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23Jan

To most of the general public, autism, more accurately referred to in clinical circles as Autism Spectrum Disorder, or ASD is viewed as a mysterious, even frightening disorder. Popular culture has portrayed the disorder as either a crippling condition that leaves people unable to function in everyday settings, or results in eccentric genius, with an inability to bond meaningfully with others.

The truth, as with most public misconceptions and media portrayals, lies somewhere in the middle. People with ASD are not either doomed to the margins or blessed with genius. As the word “spectrum” implies, those with ASD have a huge range of different symptoms at different intensities. Some with milder forms of ASD may not even know they have the condition, and live their lives simply thinking of themselves as “introverted with a few quirks.” Others may, if the symptoms are severe, require extensive treatment to cope with the world.

But a few people have achieved enormous amounts of success and fame sometimes despite, and sometimes because of, their ASD. Here are a few famous people that have been diagnosed with ASD.

Satoshi Tajiri

While the name itself may not be commonly known in households, the product of this Japanese game developer is globally recognized by the young and young at heart everywhere. Tajiri is most well known for creating Pokemon, the Japanese phenomenon that went worldwide. Pokemon started as a portable videogame for children on the Nintendo Gameboy in 1996 and went on to become a huge hit all over the planet.

Over 20 years later, Pokemon continues to be a massive phenomenon, both for a new generation of children and for adults that still enthusiastically embrace the idea of collecting cute creatures for fights and duels. Tajiri has publicly admitted his autism diagnosis but prefers not to talk about it in depth, preferring to let his work do the talking.

Temple Grandin

In some circles, Temple Grandin is widely regarded as both a respected female scholar and writer. She is a professor at Colorado State University for Animal Science but has also authored many books on topics such as handling livestock and dealing with ASD. She is a very prominent advocate for ASD, having been diagnosed early in her life with the condition.

She did not speak until she was four years old, and her ASD was severe enough that, at the time, in the 1950s, her parents were advised she should be institutionalized. Her family did not follow that advice and allowed her to grow and develop without the obstacles of 20th century, pre-ASD treatment methods. Today she has made great strides both professionally and helping to educate the public about ASD.

Susan Boyle

She was once just another average Scottish woman until her stunning debut at the Britain’s Got Talent reality TV show. Susan Boyle’s average appearance belied an incredibly powerful singing voice that, until 2012, had gone completely undiscovered. After that debut, she went on to a professional career and, in less than ten years, has already sold over 14 million albums worldwide.

Susan Boyle, however, was also officially diagnosed during her life with Asperger’s Syndrome, one of the four old classes of autism until modern medical diagnoses did away with dividing ASD into different categories. As with many people with ASD, Boyle finds it occasionally difficult to cope with people and is happiest pursuing her interests, which in this case, include singing.

Sir Anthony Hopkins

One of the most revered “elder statesmen” of acting today, Anthony Hopkins is such a talented actor that he eventually received a knighthood in 1993 for his service to the arts. Hopkins is probably best known for his role as the cannibalistic psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter in a widely-acclaimed performance in the movie Silence of the Lambs.

Hopkins, however, is also another celebrity diagnosed with, at the time, what would have been classified as Asperger’s Syndrome. He was not diagnosed until much later in life and, as a result, had a difficult childhood. He was treated poorly by peers, had trouble keeping grades up, and his inability to understand social interactions led to frustration and even substance addiction to cope.

Greta Thunberg

Perhaps the most famous person with ASD in the world right now is also one of the youngest. Greta Thunberg, a teenager from Sweden, is only 17 years old but has already become a Time “Person of the Year,” traveled the world advocating for fighting climate change, and has given fiery, angry speeches to no less than the entire United Nations. She is one of the few 17-year-old girls that rich, powerful men fear and want to stop, because of her powerful messaging.

She was also diagnosed early in life with ASD, but she refers to it as her “superpower,” and claims that it is because of her ASD, and her inability to comply with conventional social expectations, telling people what they want to hear, that she can move ahead and tell people what they need to hear.

14Jan

Autism, which today is clinically known as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), is one of the more complex and largely still unknown conditions in medical science today. It is a disorder with so many symptoms, in a broad range of intensities, that for centuries, it was not even properly recognized as a distinct condition. In past years, some forms of ASD were misdiagnosed as schizophrenia, because of some behavioral similarities and the fact that some ASD patients did respond positively to some schizophrenic treatments like prescribing antipsychotic medication.

Today, ASD understanding has improved, but the knowledge we have of the disorder is far from complete. Over the decades, many iterations of our understanding of ASD have come and gone. This has left some people confused as to the exact state of an ASD diagnosis since many are now outdated and no longer medically classified in such a way. All ASD patients today, for example, are diagnosed on “the spectrum.” There is no longer any distinct classification such as one ASD patient having Asperger’s Syndrome, while another has Childhood Disintegration Disorder.

One of these classifications that are no longer used is Atypical Autism, and there are many good reasons for that.

The Early Classifications

There is one medical document that is often considered a central source for global medical references, and that is the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The DSM, as it is more conveniently referred to, has been a touchstone of American mental health knowledge and reference since 1952. It is a “living document” in the sense that it is periodically updated to reflect discoveries, treatments and developments in the mental health medical space. So, the first edition of the text used is now referred to as “DSM-I.”

It was only in the 1980s, with the introduction of DSM-III, that ASD was given a distinct classification. However, unlike the current system, which defines ASD as one condition with a spectrum of different symptoms at different intensities, the DSM-III text created four different classifications for ASD and then tried to fit ASD patients into each of these categories. Atypical Autism was one of these four categories.

What Was Atypical Autism?

Atypical Autism, under DSM-III was not clinically referred to with this term. The technical term for it was Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified, or PDD-NOS. As the name indicates, PDD-NOS was a “miscellaneous” category where those diagnosed with autism who didn’t fall into the other three categories would go. Asperger’s Syndrome was the first category and considered the “mildest and high functioning.”

The other categories, “Classic Autism” and “Childhood Disintegration Disorder,” were considered more severe. This meant people with ASD symptoms more severe than Asperger’s, but milder than Classic or CDD went into the PDD-NOS category, which quickly showed how inadequate a four-class category system was as more and more people failed to fit into the other three categories neatly.

The symptoms of people formerly classed as having PDD-NOS included:

Anomalous/Unusual Social Interactions

This was difficult to categorize since so many potential symptoms could be included, but in general, if a child experienced difficulty smoothly socializing with other children, and it was due to specific behaviors, such as unprovoked hostility, or unwillingness to speak, these fell into the category.

Linguistic/Communication Issues

Those with PDD-NOS in the past were also characterized by having communication deficits that made it difficult for them to be understood by others. This may have manifested as delayed communication development, or other anomalies, such as speaking without inflection and sounding like a robot.

Repeating Actions

Like other former categories of autism, PDD-NOS also included symptoms of repetitive motions or behaviors. Repeating certain gestures, actions, or words would often be a soothing activity in times of stress. However, there was little discretion about when these repeating behaviors would occur, which could be interpreted as inappropriate given the timing and circumstance.

Atypical Sensory Experience

This can be difficult to diagnose properly since an objective measurement is difficult. Atypical sensory experience means people formerly diagnosed with PDD-NOS may have apprehended their senses in ways that differ from those without the condition. Colors, for example, may look different, smells may be stronger or weaker, the sensation of touch may feel different.

The New Classification

By the 21st century, it was apparent that trying to fit the huge variance of autism symptoms into four categories wasn’t working as accurately as envisioned. In 2013, with DSM-IV, the four categories of autism were discarded. We now operate on a single system of Autism Spectrum Disorder, where individuals are diagnosed as being “on the spectrum.” From there, a more in-depth diagnosis is made to catalog and diagnose the specific symptoms and then treat each person in a customized, personalized manner that suits their needs, rather than classing them as Category 1 or Category 4 and using only treatments specific to that category. ASD is far more complex than that and requires a nuanced treatment strategy.

12Nov

Autism today is better known as autism spectrum disorder or ASD. It’s a medical condition that, unfortunately, currently has no known cure, although there are a variety of different treatments available to help manage the many different symptoms that ASD diagnosed patients may display. The one thing that is largely in agreement is that ASD exhibits behavioral symptoms primarily, and so can have an effect on how easy or challenging it is for those diagnosed with the condition to interact comfortably with others.

As the name indicates, ASD has a broad “spectrum” of different behavioral symptoms, and these symptoms can occur at various intensities. This has, in the past, made correctly diagnosing ASD so complex that it wasn’t until the 1980s that ASD was even recognized as its own distinct medical condition. Before this change, ASD was diagnosed as some specific illnesses and even mistaken as a form of schizophrenia, since some types of ASD responded to the use of antipsychotic medication.

Working With Groups

Today, ASD is now recognized as a series of symptoms, and people are diagnosed and treated according to their individual symptoms, but before this modern interpretation, ASD was originally, in the 1980s, broken up into four subtypes of autism.

Adults today are likely to recognize some of these terms as they were used extensively in both the news and in fiction, such as film. It was only 2013 that the current interpretation of a single disorder with multiple symptoms was adopted. Most people will be at least passingly familiar with some of the terms previously in use.

Asperger’s Syndrome

Thanks to fiction and the media, Asperger’s is one of the most well-known classifications of ASD and, to this day, is still in informal use, even if the actual medical designation has been abandoned. Greta Thunberg, the famous 16-year-old environmentalist, is one of the most famous people in the world right now who still invokes the term “Asperger’s Syndrome” to describe herself.

In one sense, Asperger’s is often regarded as the “desirable” or even “fashionable” form of ASD that people want to have, and some people still make unfounded claims about having it. Asperger’s was, during its time, considered a “high functioning” form of ASD, and was often associated with people who had “eccentric” or “quirky” personalities, but were also often considered brilliant due to the hyper-focus and increased powers of concentration Asperger’s could potentially leave as a side-effect of the condition. People legitimately diagnosed with Asperger’s would sometimes go decades without a professional medical diagnosis, because the symptoms could be so mild that some people thought of themselves as just “introverted,” or draining to interact with people, rather than having a medical condition.

Pervasive Developmental Disorder—Not Otherwise Specified

The previous ASD classification system diagnosed people into four groups based on the severity of the symptoms they had, but it was the second, more serious classification that started to show some of the cracks in the original diagnostic methodology. Known as Pervasive Developmental Disorder—Not Otherwise Specified, or PDD-NOS, this was considered more serious than Asperger’s and could leave people with real difficulties interacting with others.

However, as the name implies, “not otherwise specified” made PDD-NOS a “miscellaneous” category that just about anything that didn’t fit the other three categories would fall into. While Aspergers and “classic autistic disorder” had a small range of very simple, easy to categorize symptoms, many other diagnoses only partially fulfilled these other categories, and so, due to not completely fulfilling them, would fall into the PDD-NOS category, thus causing many diagnostic headaches. While poor adaptive behavior, difficulty responding to changes in routine, and language developmental issues were part of PDD-NOS, many other symptoms also fell into this category.

Autistic Disorder

Autistic disorder was also commonly referred to as “classic autism,” and this more extreme variant was often the subject of media portrayal thanks to its many unique symptoms. The movie Rain Man, for example, is one of the most famous film renditions of classic autism, with the extreme degeneration of normal interactions, the emphasis on repetitive behaviors, and the subsequent “side-effect” of an ability to focus or perform complex mental operations.

Autistic disorder is the third category in severity, also required much more intensive treatment. Focused therapy and sometimes even the use of medication were advocated for people in this range.

Childhood Disintegrative Disorder

The most severe form of ASD under the older diagnostic system was often, for parents, also the most frightening. A chief component of Childhood Disintegrative Disorder is a regression. That is, the child would appear to be developing normally, learning speech, advancing hand-eye coordination, then stop, and reverse the process, becoming unable to talk or perform activities that used to be easy. CDD could occur between the ages of 2-4 years.

This condition was so severe that sometimes the use of antipsychotics or anticonvulsants were advised. Basic tasks like being able to eat, or put on shoes would be beyond children diagnosed with this condition.

29Oct

If you’re not a medical expert, then the world of diseases, disorders, and other medical conditions are both complex and confusing. While it is easy to follow directions from a medical expert when it comes to treating certain types of medical conditions, the understanding of what a particular condition is, how it works, and arriving at the best strategy for curing or managing a condition all require years of hard work on the part of medical professionals to attain the high level of proficiency and expertise required. Beyond that, however, decades of rigorous medical research are required to generate the data that medical experts can reliably use and refer to when it comes to diagnosing and treating medical conditions.

However, the understanding that doctors have of the entire range of possible medical conditions and ailments is far from complete. There are still plenty of conditions for which research is still ongoing. There’s no cure for cancer, for example, and autism spectrum disorder is still being researched, with discoveries and changes to evaluation and diagnosis still occurring even in recent years.

So what is ASD? How does it affect the people that have it? What can be done about it?

The Autism Factor

Autism Spectrum Disorder, or ASD, is a neurophysiological condition. This means that it combines elements of physical symptoms, neural—or nerve-related—conditions, and conditions for a complex “mix” of different symptoms. ASD does have some physical symptoms. For example, one common symptom often accompanying other ASD symptoms are gastrointestinal, or digestive issues.

However, most of the symptoms that define ASD are behavioral. Where other conditions have physical effects, such as a heart condition that puts people’s cardio health at risk, or diabetes, which affects blood sugar levels, ASD’s most visible are on the ways people behave. Someone with ASD may, for example, be unable to maintain eye contact when speaking, or have an insistence of performing actions in a very specific, detailed way, with little tolerance for disrupting the established routine, resulting in irritation, or even hostility should such a disruption occur.

This has presented some real challenges for the treatment of ASD, especially since it created obstacles for the most important step of any treatment, accurate diagnosis.

The Spectrum Of Symptoms

It was not until the 1980s that formal medical texts finally recognized ASD as a distinct medical condition with its own class of diagnosis and treatment. Before the 1980s, many misdiagnoses of ASD occurred regularly because there were so many symptoms that it took some time for medical experts to realize they were all tied into a single condition. This is why, for example, Asperger’s Syndrome was known for decades, but only in the 1980s was it finally associated with ASD, as opposed to being a unique condition by itself.

In the same way, some of the more severe ASD symptoms often required medication, like antipsychotics. As a result of this response to antipsychotic medication, some ASD patients were misdiagnosed as people with schizophrenia and didn’t receive appropriate treatment for their condition, despite the antipsychotics repressing some of the more extreme symptoms.

When it was finally realized that ASD had a variety of symptoms at a huge range of intensities, this is when more focused and accurate diagnoses became possible. At first, ASD was broken into four categories according to severity, starting with Asperger’s syndrome at the “high functioning” end, and Childhood Disintegrative Disorder at the severe, low functioning end.

Today, however, the four general categories have been removed, and ASD is considered a single condition, where the most important process is diagnosing each symptom on an individual basis, and then treating that person accordingly.

Managing ASD

ASD is not a disease, so it can’t be “cleared up” with an antibiotic the way catching pneumonia can. It is a condition, like diabetes, or a heart condition, where adjustments have to be made to lifestyle, and certain precautions are taken to keep the symptoms manageable.

In the case of ASD, the type of treatment for symptom management depends mostly on the symptoms displayed and the severity of those symptoms. On the mildest end, people who would formerly have been classified as having Asperger’s Syndrome may require no medical treatment at all, as their symptoms result in behavior that is regarded as introverted or eccentric.

On the other side of the equation, some people may be unable to maintain eye contact when speaking or speak in a flat, monotone, robotic voice, or even be unable to perform normal tasks like eat food properly or tie shoes. In these cases, some behavioral therapy for training and self-regulation may be required at first to get these patients to perform normal, daily activities.

In other cases, some medication or other medical treatment may be advised. Antipsychotics are recommended for violent behavior, while stem cell therapy has been showing promise in treating some aspects of ASD, such as hostility or attention deficit.

22Sep

Famous Personalities With Autism

Autism or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has often been misunderstood throughout human history. In fact, it wasn’t until the 1980s that ASD was even recognized as its own unique condition. Before that, medical science had incorrectly interpreted ASD as a unique form of schizophrenia, and so many people that could have received better, more effective treatment, did not due to this misdiagnosis.

However, ASD has some unexpected expressions of its different symptoms that can sometimes make a difference in perception, or an increased ability to focus, and turn these symptoms into talents that allow some ASD patients to excel. Some of the people that world admires the most are diagnosed with ASD, and that condition can, in part, play a role in their talent and success. Here are just a few of the famous people in our culture—and throughout history—that have taken their condition and used it to their advantage, not their detriment.

Glenn Gould

While there was no formal diagnosis, since he lived and performed before the current understanding of ASD came to the fore, one of Canada’s most famous contemporary musicians is now strongly by current medical experts of having ASD, were he to be diagnosed today.

One of the traits of ASD can be an obsession with maintaining a routine. Things that disrupt an ordered routine can be extremely stressful for certain types of ASD patients. Gould showed many typical ASD symptoms, such as his poor receptivity to performing with new instruments, in new venues. His physical symptoms are also what makes experts suspect he was on the spectrum and he showed classic mannerisms, such as rocking back and forth while he played, a very common behavior for people with ASD. Of course, this same ability to focus on things other people might not also make him one of the more accomplished musicians of his day.

Sir Anthony Hopkins

Perhaps one of the most celebrated “elder statesmen” of British acting talent alive today, Sir Anthony Hopkins has been clinically diagnosed as being on the spectrum. Before the new classification system that condensed all the different categories in just ASD, Hopkins was originally diagnosed as having Asperger’s Syndrome, which, in the old system, was considered a “higher functioning” form of autism.

In Hopkin’s case, his ASD let to a focus on the unusual details of the characters he played, as well as a very intense, distinct style of performance that could, under the right conditions, be perceived as abnormal and disturbing. Of course, his most famous role as the brilliant, but psychotic criminal Dr. Hannibal Lector in The Silence of the Lambs is now revered to this day for its off-kilter delivery.

Kim Peek

When most people think of ASD, one of the most famous performances of Dustin Hoffman, in the movie Rain Man comes to mind. However, Dustin Hoffman’s performance wasn’t just something he made up. The inspiration for the Rain Man movie came when, in the 1980s, screenwriter Barry Morrow met a man named Kim Peek in Arlington, Texas.

Peek, as a result of ASD, had extreme difficulty interacting with people in normal social settings, and struggled with everyday activities, such as buttoning up a shirt. However, he also had an astounding capacity for memory and had was capable of memorizing up to 12000 books that he could quote, word for word.

Tom Wiggins

This blind musician from the 19th century was notable not just for being a famous black performer during a more prejudiced century, but many medical professionals today speculate that his talent may have, in some capacity, be a result of having ASD.

“Blind Tom Wiggins” as he was known, had an unusual talent that landed him with the nickname “the human parrot.” He could hear any song just once and then be able to play it precisely on a piano. His most famous trick, however, was his ability to play three songs simultaneously, once again, a side-effect of the differing perception and ability to focus that is sometimes characteristic of ASD.

Courtney Love

While she is most famous for being the wife of revered 90s grunge music icon Kurt Cobain of the band Nirvana, Courtney Love is also the lead singer in her own band, Hole. She is also, however, a talented musical celebrity that has, like many before her, found a way to cope with ASD through music.

Courtney Love was diagnosed in an earlier period with Asperger’s Syndrome, putting her, once again, in the now-outdated “high functioning” category. Like many people classified as such, she is introverted, has a difficult time casually interacting with others in the way most people do. However, she is also able to perceive things and concentrate on areas of interest differently and with more intensity, and that has resulted in a successful music career, outside of her famous marriage.

Children boys girls fence
18Sep

The condition called autism, which today is more often referred to by specialists as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has had a very turbulent journey over the years. Medical science has not been quick to diagnose this condition, and for many decades, different aspects of ASD were thought to be completely separate disorders by themselves, while other types of ASD weren’t even recognized as disorders.

The most resounding example of this was how, until the 1980s, autism was not even thought of as a distinct medical condition, but was often misdiagnosed as one of the possible symptoms of schizophrenia, resulting in many people throughout the centuries not getting proper medical attention or treatment.

Because of the many different symptoms and intensities of those symptoms, autism is a very complex disorder to both understand and treat. This is one of the reasons why, for many years, there was a classification system in place that tried to categorize the different types of ASD. Atypical Autism was one of these, but what was Atypical Autism, and why is it that it is no longer formally recognized?

The Categorization Years

For American—and ultimately global—medical professionals, one of the “sacred texts” of mental health is the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, more colloquially known as DSM. The DSM publication first went into print in 1952 and became the benchmark that medical experts would use amongst each other, and as a tool of communication and diagnosis for different mental conditions.

It was with the third edition of DSM, known as DSM-III, that autism was finally acknowledged as a distinct condition with its own symptoms, and recommended forms of treatment. When autism was first entered into DSM-III, however, it wasn’t in its current form. It divided autism into separate categories that tried to make distinctions according to the severity of the symptoms diagnosed. On the mild end were “high functioning” autistic patients, often with what was called “Asperger’s Syndrome” during those years, a condition originally thought to be distinct, until it was understood to be a type of autism.

Then there was atypical autism, which took on a host of different symptoms and classifications.

The Miscellaneous Autism

Under DSM-III, atypical autism was formally known as Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified, or PDD-NOS. Asperger’s was considered the “mildest” or least severe category and was “high functioning.” PDD-NOS was a little more severe, and then very severe was “Classic Autism.” On the opposite end, the most severe, “low functioning” disorder was referred to as Childhood Disintegration Disorder.

One issue with PDD-NOS was that it showed the cracks in the categorization system. While experts felt that there were enough common characteristics to divide autistic patients into Asperger’s and Childhood Disintegration Disorder, many patients “fell through the cracks” and had symptoms that didn’t neatly fit into the other categories and were thus, “not otherwise specified.”

The only consistent aspect of the atypical autism classification was that it wasn’t quite as “mild” as Asperger’s. It included symptoms such as:

Atypical/Unusual Social Behavior

One of the chief symptoms of autism, in general, is atypical or unusual social behavior, but if it is more severe and pronounced, it tends to move people out of the Asperger’s category and into atypical autism. If the patient experienced difficulty in socializing, and others commented that the person’s behavior was unusual and abnormal enough to interfere with interactions, it was considered atypical.

Language/Communication Deficit

PDD-NOS was usually associated with communication problems as well. In particular, competence with language, especially conventional speech, could be a problem. This could manifest itself in different ways, such as people having difficulty speaking at all, or speaking in problematic ways, such as an inability to add inflection to words, resulting in all speech coming out flat and monotone, more like a robot than a person.

Repetitive Motions/Behaviors

PDD-NOS was also characterized by having more frequent and/or severe focus on repeated motions and behaviors. The tendency to repeat a motion, such as rock back and forth, or repeat a gesture with hands is characteristics of autism in general.

The Change

As time passed, it became more clear to the medical experts that if more and more patients were being diagnosed as atypical autism because that was far more common—or less restrictive—than the other categories, then that became a diagnostic problem.

That is why, in 2013, with the release of DSM-IV, the four categories of autism were abandoned, and atypical autism, like Asperger’s Syndrome and the other conditions, were “collapsed” into a single diagnostic class, Autism Spectrum Disorder. This meant that now, instead of looking at a few symptoms, and trying to decide which “class” of autism a patient fell into, and then apply treatment based on that class, patients are now diagnosed on the individual symptoms they exhibit, with treatment being based on their individual symptoms along a spectrum, rather than a rigid class system.




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