein 2007 on whether autistic boys prefer to be alone). The gender issues Bazelon raises are important ones and should be discussed, but Sociological and cultural aspects of autism is a better place for them. Eubulides 18:13, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I removed the "See also" list incorrectly inserted into the top of a section: pls see WP:LAYOUT and {{seealso}}.[1] Also, Sociological and cultural aspects of autism is already linked. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:26, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

My apologies for the incorrect positioning and layout that caused you extra work. Actually, I could not find this particular topic that you saw detected already linked within the autism article. Even used my search page function. Kiwi 00:05, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Do you not see the template at the bottom of the page that links every autism article? You've added the redundant link again. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:06, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, Sandy, if I haven't seen everything now!! No, I was used to seeing templates where everything is listed, one thing above the other - and these set to the right up near the top of article --- But I had no idea these "open-close" things were available. After I look at "External links", I stop reading any further down the page for in the past, there has never been a darned thing down there in English besides the categories listing at the bottom of the page. When did they start using these? And why can't it be placed higher on the page where people would find it? You must have thought me a dunderhead, but I truly had not seen such a thing in my life and would not have conceived of looking for such a thing.
You have to give most of us non-editor types step by step instructions. I only dropped in because I read the article and recognized myself and finally understood myself. And I wanted to share. Kiwi 02:09, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
It's also linked in the lead, right here:
  • Autism affects many parts of the brain, but how this occurs is poorly understood.[1] Parents usually notice warning signs in the first year or two of their child's life. Early intervention may help children gain self-care and social skills, though only a very few of these interventions are supported by scientific studies; there is no cure.[2] With severe autism independent living is unlikely, but with milder autism there are some success stories as adults,[3] and an autistic culture has developed, with some seeking a cure and others believing that autism is simply another way of being.[4]
Per WP:LAYOUT, articles that are already linked in the body are not also added to See also. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, I fixed that by making the 2nd wikilink to Sociological and cultural aspects of autism more obvious. Eubulides 00:47, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Eubulides, you are THE GREATEST!!! Now even a newcomer to this highly evolved complicated topic page can find it (and understand what it means much better than this vague "autistic culture" which I do not think begins to describe the two sub-topics now in development regarding how the radically different manifestations in girls and the often typical behaviors of aspies impact their sociological integration because of their inabilities to fulfil cultural norms and expectations. FABULOUS!! Hope to see more of you and thank you so much. :o) Kiwi 02:09, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

To write subtopic on autism/asperger in females

All the relevant beginning points are here - Talk:Sociological and cultural aspects of autism

On this page, there is also the list of 24 commonly found traits amongst the population of those with autism/Asperger. The list is also waiting to be prepared for insertion of the article page of the above topic. Kiwi 08:24, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

again, I wonder why the index/contents box has not appeared

This is, to me, a mystery - mainly since I don't know how to make one of them. Kiwi 08:37, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I think I've figured out what you mean - the table of contents? That only appears by default when there are more than three sections on the page. There's more detail at the page I've linked. Graham87 11:44, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I need to talk about the changing on the Autism article

My son had autism and attended early intervention and has gotten better from autism when he was 4 1/2 and is currently in 8th grade right now and he is high functioning. I also spoke to numerous P.H,D's about this so I am adding the right information on Autism and I am also upset that the infobox says that autism is a diease because it's not it's not a sickness that you can die from, it's a disorder. You could either have severe autism or autism that you could better from. There was a discover 30-years-ago that people can't get better from autism and most people still think that today. But it's not alway's true as I said earlier - through early interventions could help kid's gain self-care and social skills while other's with severe autism can't get better from it. Autism that is not severe is not named like short-term autism it sometimes is refered to Pervasive Development Disorder - None Others Specified (PDD-NOS). So can someone please add this updated information. Thanks! [2]

The only place the infobox says "disease" in the article is in the string "DiseasesDB", which is the name of a particular database about medical conditions and symptoms; it does not mean that autism is considered to be a disease. The Wiki input "Infobox_Disease" does not necessarily mean that the condition is a disease you can die from; it's just a template whose name is irrelevant to what appears on the reader's screen. That same template is used by hundreds of other articles, including Color blindness to Sunburn, which describe conditions that are not diseases; but it's not a problem since what appears on the user's screen doesn't say "disease" (other than perhaps "DiseasesDB"). The information that you requested is already in the article: early intervention, self-care and social skills in Autism #Treatment, people with severe autism unlikely to have independent lives in Autism #Prognosis, and PDD-NOS in Autism #Classification. Eubulides 01:06, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! But, what about the part on the scientific studies 30 years ago and that people can't get better from it, which people still believe today, which is not true. —Preceding unsigned comment added by AnnieTigerChucky (talk • contribs) 14:20, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not aware of 30-year-old studies saying that people can't get better from autism. If someone can scare up the citations they might be a good thing to add to Autism #History. The mainstream consensus nowadays is that there is no cure but that early intervention can help, which I think is what you're trying to say. This point is made in Autism #Treatment and Autism #Prognosis as well as in the 3rd paragraph of the lead. Eubulides 16:00, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

There already IS an "Autistic culture" topic - since Spring 2006

I followed a link on the autism topic page and discovered this fact. Wikipedia:Notice_board_for_autism-related_topics#Autism-related_alerts And in reading the Autistic culture article, it is clear that topic is totally and completely about the community of support that has grown up around autistic culture. It is far different and not at all in harmony with the new topic, Sociological and cultural aspects of autism which is a sociology topic that deals with how the behavioral aspects of autism impacts sociological and cultural integration.

I hope that Autism topic and Asperger syndrome topic are now able to have an entry that indicates the scope of this new topic. It seems the original sentence that was switched from an Autistic culture link can be corrected. Then that sentence makes sense again. Kiwi 02:59, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Autistic culture is mostly an unsourced essay, should probably be merged and deleted, and needs no link in this article, IMO. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:14, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Oh, after getting down to Autistic culture#References, I certainly see the problems you are speaking of, Sandy. Five or more of the references are just to other autistic articles. I'm not too familiar with many of the issues, but looking at the Template you pointed out to me, I can see that many of these subtopics already have their own topics.
In that article, thought, I see a few sections that could definitely be imported into Sociological and cultural aspects of autism. Not everything, of course.
But I am uncertain that "History" Autism#History is the place to place a link to this new sociology topic that has nothing to do with history, but everything to do with the unavoidable human needs and drives that render difficult or impossible the autistic/Aspie individual the opportunity to sociologically integrate into the prevailing cultural milieu. This is what leads to most of the depression, loneliness, isolation and unemployability. Do you think the link to this new topic might be relocated to Prognosis Autism#Prognosis? Prognosis is only partially a medical issue. It is an issue every parent and every adult aspie has had to tussle out on their own. Often with dismal results.
I would be willing to identify what seem the most relevant portions of the current shaky Autistic culture topic before it gets nominated for deletion. It is possible Eubulides would be interested, too. What do you think about this? Kiwi 03:43, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
A bit of history first.
Eubulides 05:50, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Eubulides, thank you so much for filling me in about what has, obviously, been a long and problematic evolution of all autistic related topics. On one side, I can certainly see the need for "autistic culture" in terms of being recognized not only as a group as human beings with rights, but also the adoption of what was/is a "medical (formally psychiatric) diagnosis" and and moulding it into a Positive Identity - a uniqueness that celebrates the differences" and educates "normal society" to full understanding and full acceptance. And I also understand the need of the recent origins of Sociological and cultural aspects of autism as these aspects are not exactly of the same "flavour" as that article is.
While I certainly do not have the background or knowledge to contribute to this article or to Asperger's, having lived as a female, child and now adult whom I recognize in this article and who I now recognize (in myself and in my nephew in college) in many of the items in the deleted list (which is why I migrated it).
To whatever limited extent I can help this new topic evolve, I will do so. Thank you again for taking the time to give me an introduction into a tremendously complicated and widely interconnected topic. Kiwi 21:37, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Autism epidemiology

The recent edits to Autism made several nice changes, but I have some qualms about some of them:

  • The following text was removed with the comment being only "removed untrue statement":
Autism's incidence, despite its advantages for assessing risk, is less useful in autism epidemiology, as the disorder starts long before it is diagnosed, and the gap between initiation and diagnosis is influenced by many factors unrelated to risk.
But this cites Newschaffer et al. 2007, a high-quality source. Here is a direct quote from that source:
The most commonly reported measures of autism frequency are point prevalence or period prevalence. Incidence rates, despite their theoretical advantages for studying risk, are of more limited utility in autism epidemiology because not only is autism diagnosis distal to disease initiation but also time between initiation and diagnosis is likely influenced by a wide range of other factors potentially unrelated to risk. Cumulative incidence, however, may be informative for descriptive epidemiologic studies of birth cohorts.
The point is an important one, so if the Autism statement doesn't reflect the source accurately, then let's fix it, not remove it. You can find a more discussion on this issue at Talk:Autism/History as of 2007 July 31 #usefulness of epidemiological statistics.
It is impossible to say in general whether one specific statistical measure is useful or not, it all depends on what purpose you use it for. In the context of that specific article, that deals mostly with causes and risk factors, incidence is less useful than prevalence indeed. But that does not justify including that sentence here. --WS 23:40, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
But the removed text says incidence "is less useful in autism epidemiology". That is, it talks about one particular purpose, not about whether the statistical measure is useful in general, so it addresses the "impossible to say" objection. And the removed text matches the wording of the cited source; Newschaffer et al. say that incident rates "are of more limited utility in autism epidemiology" without limiting their claim to causes and risk factors. So I still don't see why the text was removed. Do you disagree with Newschaffer et al.? or is it that you disagree with the removed paraphrase of their words? If the latter, what would be a more accurate paraphrase? Eubulides 05:10, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
For now I restored the sentence; we can fix its wording later (or remove it, if it really needs to be removed). Eubulides 05:42, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Prevalence estimates for related disorders were removed, using the argument that these statistics belong in Autism spectrum disorders. But these estimates are also useful here, to give readers a feel for how common autism is compared to closely related disorders. There is some dispute about whether Autism should be separate from Asperger's (this is discussed in Autism #Classification) and PDD-NOS is often just autism with a symptom or two missing. So the prevalence estimates for these related disorders are relevant and interesting information here.
These prevalence rates are of course all interesting, but as I said, I think the specific rates of all of them don't belong here. Autism spectrum disorders (which needs some drastic improvements) is the best place to compare rates of the different disorders. --WS 23:43, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
My main point was that the ASD prevalence is highly relevant; I agree "interesting" is secondary. Another reason to include ASD prevalence is that much of Autism talks about ASD when reliable information for autism proper is not available, and including ASD prevalence will give readers a better intuition for how estimates for the narrower syndrome might be. Still another reason, and perhaps the most important one, is that it's all too common for people to get confused about autism prevalence versus ASD prevalence, and we forestall that error here by mentioning both numbers, making it crystal clear that autism is not the same as ASD and the two prevalences should not be confused. The error I'm talking about appeared in a long New York Times piece on Sunday, for example; see #Regarding Autism in Girls above. It's a very common error, I'm afraid. Eubulides 05:10, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
And now that I went back and reread the edit, I see that I misunderstood it; it didn't remove all the text about ASD vs. autism prevalence, just the part that talked about prevalence of PDD-NOS, Asperger's, etc.; plus it removed some duplication about prevalence of autism and ASD. That duplication was indeed irritating so it was good to remove it but for now I put the PDD-NOS etc. part back in. Since most of ASD is PDD-NOS, and PDD-NOS means to some extent "we dunno what it is", I think it's helpful to say PDD-NOS prevalence is relatively large, to make it clear to readers how fuzzy this area is and how the prevalence figures have to be treated with care. Similarly, the dispute about whether Asperger's and autism are distinct means that Asperger's prevalence is relevant. The prevalence of Rett syndrome and childhood disintegrative disorder aren't so relevant, so the text doesn't give them. Eubulides 05:42, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
  • The terminology "real prevalence" was introduced. I don't see why this change is needed. Epidemiology does not have a standard notion for "real prevalence"; there is just "prevalence".
That is mentioned twice more: some of the observed increase in autism in California was real and real changes in autism's prevalence.. I just wanted to make clear the difference between the estimated prevalence and the actual "real" prevalence, as earlier it is discussed that prevalence rates have increased..
Good point about the two "real"s elsewhere. The first one is a paraphrase of someone else's paraphrase of the source, and is too far removed in wording. I reworded it to reflect the source better. The second "real" can go. I made this change to install the fixes. Eubulides 05:10, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
  • The word "warning" was replaced by "the first", resulting in the sentence "Parents usually notice the first signs in the first year or two of their child's life." with the comment "parents don't experience 'warning signs'". But the original sentence didn't say parents experience warning signs; it said they notice them, with the implication (which I thought was a clear one) that they notice them in their children. Perhaps the sentence could be reworded for clarity, but its current version is worse than the earlier one, since it repeats "the first" in a confusing way.
I just don't think the concept "warning sign" is appropriate here. Few parents will have a notion of what a warning sign is, they rather notice some things about their child that make him different. A warning sign sounds more like something a doctor would use. But indeed this could be reworded better. --WS 23:54, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough. The multiple "the first"s grate, though. And the first "the first" is not needed. I removed it. Eubulides 05:10, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I sense that WS is still editing so I'll stay out of the water for a bit until things settle down. WS, thanks for taking a interest in the article; it's always a pleasure to see high-quality editing. Eubulides 23:27, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I hope it gets featured soon. --WS 23:56, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Early diagnosis and intervention

It is mentioned several times in the article that early diagnosis and intervention are important and affects outcome. Is there any evidence for these statements? I couldn't find any myself. Early screening might even be harmful because of the high rate of false-positives at early age. --WS 00:15, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I add Bryson et al. as a citation for that claim, here. Eubulides 01:41, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Screening change strayed from source

Autism #Screening was recently changed, replacing "As delay in evaluation may postpone treatment and affect long-term outcome, any of the following warning signs is reason to have a child evaluated by a specialist immediately:" with "The following signs may be indicative of autism:". I'm afraid this change caused the article to represent its source less accurately. Here is what the original source (Filipek et al. 1999, page 469) says about the signs in question:

The following developmental milestones are nearly universally present by the age indicated. Failure to meet any of these milestones is an absolute indication to proceed with further evaluations. Delay in referral for such testing may delay early diagnosis and treatment and affect the long term outcome

I understand the concern about the use of the word warning so that word should go, but the rest of the original text reflects the source much better than the replacement does.

The trend since 1999 is to be even more alert for early signs of autism, and I expect the next consensus review in this area will reflect this trend; for examples, please see Dover & Le Couteur 2007 PMID 17515625, Landa 2007 PMID 17326115, Barbaresi et al. 2007 PMID 17088521, and Crais et al. 2006 PMID 16941286. I agree that questions remain on the important benefits of intervening particularly early (a point also made in Rutter 2006 PMID 16685186) but the "may" in the original text captures some of that doubt, and if there is to be serious coverage of this particular issue it belongs under "Treatment", not "Screening".

I made these changes to implement the above comments. These changes don't revert to the original version, as they try to address some of the concerns that I sense were underneath the recent edit. Eubulides 18:15, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I looked up a few articles referenced in the Bryson study, and from that I made up that while early diagnosis (as early as <2 years) is possible, but improvements in longterm outcome have only been proven in studies with 4-7 year old children and older. That would mean that at the time the child should have reached the listed developmental milestones, there is still plenty of time for diagnosis and start of treatment, without affecting outcome. However there might be studies that prove the contrary? --WS 21:16, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
The Bryson et al. study is a 2003 review, and so is a bit dated (I'd prefer a more recent high-quality review on this particular topic but don't know of one). The recent trend has definitely been toward earlier diagnosis and intervention. For example, Howard et al. 2005 (PMID 15766629, cited in Autism) reported improvement in outcomes, with average age at treatment program intake of about 31 months (s.d. about 5 months). In the U.S. the average delay between first evaluation by a qualified professional and formal ASD diagnosis is 13 months; see Wiggins et al. 2006 (PMID 16685189, also cited in Autism). If you do the math, you'll see why it's not recommended to wait until after age 24 months to take your possibly-autistic child to the doctor. Eubulides 22:36, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
The study by Howard et shows that treatment is effective even at young age, but it doesn't say anything about long term outcome and neither does it show a benefit of starting treatment early compared to starting at e.g. 4 years. --WS 00:21, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
Correct on both points. However, the Howard et al. study does demonstrate benefits of early intervention, and these benefits are among the most firmly established in the literature. Given the time constraints mentioned above, a parent who wants an autistic child to use the approach demonstrated by Howard et al. will need to take the child to the doctor well before the child's 2nd birthday. Filipek et al. were quite conservative, as they had to be to achieve their paper's unusually wide consensus; I don't see why Autism should be even more conservative than they were. Let's put it this way: does any reliable source contradict Filipek et al., and say that early diagnosis is unimportant? Eubulides 01:23, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
So you agree that it has not been proven that intervention at the ages mentioned in the screening paragraph affects longterm outcome, and this should be removed? --WS 11:00, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree that it has not been proven that intervention at ages 12–24 months affects long-term outcome. But the article does not make this unproven claim, so I don't see any text that needs removing. There is a long temporal gap, for both technical and administrative reasons, between the parents first taking their child to the specialist (the point of the "Screening" section), and the child receiving treatment (the point of the "Treatment" section). This long gap is clearly mentioned in the intervening "Diagnosis" section. I don't think the gap needs to be restated in the "Screening" section; that would just confuse the chronology. For clarity, it's better to keep the sections of the Autism in the same chronological order that parents and children typically go through. Eubulides 15:51, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
It says: As postponing treatment may affect long-term outcome, any of the following signs is reason to have a child evaluated by a specialist without delay:' followed by signs at ages 12-24 months, so at least it suggests that. Btw. the first half of the screening section is not about screening and belongs to the symptoms or diagnosis section. --WS 17:04, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't see the suggestion in that wording, but if you see it can you propose a wording that better represents the cited source? I removed the wording that was unnecessarily duplicative of the symptoms ("Characteristics") section. I don't agree that the remaining wording belongs in "Diagnosis": it's part of a recommendation to parents as to whether more-formal screening should be done, and "Screening" is a better location for it. The "Screening", "Diagnosis", "Treatment", and "Prognosis" sections are ordered temporally, and the initial parent concern comes first temporally. Eubulides 17:50, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations, Eubulides, for restoring a wreck; you can add the star to the article now. If GimmeBot isn't through here to update the talk page and articlehistory tonight, I'll do it manually. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:26, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Cause has not been found

This topic has strong view points on both sides of the fence. Some from a lack of understanding, some from fear and some from frustration because of the complexity of the disorder. Yet it is a disorder of the brain. The most important organ and most misunderstod organ in the human body. This is one reason for the puzzle pieces being a part of almost every logo for Autism. What Autism Is This link has shown in plain simple language what it is and how it affects people. As it says it this and many other articles, the cause has not been found. You can only treat the symptoms and retrain the brain. The earlier you do so the better the chances are. There are lots of cases that site people have been cured of the symptoms like a stroke patient can regain use of his or her arm. ( Just in a different manner.) Some have gone too long to be cured or retrain the brain. Lots of money has been spent to find out what the cause is and is still on top of the main discussion board and will remain to be so until a cause for ASD is found. Jresner 02:33, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Autistic rights movment

many autistics don't want the terms disorder used to descripe this condition. sine the condition has positive effects and some belive to be benificial negitive terms should be removed

the autistic savant Trev_lite —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.170.219.52 (talk) 06:05, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Autism attempts to follow the Wikipedia Manual of Style for medicine-related articles in using careful language to describe medical conditions. The standard medical terminology uses the word "disorder" here; see, for example, the World Health Organization's ICD-10 F84.0. The Autism article has to describe the mainstream medical usage, as that is a core goal of the encyclopedia, but the article attempts as best it can to avoid pejorative words under the constraint of sticking to standard medical terminology. If you can suggest specific places where this goal hasn't been met please let us know here. Eubulides 06:29, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Genetics and immunization changes strayed away from sources

These changes altered the article's text so that it disagreed with its cited sources. Doja & Roberts (PMID 17168158) do not say the epidemiological evidence is "inconclusive"; instead, they write phrases like "overwhelming majority showing no causal association". Sykes & Lamb (PMID 17764594) do not say that the 90% statistic is "probably" an overestimate; they say it "may be overestimated" as well as things like autism being "one of the most heritable neuropsychiatric syndromes"; they use the notion of "probably" for a different statistic (to quote them: "Previous estimates of the number of genes involved are likely to be underestimates"). Nor do Sykes & Lamb say that the problem is that the 90% estimate "does not address the interplay between genetics and vulnerability to environmental factors"; on the contrary, they list environmental factors as a relatively small part of the overall picture (to quote them: "The recent identification of unanticipated levels of structural genetic variation in individuals with autism suggests that the genetic aetiology of autism is likely to be much more complex than previously supposed, caused by a combination of rare and common variants, and involvement of karyotypic and submicroscopic structural variation, together with interaction of variants with each other and with the environment."). Since this topic is controversial, the article needs to keep close to the reliable sources; let's try to avoid bias in our summaries. Eubulides 06:39, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

June 2007 telephone survey

I'm tempted to simply delete this phrase: "A June 2007 telephone survey of about 11,817 households suggests that vaccinated kids have a 2.5 times greater chance than completely unvaccinated kids of developing a neurological disorder . [50]", as the study in question has huge statistical flaws (reviewed here: http://photoninthedarkness.blogspot.com/2007/06/survey-says-nothing.html ) and the researchers have competing financial interests.

While a bit of criticism could balance the statement, I believe such a discussion belongs on MMR_vaccine_controversy instead. Low vaccination coverage associated with the MMR scare has already resulted in several new outbreaks of measles (including deaths) and unbalanced statements based on horribly conducted studies on this issue are grossly irresponsible at best.

Smocking 14:20, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I already deleted it once. A telephone survey is about as unreliable and unscientific as it gets; perhaps useful in politics and other propaganda, but has no place in a medical or scientific article, neither here or at the MMR vaccine controversy issue. It's also redundant, as the topic is already covered. This "survey" is a clear case of ascertainment bias in a biased sample; those who subscribe to this theory respond positively, while everyone else is likely to hang up. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:30, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for removing it. This has probably been discussed before, but given the pervasiveness of pseudoscience, fear-mongering and quackery, it's no surprise to find it on Wikipedia as well. It's not technically vandalism, since the people who make these edits truly believe them to be true and include sources which look reliable to them at first glance. While a different point of view is refreshing now and then, and mostly deserves a place on Wikipedia, it starts to get a bit hazy if it can kill people. Is there a policy page on this? Smocking 16:37, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
There are a lot of policy decisions from ArbCom on pseudoscience, but I'm not sure they specifically apply here. What is really missing—in fact, it's quite a pet peeve of mine lately—is a policy to somehow elevate medical content to the same sort of status enjoyed by biographies of living persons; that is, when content has the potential to harm real people in real life, that content should be held to the very highest standards of sourcing (as is the case on BLPs). We have blatantly, horrificly wrong medical content on Wiki, being spewed across other mirror websites and regularly hitting number one on Google, and that is disgusting. I've been considering launching an initiative in this area for some time, as I am *so* disgusted at the level of medical misinformation on Wikipedia, and the apparent disinterest of the Medicine Projects in doing something about it. The Medicine Projects are ineffectual and disinterested; I suggest this issue needs to be brought to Jimbo's attention and elevated to the same level of importance given to BLPs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:49, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Done; I posted a query to Jimbo. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:58, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Given all the trouble we've been having with BLP, I do not want to start another BLP-style shitfest. On the other hand, the arbitration committee has already given you what you seek [3]: Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Reliable sources require that information included in an article have been published in a reliable source which is identified and potentially available to the reader. What constitutes a reliable source varies with the topic of the article, but in the case of a scientific theory, there is a clear expectation that the sources for the theory itself are reputable textbooks or peer-reviewed journals. Scientific theories promulgated outside these media are not properly verifiable as scientific theories and should not be represented as such.. Medicine is an applied science, and clearly medical articles should rely on sources appropriate for a scientific article. A voodoo poll is not that. Raul654 17:07, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, Raul; that helps, if we can just get better an enforcement (and for that, we need a stronger WP Medicine). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:11, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Concur with Sandy and Raul. A poll is not a good reliable source for this article. The standards for what is deemed reliable vary depending on the topic at hand. For scientific and especially medical articles, we have higher standards and expect peer-reviewed scholarly literature to be used. Also, Exceptional claims require exceptional sources. A telephone poll is anything but exceptionally reliable. --Aude (talk) 17:15, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

This survey does not belong in Autism for the reasons that you mentioned. I don't think MMR vaccine controversy would be a good place for it either; the survey wasn't specific to MMR, and in the U.S. vaccine concerns have mostly centered around thiomersal, not MMR. A better place would be Thiomersal controversy #Rationale for concern, next to the claims that autism is rarer in the Amish community. Eubulides 16:05, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I share this concern, this is exactly the reason I was so dogged in gaining consensus for the wording of WP:V that states "Academic and peer-reviewed publications are highly valued and usually the most reliable sources in areas where they are available, such as history, medicine and science." It is critical that Wikipedia does not misinform on medical matters, legal disclaimers do NOT free us of moral responsibility. Tim Vickers 17:59, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Some random thoughts:

  • I agree there are similarities with WP:BLP. Certainly, we have a similar moral duty.
  • Bad science can appear in respectable journals. Even good science can be interpreted wrongly. For example, extending the results from a small sample to the population as a whole. Newspapers do this all the time. How could we stop WP editors doing the same? Journals like Medical Hypotheses publish utter crap from time to time.[4]
  • There isn't a clear cut-off where you can say "these figures are good; those figures are bad". Policy needs this kind of assurance.
  • WP:BLP will take a respected newspaper as a reliable source. Many of us wouldn't be happy with even that level of WP:RS for medical facts. Therefore, you are asking for a much, much higher level of sourcing to become policy.
  • Based on the trouble Tim had at WP:V, I'd say the chances of WP:MEDRS becoming a guideline are currently slim. The chances of any part of it becoming policy are zero. There are too many editors on WP who oppose science and the medical establishment. They elevate WP:NPOV above WP:V and complain that cutting out the weak sources will deny the minority POV a voice.
  • I think we can see Raul's opinion that good medicine is based on science therefore the ArbCom ruling applies. Others don't equate medicine with science, or else feel the "applied" part of "applied science" means there is scope to consider non-science aspects. The eugenics movement is an example where scientific medicine without a heart or conscience can go badly wrong.
  • Wrt what the Medicine Projects should do: I think we should ask directly. The weekly/fortnightly collaborations clearly aren't churning out FA material on a regular basis. There is too much medical material and too few active participants. Only topics that a championed by an editor with a special interest make it to FA. We should set our sights lower. In addition, perhaps we should have a "litter cleaning" collaboration that works on articles that have become overloaded with rubbish. Having a handful of FAs is all well and good, but I think that WP would be better if we made a general, wider improvement of medical material, and tried to eliminate the "blatantly, horrificly wrong medical content". I'm not saying we should abandon creating/maintaining FAs. But our efforts in that respect should be more targeted and over a longer duration.

Colin°Talk 08:51, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Link: Regarding Aspergian Island

Just a quick note observing the fact that there are no links to the aspie community on here. So, being the biased individual I am, (ha ha) I thought I would add http://www.aspergianisland.com/ as I passed. But, seeing how that isn't possible, I'm sticking it here for people to rave about as they wish.

Hoping this gets supported, Damon Haughton, (former frequenter.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.219.41.130 (talk) 17:05, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Please review WP:EL, WP:RS and WP:NOT. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:11, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Why do Doctors still ignore the physcial causes of Autism?

Modern medicine sees all mental illness deriving only from the brain - primarily from neurotransmitter imbalance and nothing else - the truth is that in many cases there is often an underlining physical cause (eg: infection, celiac disease, etc) and this is often never investigated, and so its no wonder today we are faced with the current tragedy that the Mentally ill die 25 years earlier, on average. Psychiatrist Dr Reading Chris reading knew this and treated hundreds of patients with mental illness including autism and found a common link - infection, celiac disease, auto-immune tendencies and malabsorbtion, after treating patients with dietry modification, antibiotics and nutritional supplementation many patients recovered, yet current day medicine does not accept this. 'Enterocolitis discovered in the majority of children with Autistic spectrum disorders' see GUTandmental illness —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.30.235.237 (talk) 06:02, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

It's not clear what change you're proposing to the article. The topic you mention is briefly addressed in the section Autism #Causes and more extensively in the subarticle sections Causes of autism #Leaky gut syndrome and Causes of autism #Viral infection. Perhaps you can propose specific changes, if any, after reading those sections. Eubulides 06:18, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Choice of words.

I have a real problem with the choice of words here. I have been diagnosed with PDDNOS, and I fully disagree with using terms such as "brain development disorder" and such. I would like to note that i'm in a school for people with autism and ASD and that actually, the people always are suprised when I tell a certain person from my class or myself are autistic (I don't know what word I should use). Also I think that autism isn't some kind of illness, disease, disorder or whatever, it's just a difference which all people have, and of course SOME people will have similarities. Another thing is that most people I know with autism have good marks, do high level education. And believe me my whole family has some sort of "disorder" and we don't see what the difference is. --Vincspenc 19:03, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

There are a couple of things going on here. First, this article uses autism to talk about the classic autistic disorder, which is a different diagnosis from PDD-NOS. Autism typically has more-severe symptoms than PDD-NOS does, and to some extent this explains the difference in choice of words. Second, the article uses standard medical terminology, which currently uses words like "disorder" to describe autism. Recently there has been some effort to rename autism spectrum disorders (a broader term that includes autism, PDD-NOS, and a few other syndromes) to autism spectrum conditions, which would I think be a better term in your view. However, Google Scholar reports that in sources published in 2006 and so far in 2007, the phrase "autism spectrum condition" has 11 hits, but "autism spectrum disorder" has 1,230 hits; so clearly any change in terminology hasn't happened yet in reliable sources. Wikipedia's job is to summarize what reliable sources say, so to some extent I'm afraid the article is stuck with "disorder" unless reliable sources change their wording. That being said, the article should not emphasize "disorder" over and above what reliable sources say, and if you find some instances of overemphasis please let us know. Eubulides 21:48, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Searches don't involve claimed causes?

This change to the article had several problems. In decreasing order of importance:

  • It inserts the phrase "and other epidemics of childhood diseases" which is undoubtedly true but is not supported by the given citation. We should change either the wording or the citation. The former is easier, but if you have a citation obviously we can do the latter.
  • It inserts the phrase "some groups claim" which is (1) again, not supported by the given citations, and (2) is ad hominem language that distracts from the core function of this article. There are indeed controversies about autism, but Controversies in autism is a better place for them.
  • It inserts the phrase "have no basis other than anecdotes", which is not true for all other claimed environmental causes. For example, there is some evidence that exposure to pesticides soon after conception may contribute to autism. That evidence isn't strong enough to make the cut in this article, but you can read about it in Causes of autism #Pesticides.
  • The change log justified the change by saying "the wording is misleading, since the searches don't involve the claimed causes." First, do you have evidence that none of the searches mentioned by Szpir involve any vaccine-based etiology? I'm skeptical. Second, that sentence was meant to refer to environmental causes in general, not just vaccines. I'll reword it to make that clearer.
  • The change overuses "However". For example, it is normally considered bad style to begin two consecutive sentences with "However".
  • It creates the misleading wikilink "[[Measles#Public health|measles]]", where the reader will expect to arrive at Measles but instead will get some paragraph within Measles.

I attempted to fix these problems with this change. Eubulides 23:00, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm kind of uncomfortable with it because some - not all - of the items in the lists have been more-or-less outright disproven - vaccines, heavy metals - and overly-cautious phrasing, like were using, could be misleading and give undue weight to these fringe theories. Adam Cuerden talk 07:03, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
The revised wording was intended to make this point more clearly; does it suffice? For example, for vaccines and heavy metals, the article currently says this:
"… there is overwhelming scientific evidence showing no causal association between the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and autism, and there is no convincing evidence that the vaccine preservative thiomersal helps cause autism …"
which is by design very close to what the reliable source (a recent literature review, PMID 17168158) says. If this wording is overly cautious, what wording would be less-cautious but still well-supported by the source? Eubulides 07:14, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I support Eubulides desire to stick close to our best sources. These may be "fringe theories" from the POV of medical science but to readers of daily newspapers, they appear as an important minority view. That so much money has been spent doing studies to investigate these "fringe theories" testifies to either their importance scientifically (which I doubt) or the wider public heath / reassurance factors. If the language is too aggressively dismissive, then I fear an edit war with the kind of editor who holds science and medicine in poor regard. Colin°Talk 08:40, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, yes, but the information we supply needs to be accurate, and I'm worried that, as it stands, it gives Wikipedia:Undue weight to fringe theories by being oddly, and probably unintentionally, defensive of them. 13:01, 24 September 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Adam Cuerden (talk • contribs)

I also support Eubulides' version; stability on the article is a concern, and Eubulides has done a good job of balancing the need to explain the fringe theories with the need to stay accurate to reliable sources without giving undue weight to the fringe theories. It is a difficult balancing act in a controversial area, and I believe Eubulides hit the target. Adam, perhaps you can suggest a few wording tweaks to make it seem less "unintentionally defensive" of them? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:14, 24 September 2007 (UTC)


This article is actually pretty good, but there's one section that seems to synthesise information to tone down the fringiness of the material.

The paragraph in question reads (as of time of posting:

Although extensive searches are underway for other environmental causes,[46] evidence for them is anecdotal and has not been confirmed by reliable studies.[3] Examples of claimed causes include gastrointestinal or immune system abnormalities, allergies, and the exposure of children to drugs, infection, certain foods,[47] heavy metals, and vaccines. Although there is overwhelming scientific evidence showing no causal association between the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and autism, and there is no convincing evidence that the vaccine preservative thiomersal helps cause autism, parents may first become aware of autistic symptoms in their child around the time of a routine vaccination, and parental concern has led to a decreasing uptake of childhood immunizations and the increasing likelihood of measles outbreaks.[48][49] such as the measles cases in Britain during summer 2007.[50]

"Although extensive searches are underway for other environmental causes," links to a report ([5]) that has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the fringe theories being mentioned in the rest of the paragraph - search that paper for words like "vaccine", "heavy metals" and so on in vain. The second half of that sentence, "evidence for them is anecdotal and has not been confirmed by reliable studies" refers to completely different things. This is misrepresentation of the evidence.

Szpir 2006 does support the cited claim, namely, that extensive searches are underway for other environmental causes. The Szpir citation is not intended to support the claim that vaccines cause autism, and I don't see how the current wording can be interpreted to say that it does support the claim. If there is real confusion here, perhaps you can suggest better wording. Eubulides 20:32, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

There are other problems with this - It's not just that there's "anecdotal evidence that hasn't been confirmed". Let's go through these.

  • "gastrointestinal or immune system abnormalities" I'm guessing this refers to Wakefield and the MMR. Andrew Wakefield is now undergoing prosecution for accepting money from lawyers involved in vaccine cases and creating fraudulent evidence. However, none of the cites mention this, so I can only speculate as to what this is supposed to refer to.
  • "allergies" - None of the cites mentions this, that I can find.
  • That's a subset of "immune system abnormalities" and can also be dropped.
  • "exposure of children to drugs" - Meaningless statement. There's thousands, if not millions of drugs.
  • "infection" - Wakefield again, I think, again, no cites.
  • That's mentioned in Newschaffer et al. in their section "Infection and Immune Dysfunction". Reading it closely, they're talking only about infectious disease, so I'll change "infection" to "infectious disease". Eubulides 20:32, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
  • "certain foods" - Cite given is not about causes of autism, but about changing the diets of already autistic children in an attempt to help them after the fact.
  • Yes, sorry, that wasn't clear. I will change the wording to say that the environmental factors listed "have been claimed to contribute to autism or exacerbate its symptoms, or are of concern". Eubulides 20:32, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
  • "heavy metals" - Crank theorists, notably chelationists. No evidence, all published research is against it except for some studies in non-peer-reviewed fringe journals, like "Medical Hypotheses".
  • Reliable sources disagree with you. For example, Newschaffer et al. (page 247) write "There are a number of environmental exposures, including potential endocrine disruptors such as phthalates and phenols used in plastic products, pesticides, and PBDEs, that have known neurodevelopmental effects, as well as heavy metals that may be important to consider in further risk factor investigations." I'll add this list of factors to the text and cite them. Eubulides 20:32, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
  • "vaccines" - Link disproven. This and the previous one are notable as there are some large parental groups claiming these, and notable cranks like the Geiers making up therapies they offer to the children. But they are NOT science
  • I'm not sure what you are proposing here. Do you intend that the article should not mention the vaccine hypotheses at all? If so, I disagree: these hypotheses are more widely publicized than any other part of this section. These hypotheses deserve some coverage, even if they are incorrect. The article does this, by giving a long sentence (which we'll discuss in the next bullet). Eubulides 20:32, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
  • "there is no convincing evidence that the vaccine preservative thiomersal helps cause autism" Vastly understates the case: thimerosol was removed in vaccines in America in 2002. The rates of autism in the under-5s have not changed since then. Other cites: [6][7]

Adam Cuerden talk 13:27, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

  • Two points. First, are you saying that this article should mention that thiomersal has been removed from almost all childhood vaccines in the U.S.? That might be worth mentioning, though the wording will be a bit tricky: if thiomersal wasn't a problem, why was it removed? Also, why hasn't it been removed from vaccines used outside the U.S. and Europe? Going into a lot of detail about this here seems a bit out of place, but if someone can come up with brief wording along those lines, I wouldn't object. Eubulides 20:32, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Second, the language used to summarize the evidence against the vaccine hypotheses is very carefully worded and closely resembles that taken from the reliable source. It sounds like you want more-aggressive language. If so, please give the language that you want, along with a reliable source that justifies the more-aggressive language. Eubulides 20:32, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

These are good points and I hope we can address them. I'm keen to avoid edits that change the text without apparent support in the sources. Even if the edits produce correct text, once we start deviating from the sources then we are lost. If the text is changed, but the sources aren't, then please use the edit summary to indicate why the new text is closer to the sources (I see Eubulides does this a lot, which is good).

I'm not arguing that the language shouldn't change or in a few areas be less "unintentionally defensive". However, sometimes defensive language is the compromise we must accept. Scientists don't like saying things definitely are or absolutely are not. The FDA-thimerosal article Adam links to says:

The committee concluded that this body of evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism, and that hypotheses generated to date concerning a biological mechanism for such causality are theoretical only.

The "evidence favors rejection" is defensive language. Agressive language says "We totally reject…". The wording "Thimerosal-containing vaccines do not cause autism" is a headline/soundbite that you see in newspaper and article titles. The text within scientific papers is usually more cautious. Look at this news article in the BMJ. You see the difference between the headline and the body text:

The researchers found no convincing evidence that early exposure to the additive in vaccines had any deleterious effect on neurological or psychological outcomes.

Which is surprisingly similar language to this article. Colin°Talk 14:13, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Weel, it's a fair point, but it does seem a bit like mistargeting, because we're writing for a popular medium, not scientists, and this is the only part we slip into defensive language. Adam Cuerden talk 18:02, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
I disagree that this is the only place Autism uses defensive language. It appears in many other places, e.g., "claims that intervention by age 2–3 years is crucial are not substantiated." And even if this were the only place defensive language appears, that still wouldn't mean the article shouldn't use it. If reliable sources use defensive language, the article should too. Eubulides 20:32, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I have attempted to resolve the issues mentioned above with this change. It pretty clearly fixes the "synthesis" issue, since it just runs down the list of concerns in Newschaffer et al., so I've removed that template. It is also intended to fix any remaining POV issues; if there are still remaining concerns please let us know here. Eubulides 20:32, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

That looks pretty good. Sorry to be difficult about this, but we're the third entry if you google autism, and I think that means we have to get this right.

I made a few minor copyedits. "or cause for concern" made that sentence kind of awkward to read, and I added a paragraph break before the discussion of vaccines. Since we discuss vaccines in-depth immediately thereafter, I removed it from the Newschaffer list.

Logic, of course, is that every other item on the list is something that we aren't discussing in detail, so it makes sense to have a clean break before we go into detail about one claimed cause. Adam Cuerden talk 21:53, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Third? You had me wondering for a minute, so I went and checked Google. We're first (as usual); the other two are sponsored links. Glad this is worked out; was surprised to see a POV tag pulled out so fast after discussion had just begun. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:56, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Sorry. I put up the tag, not because I thought it wouldn't be resolved, but just as a temporary warning to any parents reading that it might be slightly misleading. I'd have used a much gentler tag if I knew of one.
Anyway, I will say this: I was worried that it could be misunderstood, but I never thought that it was intentional POV-pushing, or anything like that. A bit of an excess of caution at worst. I probably should have made my concerns clearer, earlier on. Would've saved a lot of time. Adam Cuerden talk 22:02, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
No problem. I should say, though, that Autism now emphasizes possible environmental causes more than it did before this current round of edits started. Autism#Causes now devotes 3 paragraphs to environmental causes rather than 1, and it now mentions several more potential causes. This is likely to lead inexpert readers to assume that there is more to the issue of possible environmental causes than the old version of Autism would have. Also, the last paragraph of the current version is now a bit redundant. No big deal either way, but I propose that we snip a few redundant words from the last paragraph via careful copyediting, and merge the last 3 paragraphs into one paragraph; this can be done without losing any information. Eubulides 23:10, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Media plagiarism of Wikipedia articles

The Daily Sun of Nigeria had an article that plagiarized a considerable amount of text from Autism, without attribution or conformance to the GFDL, in one case even quoting from Autism but crediting the quote to clinical psychologist Okey-Martins Nwokolo, founder and national coordinator of Autism Associates of Nigeria. Is there a Wikipedia category for this sort of thing? Talk:Autism already uses Template:Onlinesource, which generates text saying "This page has been cited as a source by a media organization." Is there/should there be a template for plagiarism by the media as well?

Are the Wikipedia muckymucks interested in this sort of thing? m:Talk:Communications committee perhaps? Or is it too common to worry about?

Here's the news article that plagiarized from Autism. The article's 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th paragraphs all copy text from the then-current version of Autism:

Ejiogu E (2007-08-28). "190,000 kids suffer brain disorder yearly". Daily Sun. Retrieved 2007-09-26. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

I've been through this a ton of times with TS; I have to dig back into my talk page to find the place to report it, but the bottom line is that unless you pursue it yourself, no one else on Wiki will do anything. I've got about three reports in already on TS, and I stopped reporting. The most irritating aspect is people come up with these things, and think *we* plagiarized them. Let me know if you want me to dig up the page for reporting it and the steps you have to go through to try to rectify it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:26, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
For example, scroll down to the Disorders section at http://www.k12academics.com/ Their entire page is plagiarized from Wiki, I reported them eons ago, and unless I lead the charge, nothing will happen. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:30, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Most of what you need to get started is at Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:33, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
The sincerest form of flattery. Tim Vickers 21:40, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Right. Heck, I wrote this page, and they're peddling it for a fee, when I'm just a layperson! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:43, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Fixing-redirects bot went too far

This bot-supplied change had a few good ideas, but most of the changes were unnecessary and make the article harder to edit. Problems fell into the following categories:

  • Many of the changes (for example, replacing "[[autism spectrum disorders]]" with "[[autistic spectrum|autism spectrum disorders]]") replace a wikilink to a redirect with a wikilink to the target of the redirect. But that's not what is wanted here. Currently, Wikipedia does not have a separate page for Autism spectrum disorders, which redirects to Autistic spectrum. But in the future, there may well be a separate page for Autism spectrum disorders; if that occurs, we will want the disorder page, not the spectrum page. There are similar problems with replacing "[[DSM-IV-TR]]" with "[[Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders|DSM-IV-TR]]", "[[diesel exhaust]]" with "[[exhaust gas|diesel exhaust]]", "[[illicit drug]]s" with "[[illegal drug trade|illicit drugs]]", etc.
  • Some of the changes (for example, replacing "[[PDD-NOS|pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS)]]" with "[[pDD not otherwise specified|pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS)]]") introduced bizarre capitalization like "pDD". This doesn't affect the appearance of the page, but it makes things harder on editors.
  • Some of the changes (for example, replacing "[[IQ]]" with "[[Intelligence quotient|IQ]]") introduce long names where the short names are unlikely to change in meaning. This unnecessarily makes the article longer, which makes the editors' job a bit harder.

I don't know what bot was used to generate these changes, but in the future I urge that its results be applied more carefully, as most of the above-mentioned changes unfortunately made the article text a bit worse. I fixed the problem by applying this change. The combination of the bot's change and my change can be found here, which shows that the bot can help improve articles even if most of its suggestions should not be followed. Eubulides 20:25, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

The page Wikipedia:Redirect #Do not change links to redirects that are not broken discourages changing of valid redirects for most of the reasons mentioned above. There was a craze of redirect-bypassing bots about a year ago - there are fewer of them now that the above-linked advice is at Wikipedia:Redirect. Graham87 04:38, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

TELL ME!!!

Hi I'm a sixth grader at Kennett middle school and I'm reaserching Autism for a report and I'm very interested in it and I want to know a lot more. Is there any information you can give me?

visit our school website at www.kcsd.org —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.108.230.104 (talk) 14:04, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Please take a look at Autism#References and Autism#External links. Not all of the references are accessible on the web, but many of them are, and there is a lot of information there. Warning: some of it is heavy going. Eubulides 16:49, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Unsourced material about metal toxicity

This change inserted text about heavy metal toxicity that is not supported by reliable sources. The revised text incorrectly claims that MMR vaccine contains thimerosal; but that vaccine doesn't contain thimerosal, and never has. The revised text also contains a theory that mercury "sinks to the bottom of the vaccine bottle" if the bottle is not shaken well before each usage; I have found this theory on random discussion sites on the Internet but the theory needs to be verified by reliable sources before it can be put into Wikipedia, and even then it belongs in Thimerosal controversy, not here.

The edit summary for the change said "Article needs to show both sides". Autism already discusses both sides of the issue: it mentions both the MMR vaccine controversy and the thiomersal controversy, states parental concern as the source of the controversies, and gives a summary of the scientific evidence. In contrast the revised text badly misstates the scientific consensus by falsely claiming that there are "overwhelming" scientific reports of success stories due to heavy metal detoxification. This is simply not the case: single success stories are not "overwhelming". It's true that there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to support biomedical intervention; many parents who try one or more therapies report some progress, and there are a few well-publicized reports of children who are able to return to mainstream education after treatment, with dramatic improvements in health and well-being. However, this evidence may be confounded by improvements seen in autistic children who grow up without treatment, by the difficulty of verifying reports of improvements, and by the lack of reporting of treatments' negative outcomes. (See pages 9–12 of: Schreibman L (2005). "Critical evaluation of issues in autism". The Science and Fiction of Autism. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674019318. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)) For the evidence to be "overwhelming" you'd need randomized controlled trials that are replicated by different groups; only a very few biological interventions are well supported at this level, and chelation therapy is not one of them. (See "Other controversial approaches to treatment" in: Angley M, Semple S, Hewton C, Paterson F, McKinnon R (2007). "Children and autism—part 2—management with complementary medicines and dietary interventions" (PDF). Aust Fam Physician. 36 (10): 827–30. PMID 17925903.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link))

In controversial areas, the Wikipedia policy is to "fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each", and to "present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties" (see WP:NPOV). In Autism, all controversial facts can and should be backed by a reliable source. The change in question is not only wrong, it is not backed by a reliable source. I've therefore reverted it.

If you feel that the current text does not follow the Wikipedia policy, please discuss the problem in detail on the talk page, as is suggested by the "This is a controversial topic" block at the top of the talk page. It's certainly true that the article can be improved and improvements are welcome. Changes needs to be backed by reliable sources, however. Eubulides 19:53, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Thimerosal has a molecular weight of 404 atomic mass units. However long you leave a solution of this molecule you will not generate a concentration gradient due to gravity. This is simply impossible due to brownian motion. To separate out uranium, an extremely heavy element, you have to spin uranium gas at 1,500 revolutions per second, generating a G-force over 6,000 times that of normal gravity. This just won't happen by itself. Tim Vickers 20:15, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I checked with my Chemistry professor and you are incorrect. Brownian motion is only the fact that molecules which comprise a fluid at it's constant temperature are constantly moving. It only counteracts the gravity of molecules which are similar in weight to the fluid in question, or lessens sepparation due to extreme heat forces. If you pour liquid mercury into a beaker of water, the liquid mercury molecules are neutral atoms which are consistantly moving, but they are moving much slower than the water molecules and will still collect at the bottom. Another possibility that I'm not sure of is the idea that the thimerosol is an ion, in which case it may resist collectively sinking to the bottom based on the electrical gradient of the solution. But here's the thing, the vaccine is basically a cocktail of molecules. If the thimerosal molecule is a positive ion, then if there are other positive ions floating in the solution as spectators, such as the sodium ion, sodium ions will be more collectively at the top of the solution, counteracting the negative electrical gradient of that area while the thimerosal ions still gather at the bottom. If thimerosol is a negative ion, then the same effect will occur with a commonly soliable negative ion in the solution, such as the chlorine ion. Which by the way is known to be insoliable when combined with one particular ion of mercury. Both sodium and chlorine ions are very common in biological systems, including the human body. They form what we know as table salt. In this cocktail and in the human body are multiple points where the thimerosal molecule can become neutralized and sink, sink of its own accord, or allow it's mercury ion component to be attached to another ion and become solidified to likely sink to the bottom. I suggest you consult your local college chemistry professor to confirm or refute this point. The reason Uranium might have difficulty sepparating due to brownian motion is likely because it is radioactive and/or hot. What you are sepparating it out of could have some effect of its own too.Youngidealist 06:37, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm not going to argue with you about this, but thank you for injecting a little humor into my day. As a note to the other editors here the post above contains no less than 12 basic errors and should not be taken in the least seriously. Tim Vickers 16:29, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
I enjoyed that, too :-) Tim, please "consult your local college chemistry professor to confirm or refute this point" :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:36, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, laughing's fun... But I am being serious here and if you're up for it I'd like to see those 12 errors you're talking aboutYoungidealist 16:40, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Show it to your "professor", they'll point them out for you. Tim Vickers 16:42, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Will do, but it should be clear that I'm going one more step further than you were willing to go to make a point by doing so. You really sound more like you are evading the issue.Youngidealist 16:54, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
You are engaging in original research here. Wikipedia is not for original research; see WP:OR. To put this theory in the article we would need at the very least a reliable published source. Eubulides 08:31, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
This is not origional research. It's facts regarding brownian motion and the references as to what brownian motion is need only be mentioned on the page about brownian motion. Why exactly do you call this statement origional research and not Tim's? He didn't have a source mentioned. The claim only needs to be logically possible and something that people are claiming for it to be mentioned. The fact that people are claiming this and that it is possible based on what wikipedia can and does provide regarding chemistry, is grounds for it to be posted as a claim and then allow it to be refuted or confirmed by sources as needed.68.231.200.13 16:15, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
This is not an article about what is "logically possible". It is an article about what is reliably known about autism. There are many, many theories about autism causes that are logically possible (for example, autism is caused by watching TV), but Autism does not have room to cover them all and should not give the unsupported theories undue weight (see WP:UNDUE). Controversies in autism is a better article to talk about controversial theories propounded by unreliable sources. 16:44, 18 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eubulides (talk • contribs)
Yes, and it is reliably known about autism that this claim is logically possible. Mercury toxicity has far more validity than watching TV. For one, mercury toxicity causes neurodevelopmental disorders while autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder. Electromagnetic waves, whatever their wavelength/frequency does not have a history of showing neurodevelopmental disorder at all. What's more, it deserves mentioning because PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT IT. You are not being open minded about the issue. It's a controvercy because people are being convinced. If few were ever convinced, then it might not be mentioned in wikipedia because it's appearantly not enough for the points on here to be true. On another note, there's plenty of room on wikipedia for any and all truth despite your bellyaching. People want information, they go to wikipedia. There's no honest excuse for people to not be able to be directed to the information that they want to hear about except for potential server overload. Creating neutrality on this article is not going to cause that to happen.Youngidealist 17:07, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
We need reliable sources for claims about autism. "PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT IT" is not a reliable source. We can use evidence of that talk as a reliable source for the fact that there is controversy about autism, but that is a different subject: Controversies in autism is the article for that subject. As for your scientific points: let's see some reliable sources, please. (A source for the TV-watching theory can be found in Causes of autism #Television watching.) Eubulides 19:16, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
You are making a big deal from one point of view and denying the reality of what is being talked about. By all means, put all of these points on the article, but do not simply remove all opposing view points. Wikipedia doesn't have a policy for you to determine or assume what is reliable. You simply need sources or to put (citation needed. You don't even seem to care about the inaccuracy of the article before my change was made. I'll look into more detail about both sides, but you need to put the information that is suggested from both sides. Just claiming a few sources to be "reliable" which only make claims, not detailed reports, is not an honest claim to reliability. The topic is very polarized, but wikipedia should not be. Point out the flaws of these claims on the article, but don't pretend that they are completely unsourced or unfounded.Youngidealist 06:37, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for looking into more detail about both sides. While you're looking, and thinking about a proposed change, please bear in mind that it does not suffice to merely have sources. Wikipedia policy is to have reliable sources; see WP:V for the policy. For medical articles such as this one, reliable sources include peer-reviewed scientific publications, preferably high-quality secondary sources such as a review article or specialist textbook from a reputable publisher that is written by an expert in the field and is reviewed by peers or editors. The general idea is that articles on medical topics should reflect the prevailing medical or scientific consensus, and that significant-minority views should be presented in the context of their acceptance by experts in the field. For details please see Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Reliable sources. The above discussion covers several important technical flaws in the proposed change. Eubulides 21:40, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
OK, I will find peer reviewd sources for medical claims, but right now I only want it to be stated that such sources say 'this' and such sources say 'that' the neutrality of what I want to place is that some sources say one thing while others say differently, and I don't like that the article is attempting to govern what sources are reliable or in majority of the medical opinion. You cannot gage medical opinion, especially not by only claiming that the medical opinion of one view is "reliable". The article needs to be revised for neutrality of the subject.Youngidealist 06:37, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Look right here Eubulides, you say "It's true that there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to support biomedical intervention; many parents who try one or more therapies report some progress, and there are a few well-publicized reports of children who are able to return to mainstream education after treatment, with dramatic improvements in health and well-being. However, this evidence may be confounded by improvements seen in autistic children who grow up without treatment, by the difficulty of verifying reports of improvements, and by the lack of reporting of treatments' negative outcomes." How does that make the change completely false or worth removing? You disagree with there being "overwhelming" numbers. Ok, I don't like the word "overwhelming" as it stands now either. It should be stated who's making the claim so that people can decide independently if it's a reliable source. Hell, I'll even use your words exactly and see what you think.Youngidealist 06:37, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Please stop adding unsourced material to this article. Inserting talk-page-discussion-text into the article is also inappropriate. Discuss the changes here, and find some sources to back up the claims. Colin°Talk 08:13, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
How is that "inappropriate"? The current text is already insinuating the claimed cause and Eubuledes is refusing to allow it to be changed, even when it's his own words being used. The current text does not have or need any more of a source to insinuate the claimed cause of metal toxicity, other than the wikipedia itself in the related articles, so why does the change that more clearly states what the claimed cause is need to be sourced further?68.231.200.13 15:59, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
The quoted text is reasonable for Autism therapies#Biomedical interventions, which is a specialized article devoted to the topic of autism treatment. It is not reasonable for Autism#Causes, which is a general article about all issues related to autism, and is also a section that talks about causes, not therapies. There simply isn't enough space in Autism#Causes to talk about all the theories of causation for autism; that section is already too long. Even the specialized subarticle Causes of autism doesn't have enough room for all the theories; it defers most of the heavy lifting to a sub-subarticle Heritability of autism, and it defers the controversial topics to MMR vaccine controversy and Thiomersal controversy. The material added in your change has important technical errors, but even if corrected it would be more appropriate for Thiomersal controversy or for Autism therapies, and is out of place here. Eubulides 08:31, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Eubulides, the quoted text is stating a point about the validity of the possible cause not about therapies. I also didn't extend the section, if anything it's about the same size as it was before. You are defending biased laguage in this article regarding a controvercy. If you were acting honestly, you'd see that it is biased and change the language appropriately in a fashion that doesn't have so many "technical errors" in your opinion, rather than simply revert anything that is done to remove the bias. BTW, why exactly do you hord over so much control of these subjects regarding autism anyway?68.231.200.13 15:59, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
The quoted text that I was talking about is the quote that begins "It's true that there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to support biomedical intervention…". This is a quote about interventions, not about causes. If the article's language is biased, please explain the bias here and propose a changed version here, a changed version that is supported by reliable sources. That is what talk pages are for. The "Causes" section is already too long; growing it (which is what your change did) is an option I'd rather avoid. Of course it is more important to be unbiased and correct than to be short, so if extra words are necessary here then we should add them. But the need for the change needs to be explained. Eubulides 16:53, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Please read the section above regarding reliable sources, and stop inserting speculation and original research into the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:13, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not inserting speculation or origional research. I'm inserting the point that there is speculation and grounds for speculation despite "reliable" research. I've noticed many points here about my ststements being unsourced, yet the controvercy page on thiomerosol has every single quote unsourced! If you have a means of directly refuting without needing to rely on sources, then it should be stated. We know that mercury in thiomerosol is biologically hazardous even according to the "reliable" sources. And while it is openly stated that the opposing view is riddled with a lack of revealing details, I have yet to see anything less from the assumed "reliable" and "convincing" sourcesYoungidealist 16:51, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
The point that "there is speculation" is already in the article, which states "parents may first become aware of autistic symptoms in their child around the time of a routine vaccination, and parental concern has led to a decreasing uptake of childhood immunizations". Perhaps this text could be worded better (suggestions are welcome), but the point is there now. Autism is a featured article and has much higher editorial standards than Thiomersal controversy; we should not let the low standards of the latter cause use to lower the standards of the former. The claim that there is no convincing evidence that thiomersal helps cause autism is backed by a reliable source in the text right now, namely Doja & Roberts 2006. Eubulides 16:58, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Proposed rewrite of "Causes" last 2 paragraphs

Here's a proposed rewrite of the last two paragraphs of Autism#Causes, which takes into account some of the criticisms voiced by Youngidealist in #Unsourced material about metal toxicity above. The idea is to combine the two paragraphs into one, and to give a bit more emphasis to the popular theories that vaccines cause autism.

Although extensive searches are underway for other environmental causes,[5] evidence for them is anecdotal and has not been confirmed by reliable studies.[6] Several other pre- or post-natal environmental factors have been claimed to contribute to autism or exacerbate its symptoms, or may be important to consider in future research. They include certain foods,[7] infectious disease, heavy metals, solvents, diesel exhaust, PCBs, phthalates and phenols used in plastic products, pesticides, brominated flame retardants, alcohol, smoking, illicit drugs, and vaccines.[8] Although parents may first become aware of autistic symptoms in their child around the time of a routine vaccination, and parental concern about vaccines has led to a decreasing uptake of childhood immunizations and an increasing likelihood of measles outbreaks, there is overwhelming scientific evidence showing no causal association between the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and autism, and there is no convincing evidence that the vaccine preservative thiomersal helps cause autism.[9][10]

Eubulides 22:24, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

No further comments, so I applied the change described above. Eubulides 02:23, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Hi, Eubi .. While I don't have the time or energy to edit what you wrote, I did think that the comments on vaccines will lead to more trouble rather than less. Europe took out mercury preservatives ages ao, and have found zero correlation between the presevative and autism, and here in the states, thimeresol has been elimated for a long time, too - with ONLY flu shots still using that preservative.... Yet children, in ever increasing numbers, continue to develop autism. The vaccine issue is SO DEAD it deserves zero mention in this article unless it is to merely point out that it has been removed for years and there is no reason to avoid vaccines. That the studies have been CONCLUSIVE. Then if anyone still wants to thrash it out, point them to the causes article. This "gentle approach" I find unacceptable for an encyclopedia that deals in facts, not appeasement and concern for feelings.
If I missed something in my assessment, I'm sorry I didn't have more time to mush it all out... Kiwi 08:34, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
OK, I did a bit more surgery by merging another paragraph, so what was now 3 paragraphs about environmental causes is now just 1. If you take a look at the changes in the past month you'll see that the overall effect is to deemphasize gastrointestinal or immune system abnormalities and allergies (which aren't really environmental influences anyway). Further proposals for wording changes are welcome. (We can't really say "The vaccine issue is SO DEAD". :-) Eubulides 16:40, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Time to remove the semi protect?

Just a propisition here. I have looked through the previous edits for Autism, and I have found no vandelism from registered users. I am asking for a statement, who thinks its time to let go of the semi protect to see what happens? Javascap 20:05, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean registered users? The semi-protection blocks unregistered users. Is that a typo or have I just missed your meaning? Tim Vickers 20:27, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I believe you have missed my meaning. There is no vandelism from users who are registered, so I dont see why the block still stands. In case you are wondering, I am able to edit it, I am just proposing that due to the lack of vandelism, it should revert to anyone being able to edit it. Javascap 22:42, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I see, but the vandalism was from unregistered users, this was why semi-protection was chosen, have you taken a look at the situation before protection was applied on the 22nd September? Tim Vickers 22:51, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Will dot. 22nd of september. Javascap 19:46, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Rename "Treatment" section title to "Management"?

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (medicine-related articles) #Diseases/disorders/syndromes says that the "Treatment" section could be called "Management" instead. Perhaps it should be given that name? I'm saying this because there's a new high-quality review of autism treatment a.k.a. management out, and its title says "management" rather than "treatment". "Treatment" connotes a cure, or at least a palliation, whereas "management" connotes a recognition that there is no cure, so the title matters. Here's a citation: Myers SM, Johnson CP, Council on Children with Disabilities (2007-10-29). "Management of children with autism spectrum disorders". Pediatrics. doi:10.1542/peds.2007-2362. PMID 17967921. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |laydate= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |laysource= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |laysummary= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) Eubulides 02:10, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Concur, did the same in Tourette syndrome a year ago for the same reason. I argued the same on Asperger syndrome, but I don't recall the outcome there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:12, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Sounds a good idea, also might be a less upsetting subtitle to those who don't consider autism an illness. Tim Vickers 16:22, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments. I renamed it. Eubulides 07:04, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Copyediting issues

I noticed a few areas where this excellent article could get even better. The way it expresses numbers is inconsistent. When I saw two fractions using different styles, one hyphenated and the other unhyphenated within the same sentence, I couldn't leave it alone. Excuse me if this seems trivial, but wouldn't it read better to have some regular standard for when to express numbers as digits and when to write them out? I propose that single digit numbers be expressed digitally and double digit or greater be expressed in written form. Would anyone object to that change? Kroyw 03:46, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Please see WP:MOSNUM; also, I wasn't able to decipher what you had changed ... edit summaries are helpful :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:49, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
I'll go look. All I did was remove a few stray hyphens. Some people overpunctuate. Kroyw 03:51, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Hm, looks like they want us to standardize all fractions. I went for consistency in the other direction. Will fix that first. Thanks for linking. Kroyw 03:53, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
I reinstated all of them, because they were all correct per WP:HYPHEN and WP:MOSNUM. It was really hard to tell what you had changed, since you hadn't provided an edit summary and I couldn't see the small change, but now that I know ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:54, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. I'm relatively new at this. I suppose it's shyness. Kroyw 04:01, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
What's expected, actually? Should I summarize every edit everywhere? Kroyw 04:02, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, it's good practice; I'll scare up a link and put it on your talk page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:03, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
All right. When I gave things a close look it did turn out to mostly comply with that guide. Just a couple of minor things to update. Thank you for the guidance. Kroyw 04:17, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
Good catches! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:22, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Portrait

Why is the man who discovered Asperger syndrome portrayed at the autism article? Unless he discovered both conditions, I don't see the relevance. Kroyw 03:51, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

We use what images we have, and we don't always have a lot of them that meet the Fair Use and other licensing requirements. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:55, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
It seems confusing to include a portrait of a man who discovered a different condition at this article. I read the caption and the passage three times wondering whether he had discovered autism also. Kroyw 04:00, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Eubulides will likely give you a more thorough answer tomorrow. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:02, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Asperger was the first to use the word autism in its modern sense. I changed the caption as follows to try to clarify things a bit. Eubulides 05:18, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Lead image

I tweaked the lead image a bit more, I didn't overwrite the original so if people prefer that version we can revert the changes. Tim Vickers 22:29, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Archive 5Archive 6Archive 7Archive 8Archive 9Archive 10→Archive 15
  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Penn was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Francis was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Howlin was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Gal was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Szpir was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference Rutter was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Christison was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference Newschaffer was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Doja A, Roberts W (2006). "Immunizations and autism: a review of the literature". Can J Neurol Sci. 33 (4): 341–6. PMID 17168158.
  10. ^ Taylor B (2006). "Vaccines and the changing epidemiology of autism". Child Care Health Dev. 32 (5): 511–9. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2214.2006.00655.x. PMID 16919130.
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