Category: Cause Of Autism

Putting Ideas About the Cause of Autism Into Perspective

5/7/2015

I haven't posted this picture in a while, but as parents and people on the spectrum themselves tend to get inundated with articles sent to them about newly discovered 'causes of autism'. Dealing with this flood of press articles, which are rarely science-based, is intimidating for anyone and it can be a bit bewildering to try to sort through them.

That's why I LOVE this chart! It does a fantastic job of summing up what science has to say about possible correlations (which are not causes, simply things that we see a relationship with, such as science majors) with autism vs what the media has to say. You'll note there's not much of a relationship between the two.

If you're interested in learning more about the cause from a science-minded souce, by the way, I really recommend watching this TED talk which summarizes what we know so far:

I also recommend, however, not focusing on the idea of cause. There are lots of people working on that, but it doesn't do much to help the autistic people who are our friends, relatives, and classmates. Instead, I'd recommend learning how to be a good ally to the autistic people that you know (or should happen to meet in the future). This video does a good job of summing that up.

And if you're interested in reading the article that this chart came from, check it out here.

As always, if you have any questions about autism and science - found an article you don't quite understand or heard a claim that doesn't quite make sense - feel free to contact me and I'm more than happy to help you with it!

-Creigh

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On the Cause of Autism: Curb Your Enthusiasm

6/23/2014

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There's another 'cause of autism' in the news today. Maybe this is the kind of news other people get excited about - news channels never look the other way at something that will grab viewers' attention. Me, though? I wait before I react. The media tends to overblow things (as they do everything, and with them correlation miraculously makes the leap into causation, hence the reason for the quotes) and seriously, every few months it feels like there's a new 'cause of autism'. They are all presented to be 'equally damning evidence'...and yet, they are also all presented as the sole cause.

For this moment, we absolutely know there is at least a strong genetic component to autism, so if it stems from the environment, that claim of a supposed 'sole cause' is not going to be correct no matter what. For the other, there have got to be a hundred correlations that have been studied, each pointing in a hundred different directions. (For instance, men, did you know that your preference in women's curvature could cause your child to be autistic? That's the way the media presented a study...)

There's only so many "we've found the one true cause!"s that one can take before becoming a bit skeptical about the whole matter. I generally wait for there to be a systematic review, or something close to it, before starting to take a proposed 'cause' more seriously. I would recommend others do the same.

Edited to add: Read this article, and then you won't wonder why I'm skeptical when a new 'autism cause' is announced. The author (Emily Willingham, who rocks) put together a list of a lot of the claims that have been linked to autism. As you might imagine, there are a lot of them (I lost count), but Willingham has a sense of humor about them. There is a lot of sarcasm in here (and some mild salty language), this is NOT intended to be taken as evidence supporting any of these claims, simply to show the sheer number of them and, quite the opposite, highlight how ludicrous some of them are. As the claim about refrigerator moms should point out...

-Creigh

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On Autism, Gut Problems, and the Gluten Free Diet

6/1/2014

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I almost didn't post this. The potential to offend people was too high, and I am most definitely not an authority on the subject. But I thought about it and came to the conclusion that I have a whole lot more background in research and statistics and science than many, by virtue of my psychology degree, and was in a position to help others understand where research as to the gluten free diet currently stands. This is not an exhaustive post, it's merely intended to serve as a caution to those familiar with the diet, but not the research and introductory information for those

If you're not aware, the gluten free diet is THE diet in the autism community. Those who believe in the diet believe in its benefits (claims can range anywhere from help with stomach problems, to a cure for autism) with an almost religious fervor. Given that fervor, talking about it is like talking about vaccines - it's a very dangerous thing for me to come out and discuss, because I will inevitably offend people. If you are one of those people, please know that is not my intention, nor is it a reflection of my respect for you or your decision. I write merely to spread information.

Discussing the gluten free diet is difficult for me, because I admit, I don't have a full understanding of all the literature. I have read quite a few studies (straight from the source, not merely blog articles that pick and choose and twist studies merely to support their points), mind you, but I am not an expert in the area. It is even more difficult for me to write here, because it's hard for me to address all the claims made about the gluten free diet, since they are so numerous. So instead, I'll break it down into the four most common claims, and then go into the reasoning/research behind the scenes.

1. Does a gluten free diet cure autism?
No. At this point in time there is no cure for autism.

2. Does gluten cause autism?
No. I'm sure I could go in depth and explain scientific reasons for why it doesn't, but we'll just stick with common sense here. Studies have found symptoms of autism in babies as far back as early infancy - at which point the baby isn't eating anything with gluten.

3. Does the gluten free diet significantly reduce any symptoms of autism?
Maybe, but it's unlikely. Studies disagree here, but the most trustworthy scientific take on this I've found - a Cochrane review - says there's "a lack of evidence to support the use of gluten and/or casein free diet as an effective intervention for persons with autism and also a lack of research on potential harms and disbenefits of such diets." Even without the review, though, between the biases involved and confounding variables, I'm extremely doubtful that there's any causal relationship.

4. Can the gluten free diet help some people with gastrointestinal problems?
Yes. I speak here as someone who is currently on a gluten free diet, as prescribed by my gastroenterologist for gut issues. I can personally attest to it, and there are loads of studies to back this up.

Confounding Variables

Okay, so I mentioned confounding variables in number three as a problem and I may have lost some of you. What is a confounding variable?* Well, in this case we're talking about the third variable problem, which is what happens when an outside variable makes it seem like there might be a causal relationship between two things, when there really isn't. For instance, using statistics, I could make it seem like ice cream causes people to drown. Because, and this is true, as ice cream consumption increases, so do drowning deaths. Does ice cream cause people to drown, though? No, of course not! There's another factor in there - heat. As it gets hotter, people seek relief by eating ice cream...and going swimming. Therefore, while it's true there's a relationship between the two, it isn't causal. There's a third variable, heat, which explains their correlation. This, by the way, is one of the reasons you should always be cautious when you read a headline that declares there's a correlation between ____ and autism, because for reasons such as the third variable problem, correlation does not prove causation.

What is a possible confounding variable in all this autism and gut problems research? Well, the biggest one, which was my automatic thought when I heard about this potential relationship, is anxiety. Anxiety is a highly comorbid problem for autistic people, which is to say that anxiety and autism are related. Anxiety and gut problems are also related. Therefore, you have a potential third variable. Anxiety could be causing these gut problems that we're seeing, as opposed to autism.

Another potential confounding variable is the food restrictions of people on the spectrum. Many are 'picky eaters' who have a very limited diet as a result. A diet inadequate in nutrition can, as Willingham points out, cause the very gut problems that the gluten free diet (for some) seeks to remedy. So, ironically, curtailing someone's diet by eliminating anything with gluten could also be causing harm. For this reason, I highly recommend utilizing a nutritionist if you choose to try the gluten free diet.

Yet another variable, which could help explain the occasional (still not as large as it has been painted) change in some symptoms in some autistic people, but not in all** that some (but again, not all) studies have found is gastrointestinal in nature. After all, if you're in pain and having gastro trouble, and then all of a sudden that pain/discomfort goes away, it's pretty common sense that your behavior is going to improve as well. Teasing out the difference between the two effects is something we have to be careful to do.

Why is it important whether or not gluten causes the dietary issues? Well, we could be focusing on this at the wrong angle. If, as I suspect, anxiety is the culprit, we could be focusing our attention on interventions to help combat it directly, while preserving dietary variety, which, as I said, is particularly important for picky eaters. Caley swears by anxiety medication for herself, but says we should be focusing even more on teaching people with anxiety techniques to help them cope...which we don't do. If battling anxiety were embraced with the same fervor as the gluten free diet has been, I feel quite certain that autistic people (and their guts) would be better off.

Now, I am not a scientist. I have pretty extensive training in statistics and a fair amount in research methods, which is why I feel more comfortable interpreting these studies than most, but I am definitely not a professional in the field. (Willingham, however, is.) I also have not done as much in-depth research into this issue as I would like and cannot say anything with certainty. The gluten free diet may well work to alleviate certain symptoms of autism, though again, given the weakness of the evidence at the moment, I am doubtful.*** I am fairly confident that it can help with gut problems that many autistic people have, but whether or not it helps on the net, when you factor in potential inadequate nutrition, or whether it helps more than targeting anxiety, I cannot say.

One thing, however, I am absolutely confident about. The gluten free diet is not the miracle 'cure' for autism or even for certain symptoms that it's been painted to be, and if I had an autistic child without obvious gastrointestinal issues, given current evidence, I would not be putting them on this diet.

-Creigh

*I'm simplifying my explanation to the extreme here, so those of you scientists/statisticians, go easy on me.
**Note how many qualifiers I included here. Occasional (as in, not all studies found these changes - I haven't examined the study construction in depth so I can't say if that might have something to do with the discrepancies), subset (as in, only a small sub group of people studied showed any such potential changes), and only some of the symptoms changed and not by huge amounts (as in, it's not a fix for those symptoms).
***I am speaking to the perspective of parents of autistic children who would put them on the GF diet, here. Myself and Caley don't see it as symptoms separate from the person, merely characteristics that autistic people often share, and we don't see them as the problem others do.

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Vaccines and Autism

5/24/2014

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Originally published 5/20/2014

Be patient with me here – this is going to be a long post because these words have been a long time in coming, and I’ll admit that I am absolutely terrified to say them. I have kept my thoughts about vaccines and autismout of the website, where I dared include only one small footnote, and this Facebook page. Not out of lack of desire to talk about it – I’m actually pretty passionate about the subject – but out of fear of being hurt and of hurting others.

I personally know many parents who have differing beliefs from mine on this subject. Yet I have never told them this, because vaccines and autism isn’t any old topic, it’s a subject that divides the autism community like some kind of demilitarized zone. They who dare to broach it are denounced by the opposing side, whichever side that might be. It’s to the point that I’m quite sure if I mentioned my thoughts in person to some of the parents I know, our relationship would be severed. Worse yet, I would have hurt them in saying so, for I would be perceived as questioning their perceptions of reality...and many might even see it as me questioning their parenting.

As a result, I’ve kept relatively quiet about the subject, only discussing it on occasion to either those new to the autism community, who had yet to be polarized, or with those I know outside the community.

Why am I breaking my silence? I had a wakeup call. I was browsing Facebook, as you do, and saw one of my friends had posted an article about a photo shoot of fifteen survivors of meningitis. Many of them were children; all of them had amputated or deformed limbs. I commented on her post, letting her know that this was one of the many reasons I believe vaccines are so important. Melanie messaged me back, telling me that she, too, was a survivor, and drew much of her fervor about the importance of vaccines from her experiences. What she told me made me realize that keeping silent was unconscionable. I’ll let Melanie share her thoughts with you in her own words:

"I believe that I would not be deaf today if vaccines for bacterial meningitis, a serious and life threatening disease, had been available in the 1990s for young children. I was lucky; I’m alive. I bear no other scars, such as amputated limbs or mental illness. Others were not so lucky. In Canada, the occurrence of vaccination preventable strains of meningitis have been more than halved thanks to increased awareness and vaccination programs. However, meningitis continues to affect those who are not vaccinated or are unable to be vaccinated. Recently, Canada approved the Bexsero vaccine, which is the first to protect against meningitis strain B. I will be receiving this vaccine for the benefit of myself, and others. I have friends who are pregnant or recently gave birth, who are afraid to venture outside of their homes in the first measles outbreak in over a decade.

How can this disease, which was virtually expunged in Canada, still be a concern? Meningitis, measles, pertussis, and a host of other “childhood diseases” continue to maim and kill children at alarming rates in less privileged countries. Yet here we are, worrying that vaccines cause autism, cancer {insert a hundred other diseases here}, and turning down potentially lifesaving treatments for our children. Science has established that there is no causal link between vaccines and autism, while the benefits of vaccinations have been proven countless times. My parents would have given anything to prevent me from getting ill. My friends resent being robbed of their sense of security for their unprotected newborns because others are choosing not to vaccinate. While it is your choice to not vaccinate, please be aware of the responsibility you hold and the impact of your decision on others."

You heard her: she’s lucky. Her experience is just one example of what we have to gain from vaccinating our children, and what we have to lose if we refrain.

Now, I can hear protests coming from the other side of the vaccine DMZ already. ‘Her case is different,’ they say. ‘Our problem is with [MMR, vaccine schedules, thimerosol/mercury, fill in the blank].’ Others of you may echo Jenny McCarthy’s sentiments when she said, “If you ask a parent of an autistic child if they want the measles or the autism, we will stand in line for the f--king measles.”

But what McCarthy fails to realize is that vaccines, no matter what schedule they’re given on, which preservatives are contained within, or disease they serve to prevent, DO NOT CAUSE AUTISM.* “The f--king measles,” on the other hand? It can kill people.

The results of contracting vaccine preventable diseases can be disastrous, as you can see in this video of a baby with pertussis, otherwise known as whooping cough, someone sent me to show the dangers inherent in a world where we aren’t vaccinated.

That baby made it. Others, like this sweet baby, whose mother held her in her dying moments, don't.

Babies like this one, and those of Melanie’s friends with newborns too young to be vaccinated rely on something called herd immunity to keep them safe. And all over the world, we are losing that immunity. Because one parent’s ‘individual decision’ to not vaccinate their children suddenly isn’t one parent’s decision if it’s one of many that can cause other children to fall ill. Because of this false dichotomy in which parents believe they’re “choosing” between vaccine preventable diseases and autism.

Now, you may think, as an Autistic person, what does Caley have to say on this topic? She is just as pro-vaccine as I am; perhaps more because her Public Health major has taught her their importance. I say all of this, as a result, with Caley’s full support. She finds it rather offensive, in fact, that some people want to prevent her from being (which is how she sees it) so much that they’d rather expose their children to potential illness. In fact, she was the one who pointed me to the video of the baby with whooping cough, to further emphasize the dangers of avoiding vaccines that she’d learned still more about in her Public Health major. What’s more, she said that measles and polio were well on their way to being extinguished forever, as small pox was. Now, far from receding, the anti-vaccine movement has led to their resurgence.

Listen to Melanie and Caley. The risks of autism due to vaccines have been disproven. But the risks of death, injury, and illness due to vaccine preventable diseases are very real.

A note: I do not seek to convince any people who are adamantly anti-vaccine, those who refer to themselves as anti-vaxxers. If you are one, you’ve heard these words and seen these studies time and time again, and still held on to your belief. More words from me are simply that, words. Instead, I seek only peace and hope that you will not take our disagreement on this subject as reason to devalue the other posts from ASE. Please know, I do not say these words seeking to attack you, and I would greatly appreciate not being attacked in turn. And please, and this comes from all three of us, while it is your right to not vaccinate, please don’t take your unvaccinated children to visit immunocompromised or ill people, or infants too young to be vaccinated. And know that I still have the utmost respect for you, and our disagreement on this subject does not impact that.

If you want to argue with me on the topic of vaccines, that is your right, but I would prefer you do so via private messaging. I say this because I want to keep the comment thread on this particular post free of vitriol, which is pretty bound to happen if we get to arguing. Questions about vaccines and autism, however, are welcome.

*I’m going to link to a WHOLE bunch of studies here. I could link to more, but I think you get the point.
The biggest and latest one is here: a meta-analysis of five studies covering 1.26 million children and another five case-control studies of 9920 children.http://www.forbes.com/sites/emilywillingham/2014/05/15/vaccines-thimerosal-mmr-mercury-not-associated-with-autism/

Articles about still more studies:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/reference/vaccines-and-autism/
http://www.skepticblog.org/2010/09/13/the-long-awaited-cdc-trial-on-thimerosal-and-autism/
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2008/05/12/vaccines_do_not_cause_autism.html
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/when-does-autism-begin/
There are MANY more where those came from, feel free to message or comment with any questions and I’ll try to find a study to address your specific concerns.

-Creigh

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Questions of Cause: Proceed with Caution

10/5/2013

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As promised, here's the second half of my thoughts about discussions of a cause of autism. While in the first half I discussed my concerns about the actual scientific validity of the causes others propose, in this half we'll be talking about the social implications that discussions of a cause can have.

1. Parental Blame and Guilt
Over and over, proposed causes blame mothers for somehow causing their child's autism. My own mom struggled with guilt for a long time over whether something she did during her pregnancy caused my sister's Asperger's, a thought which plagues her even now that my sister's an adult.*

Unfortunately, my mother also was one of many to have had the misfortune of experiencing the explicit blame for their child's autism very early on. When my sister was first diagnosed, the psychologist flat out told my mother that her lack of maternal warmth made my sister autistic. (Even ignoring the fact that this cause was debunked, I'd like to add here that my mother is one of the most loving and affectionate women I know.) My mother is the perfect example of the harm to parents that falsely proposed causes and blame can inflict.

2. Making Money off the Backs of Parents
It really bothers me when everything under the sun is supposedly linked to autism, and miracle 'cures' are offered as a way to fix autism overnight. I see it as snake oil peddlers taking advantage of parents with children on the spectrum. "Want to cure your child's autism?" they'll ask you. "Drink/eat/use this!" They wheedle with stories of other parents who've seen success, and it's pretty broadly implied that you're a 'bad parent' if you don't try (and therefore buy) anything and everything for your child. There is no cure for autism right now, but you wouldn't know it if you looked at the sort of sales going on online.

3. Publicity Seekers
Some people don't do it for the money, so much as the attention to their cause. After all, it's big news whenever something's linked to autism (free publicity!), and people don't seem to look too far checking to see if there is scientific (peer reviewed) evidence for different causes, so it's pretty easy to get away with linking autism to almost anything. So if a person thinks that X is bad and they want publicity for their cause, they might link it to autism in newsletters, websites, books (which also make loads of cash), etc.

4. First, Do No Harm
And speculating about the cause of autism without some serious evidence (I'd like at least two peer reviewed studies before I even started to speculate) can do a lot of harm, because supposed causes lead to actions, and actions based on false evidence can have bad result. There are consequences to every action, and so far all I've seen come of these speculations (on net) is pain. Children have even died because of this. That's not worth any amount of placebo effect.

Conclusion
I am not at all saying or trying to imply here that we shouldn't ever talk about the cause of autism, or try to find it. What I am saying is that we should do so carefully. So the next time you see or hear something about the cause of autism, proceed with caution.

*She shouldn't worry - I told her, as my sister would, that even in the very unlikely event that something she did during her pregnancy contributed somehow (and I really stress how unlikely that would be - there are a lot of studies examining correlations, but you really can't ethically do any causal studies, and I don't know how many of those correlational studies are peer reviewed), my sister would ask her to do it all over again. My sister likes who she is, and has made it clear she wouldn't want to be any other way.

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Why I'm Skeptical of Many Claimed Autism Causes: And You Should Be, Too

8/18/2013

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A few nights ago, I was talking with a family friend about autism. He'd seen the website and wanted to get my feedback about certain thoughts he had about the spectrum. All was going well and I was very happy to be having the conversation...until he brought up something he thought contributed to autism. When he showed me the article, which opens by saying in huge letters "There is a correlation between _____ and autism," I had immediately had to fight a strong negative reaction, which I realized was very much disproportionate to what he'd said and presented. Why did I have that reaction? There are a lot of reasons, which I'll lay out and then elaborate on further.

Thinking about the situation, I realized there were actually two dimensions explaining my reaction, which, accordingly, will be discussed in two posts. The first part - this post - will center on my skepticism of what many sources have to say about autism, especially its cause. The second part will discuss the broader social reasons why I don't always fully agree with the discussions of the cause of autism.

In this post, we'll be focusing on my skepticism with regards to the one source my family friend presented, because to be honest, its flaws and failures and those of many other such articles, books, etc claiming to have discovered the cause of autism. Together we'll go through the important questions and criteria that many published sources claiming proposed causes of autism fail, so that when you're reading on your own, you can through these questions in your head before you even start to entertain the idea that the claim might be true. There are other questions and criteria which you should also use, but this should get a good foundation set for you.

Since I'm attempting to show underlying principles, I don't want people to get side-tracked with the proposed cause presented by the book, so we'll just use ____ to refer to it. I would advise against attempts to determine the proposed cause or book under discussion; I tested this with multiple people and their guesses were consistently wrong (it's a very obscure proposed cause).

The Questions:
1. What is the source?
2. What are the source's sources?
3. What is the claim?
4. How did the author come up with that claim?

1. What is the source?
In this case, the source was a book. We tend to think of books as being reliable and reputable, but they don't have to meet the same rigorous requirements as a journal article. For a journal article, when you're researching you can and should search for those articles which are published, in well respected journals, and have their sources and methodology available for all to see. You may not understand the methodology, but the mere fact that it's posted in the paper for other scientists to critique, replicate, etc is certainly much better evidence towards its credibility than is the fact that it's got a hardcover binding.

Another reason that books aren't as trustworthy as journal articles is that the process of peer review regulates the information that gets published in journals by making it undergo the close scrutiny of experts in whatever field the article is dealing with before it is published. The process isn't perfect, but it's a lot better than just trusting a publisher to do it instead. A publisher of books for mass consumption is looking for a book that will make a splash and lots of sales, which, one might argue, would lead books with sensationalist and attention-getting conclusions to get published more frequently. While sensationalist and accurate aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, they certainly don't make for good bedfellows. The process of peer-review, while it can still be said to look for articles with attention-getting conclusions, has a group of experts check those conclusions for scientific accuracy before it's published. The same cannot be said for a book.

2. What are the source's sources?
At this point, someone who believed in this book might say "Ah-ha! The book cites studies, so your argument fails!" At which point I would have to reply, it's funny you should mention that because there's yet another problem with the book - its own sources, which are case studies (to call them such is generous, but I'm in a generous mood) and flawed studies which never even made it through the peer review process.

The case studies cited by the book are really just some claims by authoritative sounding people. A pediatrician is quoted saying that she thinks that _____ is related to problems in people who aren't on the spectrum, and then _____ is therefore implied to cause problems in people with autism. It also consistently applies observations of problems that doctors, etc have seen in some animal subjects to people on the autism spectrum...despite there being nothing particularly autistic or simulating autism about the animals. In short, they're not good sources.

As for the flawed study, investigation of the wild new claim the study made quickly revealed many serious errors in the study. I can't tell you one without revealing what the subject is, but the other error was that the subjects (animals) involved were extremely mistreated, which would mess up the results of any study. The study was also replicated by another, more reputable, group which found there to be no significant relationship between the two items under investigation. The authors either (a) didn't read the study/methodology, (b) didn't understand it, or (c) read it, knew it was bad, and printed it anyways knowing that readers would be too trusting to look it up themselves. Unfortunately, (c) is all too true. When confronted with a footnote, very few people actually investigate the source. Don't let that person be you - before you believe a source's claims, always investigate its own sources...you never know what you'll find.

3. What is the claim?
Another problem with the claimed cause was the fact that, from the very first page, it seemed to encourage readers to mix up correlation and causation. As I said, on the very first page of the book it said opens by printing in huge letters "There is a correlation between _____ and autism." Ignoring the fact that they didn't even say what type of correlation (Negative or positive? Strong or weak? You'd never know from this splashy claim...and perhaps the author intends it that way) from the very beginning it encourages you to think that is a very strong evidence towards its claim. What it doesn't elaborate on is that correlation doesn't equal causation.

I showed this graph before, but we'll go through it again:

Even for those of you with a statistics background, this graph might initially pass the test, since r=.9971 would lead you to believe that the correlation is very strong (although I'm not sure where this number came from and I don't think the graph actually reflects the supposed correlation). But correlation is not the same as causation, so even if this claim is true, as you can probably guess, that doesn't mean that organic food causes autism (or autism causes organic food).

Also, remember how I said to always check the footnotes? Here's another example of how important that is. When you look up the studies mentioned in the bottom, they don't provide the data given in the graph. The data's made up - the footnotes are just there to make it look official. (Although in real life, organic food consumption over time and autism diagnoses likely do have a positive correlation...but the reason is simply because both have been separately increasing over time.)

It turns out, of course, that this isn't a real claim at all - just something someone made while they were messing around to show the perils of confusing correlation and causation. After reading this, I hope you'll be cautious the next time someone tells you that two things are correlated - yes, that can mean there's a causal relationship, but it can just as easily mean nothing at all.

So, returning to the claim under discussion, the fact that they appear to be presenting "There is a correlation between _____ and autism" as strong, even damning, evidence pointing to a causal relationship between autism and ____ is something you should be incredibly skeptical of - so skeptical, in fact, that it should cause you to regard the entire work with an increased level of scrutiny.

4. How did it come up with that claim?
Not only did it cite bad studies and case studies, and rely on correlation to show causation, but the book's logic for its finale was also very flawed. It says "people on the autism spectrum have ____ problem" and "animals exposed to _____ have the same problem" and jumps to "_____ must cause these symptoms experienced by people on the spectrum!" That proves nothing. To give you an example using that same logic, I can say "parents of newborns are tired" and "animals that exercise a lot are tired" - but if I claimed that "exercise is what causes parents of newborns to be tired" you'd just roll your eyes at me because, as we all know, parents of newborns are probably tired because they don't get much sleep. Likewise, you should roll your eyes at similar claims.

Conclusion
My goal in writing this was not to mock the book nor to mock anyone who has ever believed a source that failed many of these criteria. I've fallen victim to it myself in the past, and have learned my lesson and am happy to pass it on. Especially when a relative (or yourself) is first diagnosed, it's incredibly difficult to sort through all of the information hurtling your way and figure out what is just noise and what is signal. One father of a newly diagnosed child likened it to "trying to drink out of a fire hose." It is my hope that this guide can help you determine which sources are reliable and which are not. Good luck!

And stay tuned for the second half of this blog post, my concerns about the discussion of the cause of autism in society.

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Putting Ideas About the Cause of Autism Into Perspective

On the Cause of Autism: Curb Your Enthusiasm

On Autism, Gut Problems, and the Gluten Free Diet

Vaccines and Autism

Questions of Cause: Proceed with Caution

Why I'm Skeptical of Many Claimed Autism Causes: And You Should Be, Too

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