3205 Missed and finally found.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

It's a lot easier to react than it is to think.

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A friend sent this link to an article about a 12 year-old kid named Jake, who is well on the way to challenging Stephen Hawking: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011103200369

It's interesting that he was originally diagnosed as borderline autistic, then "upgraded" to Asperger. I wonder if he's really either. It's almost as if he was born into a continuation of a previous life where he had learned mathematical relationships.

I had a very personal reaction to the article. It says that Jake "has been measured at 170 (top of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children)" in mathematical IQ, and that as a toddler, he stopped talking for a year and a half. It's also mentioned that he had periods of regression.

Rather than attempt to "normalize" him, and mainstream him, his parents chose to feed his specific interest and skills.

What hit me:

• My daughter scored 168, general, not specifically math, at age 12. I was not aware until just now that 170 was the top score.
• My daughter was talking in sentences at 10 months. When she realized that her immature pronunciation made it difficult for anyone but her parents to understand her, she suddenly stopped talking. Period. She didn't say another single word until she was a bit over two (but was a master in pantomime, easily conveying even complex ideas), and then suddenly when she started talking again, she had an enormous vocabulary, including four and five syllable words with solid grammar and complex sentence construction.
  
• I noticed early that she would have a period of rapid and amazing learning (she knew colors and numbers at three months. "Which is the blue block?" "Show me five blocks." "Now show me two blocks and three blocks" - and her eyebrows would shoot up and big smile when she realized two and three is five), during which time she didn't grow physically at all, followed by a period of physical growth during which she seemed to find learning anything new to be very difficult. Sort of like Jake's regressions.

My personal reaction after reading the article:

• I noticed the parallels.
• I was horrified.
• I wondered if I had failed her in some way by not offering her opportunities in her interests.
• I tried to remember if there was any area in which she showed an early interest. Um, nothing obvious stands out, not in an academic area, anyway. She just liked to learn things, was hungry for new "experiments" and information about anything.
  
• I was aware that she seemed to have difficulty relating to children her own age. She was comfortable with much older and younger children, and adults, but she wanted to be "in" with kids her own age, but she couldn't seem to relate to them. She couldn't seem to figure out what they were interested in, how their minds worked. (The word "autistic" was so new that most people misheard it and thought it had something to do with artistic ability, and Aspberger's wasn't even on the horizon.)
• If she had any special interest at all, it was in social interaction, and it was the only thing she wasn't very good at.

This article made me feel guilty. Like I should have noticed something important, looked for her special gift, some specific thing that engaged her attention, but I don't know what.

When she was in high school and thinking of future areas of study, I thought she should head for something medical or psychological. She rejected that. I don't know why. Her teachers said she was good in math and science, and that's how she ended up in engineering. For which she was entirely unsuited.

Now the field she's in is medically and psychologically related, with an eastern slant, and she's happy. Her special talent is an ability to "read" people, inside and out, to feel and direct energy flow, and she's rather spectacular at it. Really. You have to know to appreciate it.

And that's what I missed when she was young. Without even realizing it, her father and I kept at a distance anyone she reacted negatively to, even when she was an infant. We learned over and over that she was always always always right.

Believe it or not, I ran The Man past her before I consented to date him. He laughing refers to that evening as "the interview". (Little does he know.) Her take on him was "He's ok. Have fun, Mom. But take everything he says with a grain of salt."

She was so very right.
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1476 Fatty Acids and Autism

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

"A team of New Jersey scientists believes it has found ways to detect biological risk factors for autism through simple urine and blood tests, a discovery that could lead to groundbreaking medical treatment for the neurological disorder.

The team of 16 scientists, mostly drawn from the campuses of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, say their findings, the result of more than two years of study on how the body breaks down fatty acids, could be a breakthrough for what is the fastest-growing developmental disorder in the nation, with no known cause or cure.

The UMDNJ researchers say they have found that children with autism are unable to metabolise key fatty acids which help the body fight inflammation that causes damage to the brain and other organs."

The story, including possible treatments, is at http://www.autismconnect.org/news.asp?section=00010001&itemtype=news&id=6075.

The discovery is of course most interesting to people who have or know people who have autistic children, or autism in their families. Daughter, living in NJ and working with nursery school aged children, is very aware of the rise of rates of autism, especially in NJ. She thinks NJ is toxic (duh?), and is worried about having a child there. I'm slightly worried for future grandchildren.

But my immediate thoughts reading this were about Jay, the part about "children with autism are unable to metabolize key fatty acids which help the body fight inflammation that causes damage to the brain and other organs".

A lab report noted that the tumor seemed to originate in an area of the brain that had suffered an old trauma. Jay had difficulty handling the inflammation resulting from the treatments. The intracanial inflammation and swelling, and the steroids necessary to control it, caused more damage than the radiation or surgeries or even the pressure of the tumor itself.

Late in the battle he was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, which some consider related to autism.

Is it possible that, as in autism, Jay was "unable to metabolize key fatty acids which help the body fight inflammation that causes damage to the brain and other organs"?

Did the tumor happen because of the old injury, and an inability to properly handle it? Could one of those "cocktails" of fatty acids have helped him to avoid the collateral damage of inflammation?

Asperger has been called "the nerd disease". Do brain tumors occur at a higher rate among nerds? Has anyone ever asked? The Albany doctors told me that there is a "brain cancer hot spot" near here, across the river and a bit north of Poughkeepsie, and they could find no unusual environmental factors there. Uh, it's a rural area with a proportionately high population of ex-Evil-Empire employees...

... otherwise known as nerds.

I wonder if any doctor would be interested in this observation?
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