I feel I can say children born with autism because out of my 6 children 2 have autism.
If autism is only caused by vaccines than why do only 2 out of 6 of my children have it?
Why do children that have never been vaccinated have autism? There has to be more than 1 factor as to why children have autism. It is my belief that the stage is set from conception.Why is it more prevelent in males than females? I have not seen a study saying males are vaccinated 4 times more than females. I am not saying that vaccinations do not play part in this I am saying there could be more than 1 factor as why children have autism. By the way I did not have any shots ever while pregnant. I don't like fish. My last 3 children did have Hep B before leaving the hospital. Everyone has the right to say what they think. The bottom line is everyone writing their thoughts on here have a right to believe what they believe. I have a right to express my concern when regarding my autistic children. I am to busy making sure my children get a proper education to spin my wheels with parents that have a different opinion. You are entitled to your opinion and the best of luck to all of you.

This study provides conclusive evidence that an epidemic of parental insensitivity starting in the 1990's and continuing to grow is responsible for the autism epidemic starting at that time and continuing to grow. It also provides another example of hundreds that NIH is always able, and more than ready, to fund autism research with the proviso that as far its outcome being possibly relevant to the etiology of autism, that it be dreck, like this one.

Tina,

My son was not born with autism. Perhaps yours was, I don't know. But mine was not. So maybe we can start saying "my child" instead of "children" as a group.

My child "developed" autism as a result of something I did, most notably forced him down on a table and gave permission for him to be injected with toxic substances.

That's simply my story, and it might be different than yours.

Henderson,

Your story sounds similar to mine.

My son was born with a low apgar score so I was worried to begin with, but he did develop normally. However, we kept seeing these small set backs along the way.

He got his MMR and the next day seemed to be drunk; stumbling, confused, etc. but I was still naive and did not believe a vaccine could do this.

Two months later, he was in his own world. The contrast between 16 months and 20 months is very dramatic, all recorded on long length video taping. It only worsened after that.

Over 3 years, we worked like crazy to rebuild his language skills, tried to work with attention and pronoun reversal, etc.

But at 5 years, he was given several booster shots at once and his language that was regained became a stream of stutters and stammering, he began having staring spells, started bouncing off the walls hyper and would spin in circles. It was only then that I began to realize what was happening to him.

Today, he has a medical exmption from further vaccination due to a suspicion of mitochondrial dysfunction through the Genetics and Neurology Dept at Children's Hospital.

Our child was not born with autism. She met all of her milestones on time. She started having seizures and then later regressed after vaccines.

Most parents I know and have read about do not believe their children were born with autism. Though there are some that do.

While pregnant, did you have a mercury containing flu shot, Rhogam shot? Do you have analgum fillings or did you consume a lot of mercury-laden fish while pregnant? Does your child have one of the genetic disorders (like fragile x) associated with autism?

Did your newborns receive a Hep B shot before they left the hospital?

I am not asking to be nosy or harrassing or to make you answer.

Develop autism???? I think it would be a great idea for the people performing studies regarding autism to first know what it is!!!
It is uneducated people like this that make things harder for us as parents of autistic children!!!
Children are born with autism and it is nothing we as mothers have done or did not do!!!
I quit a great paying career to be with my autistic children. I do private therapies,many school meetings,and study the laws regarding special education to help my children.
Something I am positive there will never be a study on is how much we as parents sacrafice to help our children BECAUSE WE LOVE THEM SO MUCH!!!!

Colleen,

From your most recent response I can see you meant no harm. But, your comment: "It is saying that a child who is going to develop autism benefits from more verbal interaction from the parent and helps reduce language deficits," supports their theory that the mothers' "engaging" or "teaching" behaviors were a determinant in language growth/loss.

Their conclusion, "Maternal sensitivity at 18 months predicted expressive language growth from age 2 to 3 years among children with emergent ASD only" does not address early intervention, it specifically places the responsibility of language growth on the mothers. I guess you're reading that as - more maternal sensitivity, more language growth. But it also implies, less maternal sensitivity, less language growth. What if you were the mother of a child who lost all language in his/her regression despite all efforts? And despite all interventions, still has a child that struggles to speak?

This paper just gives credence to those who think Bettleheim wasn't so far off the mark.

PS Thank you for your kind comment for my daughter. I am truly happy for you that your son has done so well.

I have a dream.

I'm dreaming of a place where "experts" and "scientists" and "researchers," aided by the authorities, swoop in and remove my children from me because of my lack of "maternal sensitivity."

My "at-risk" (who determines that shit?) child would be in harm's way if my maternal sensitivity meter wasn't above whatever pre-determined measure our Child and Family Services folk decided was appropriate.It's all for the good of the children, of course. It would be abusive otherwise.

Far-fetched? Not with studies like these, people. Are you ready for that?

I have been told that my daughter's recovery is due to the fact that I trained her out of autism. I really love that one to, They don't have a clue you can not train these kids out of autism nor can you prevent it unless you stay out of toxins and don't vaccinate your kid. Early intervention was a joke as well due to the fact the more vaccines I gave my daughter the worse she got. The more the pediatrican told me I was a nervous mother. I believed him what was worse. I did a lot of reading and studying and thanks be to a wonderful DAN doctor and to God my daughter is recovered. not to say she doesn't have issues and has to stay on the protocol. God bless you all.

Donna,

I implied no such thing. Nor would I.

I am one of those parents, too. My child's loss of language skills was not my fault either, nor would I blame any parent for their child's loss of language skills.

I had a baby at 40 years old and my first concern was Down Syndrome. I immediately looked up everything I could to learn what I could do to help in early intervention. Would it take away the Down Syndrome? No. Might it help? Maybe.

Thankfully, my daughter was born perfectly healthy. But when I look at this study, I see early intervention as a possible tool to help those children who may be at risk for developing autism. It won't cause the autism if a parent does not use what was inappropriately named "maternal sensitivity" nor will it necessarily help all children who do develop autism.

Since I did not read the entire study and was only going by the abstract printed here, it is good information to know that Mark did read it and explained the statistical errors behind the study. So, the study itself is crap. Okay.

However, my original comment simply stated that the study suggests that early intervention of a child with autism MAY help that child in the area of language. I never implied that any parent did not try hard enough to stimulate language development in their child.

To do so would have been throwing myself under the bus as well. My child, thankfully, did regain the loss of his language skills although he does still have some issues concerning the use of language. Did it help him that we literally attacked that area of his development to regain those skills? Of course it helped him. Does that mean that it would help all children to do that? Of course not. My son is fortunate. I understand that. But I also understand that it did help him and would help SOME others who have the ability to regain their language. Might it help SOME children to hold on to their language skills and not lose them completely to begin with? I have no idea. All of the children are so diffferent that I don't think any of us can possibly answer that. It didn't help mine or yours or many others when they lost their language skills.

But I never implied that any parent didn't try hard enough with their child. And as a side note, I'm glad that the dietary changes helped your daughter.

For example, if a child is playing with colored rings, the mother might say, "This is the green ring," thus teaching her child about his environment, Messinger says.

REALLY??? Wow, I guess if I could have just gotten my son to actually play with something so that I could respond like that, he wouldn't be autistic after all. What an amazing piece of research! NOT!

PhillyLisa, brava! I nursed Mia 100% for several months. Gianna nursed for 24 hours perfectly too - then her Hep B and then she spent the next 6 months biting my nippes bloody and screaming - having lost her ability to feed properly. I did not connect the dots until I read the primate study. Gianna had the full mercury dose Hep B in 1996 and I SIGNED THE CONSENT FORM! Me, the Anti-Vaxxer Mom.... Ha ha.

These people make me sick!!! No one worked harder to take care of her children then my mom! She worked three jobs at one time because she was a single parent providing a roof over our heads and food on the table without any assistance!

She spent hours with me teaching me how to properly act in public and why something I did socially was incorrect with a grace and a sensitivity without par! And she never complained! She never looked for a pat on the back!

And these people have the balls to tell her she didn't try hard enough! I have two words for these people! One begins with f, and the other ends with a u!

HOW DARE YOU!?!!?!?!

To all the warriar moms out there, keep fighting the good fight! If this is what they have to resort to, the victory is sure, and your long and hard labors shall come to fruition, like my mom's did!

The next funded study is that ASD children should have been taught the designer color names.
For Green it should be, Mountain Meadow or Sea Green.
La~ la~ la - how much money can we spend on stupid studies.

Funny thing is, regardless of the true meaning of this 11 ASD case study, it will be twisted in the media, CDC, AAP, NBC, etc. as they see fit.

Ironic, wasn't Wakefield's a "case study" and wasn't that twisted?

Case studies have their place in science but only to a point. Case studies are the most subjective type of analysis because it is based interpretations of the test results and biases of the interviewer. This proves ESPECIALLY challenging in ASD children where the interviewer is not experienced or knowledgeable of ASD psychology.

Re Post by Tricia: "it simply suggests there may be certain parenting techniques that can help some (not all) children with Autism develop language. The rationale behind a study of this nature is not to blame parents for their children's problems, but to help develop training programs and therapies to assist in language development in children with Autism."

First of all, why would this study be any different than most of the other so called studies which interpret statistics to jive with the intended outcome of finding anything BUT vaccines to connect to autism.

Secondly, excuse me, but from my own experience with my grandson, and also based on what parents here at AoA have written about their EXTENSIVE efforts with their children, autism mothers KNOCK THEMSELVES OUT to super compensate for their child's behaviors and needs. I have exercised more patience, more understanding, more attention, and more affection with my grandson than I ever did with my own daughter, not because I love him more than I loved her, but because he REQUIRES so much more of everything. My daughter is a phenomenal mother in her attentions and affections towards her son, and she is no different than the other autism mothers.

And by God it is alot harder to keep up at this pace compared to the EASY job of caring for my grandson BEFORE the last batch of vaccines sent him into screaming, kicking, biting, and throwing and breaking everything in sight, and BEFORE he was chronically sick as a dog for God's sake. Gee it sure was lovely when he was walking and talking and acting like a normal baby BEFORE that tragic last batch of vaccines including MMR which also trashed his intestines and deprived him and my daughter of sleep before we finally got that fixed with recovery therapies. But in spite of massive sleep deprivation my daughter still poured all of her love into her child and as much as these poor damaged children require LOVE, that never improved my grandson's condition one iota. A big fat list of nutritional remedies and alternative medicine therapies is what improved him and finally is producing his ability to speak words again.

Just another study beating around the bush sending everyone off into a wild goose chase to deflect attention away from the REAL CAUSE of autism which is environmental toxins especially VACCINES.

These so called "studies" are leading alot of people off into a million wrong directions, but the families of children with autism know what they have witnessed with their own eyes.

Some day the truth about all this is going to finally emerge, but I doubt if anyone will actually be held accountable for all this except by God. The government and the legal system will let them all off the hook, but someday they will have a reckoning with the Almighty and AMEN to that.

Oh dear-- I'm getting uncomfortable flashbacks reading the well-meaning but slightly lecturey posts from those promoting breast feeding. I used to make an ass of myself the same way-- I sympathize.

Here's the issue-- the whole "connection" thing is a big "duh", probably particularly in this forum. Yeah, yeah, yeah, got the love/closeness part down. Immune factors in breast milk. It does not make the essential difference. The essential difference is toxic exposure. Which can also come from breast milk if mom has a huge body burden, btw.

How's this-- three years breastfeeding both twins, co-sleeping for four years until I dislocated my shoulder from having my night-terrored daughter tucked permanently under one arm. No baby sitters, with the kids at all times-- classes, play dates, activities, house that looked like FAO Schwartz exploded in it, the most kisssed and cuddled kids on the face of the earth. Lost all language at a year after both spoke at around 7 months. Early Intervention was a joke. Absolutely nothing worked and no effort "stuck" until the diet and detox and nutrient replacement. Then the rate of learning and language acquisition exploded overnight.

"For example, if a child is playing with colored rings, the mother might say, "This is the green ring," thus teaching her child about his environment, Messinger says."

I think it's time for a Jim Carrey quote:

"How stupid do you think we are?"

Hello friends -

I haven't read this study; but, the area of 'environmental enrichment' is of potential interest to this discussion, and to everyone reading this post. It turns out, we have a great number of studies in the animal realm that show us with great consistency that an 'enriched' environment (usually one that introduced novel experiences for learning as opposed to a bare room), produces offspring with far different neurological profiles, measurable by both behaviors and brain structure. This is for real science that isn't going away.

Layer and regional effects of environmental enrichment on the pyramidal neuron morphology of the rat [Gelfo 2009]

Environmental enrichment improves response strength, threshold, selectivity, and latency of auditory cortex neurons [Engineer 2004]

There are tons, tons more. This doesn't mean that TV's or bad mothering causes autism. But, it might mean, turn off the TV!

- pD

Thanks Mark for explaining stats to me. I have a mental disability, well maybe it is more like attention deficit when it comes to stats. I forget to pay attention ever since I found out that the college course is called statistics and ethics!

I can't believe people can make careers out of this kind of dicking around - especially when it is in full public view.

It's right up there with too much tv, too much rain and old fathers. Maybe even worse because it really sets the blame on moms again. There is no other way to interpret this stupid study.But you are right. The media will pick this up and print it like the story of the first man that went to the moon.
Maurine

I have made many comments on this study all over facebook, so I will try something new here. First off, less "F" words :)
Second, let's think about this sentence, "For example, if a child is playing with colored rings, the mother might say, "This is the green ring," thus teaching her child about his environment, Messinger says."

Really? Really?
After my initial anger, after realizing that this is once again blaming "cold" mothers for their child's autism, it is this sentence that pisses me off the most.
Could it BE anymore condescending?

Do they really think that I NEVER showed my NON CONVERSANT autistic child a green ring and told him what it was. That I, or the "crap-ton in 10,000" other moms did not label every G.D. thing in the house trying to get our kids to speak?

If any of my children were neglected it was my SECOND child, b/c I was so BUSY with my first child! My SECOND CHILD who gets the SHAFT b/c of his autistic brother. The second child --the one with NO autism. The one who has no chronic illness, the one that I did NOT vaccinate, the one who gets very little of my time and attention --the one who spoke in full sentences at the age of 2.
The one who is in Kindergarten a year early and doing fine, the one who read a book to me tonight, sounding out all the unfamiliar words --he is the one who could complain that mommy isn't responsive enough.

This is pure f'in rubbish.

Tricia,
Actually I have read the study. If you have read it and find it persuasive then I suggest you need a bit of experience in interpreting statistics. The sample size for the analysis demonstrating a connection between "maternal sensitivity" (necessarily a HUGELY subjective varialbe) and language improvement was exactly 11 cases (counting the points in Figure 2b, although the authors claim to have studied 12 ASD cases). Although the number crunching machinery allow the analysts to report a P value of <0.05, visual inspection of the graph will cause any thoughtful person to pause.

To illustrate, there's an old trick in the analysis business called the "thumb test." If you can cover up one data point with your thumb and have the correlation disappear, despite what the computer tells you, there's probably not a robust association. The thumb test absolutely kills the extremely tenuous argument in this paper for any "maternal sensitivity" effect (if you don't believe me, go get the paper and try it yourself).

So in addition to blaming parents for the severity of their child's autism (if not the autism itself), this worthless finding is based on the sloppiest analysis one could imagine. And this sort of stuff gets positive press coverage! The stupidity of orthodox autism scientists reaches new heights every day.

All of you who are so critical of and insulted by the study obviously haven't actually read it. Baker says emphatically that PARENTS DO NOT CAUSE AUTISM, and NEVER suggests that mothers of children with Autism are in ANY way inferior. The study merely suggests that there are things that parents can do to foster language development in children with autism. This is not to say that parents of non-verbal children are cold and insensitive; there are plenty of children with extraordinarily warm, loving parents who will never speak a word. What we know is that there are certain environmental factors (such as parent-child interactions) that influence children's language development, and that there are things that parents can do to help foster language in kids with autism.

I can't believe the number of people who seem to believe that they have no level of control over their child's developmental potential! When you talk to your child, engage your child, and support your child, you are undeniably influencing their development! Again, the study in NO WAY suggests that Autism is caused or worsened by parents, nor that it can be "cured" by a parent using sensitivity to "talk their child out" of autism; it simply suggests there may be certain parenting techniques that can help some (not all) children with Autism develop language. The rationale behind a study of this nature is not to blame parents for their children's problems, but to help develop training programs and therapies to assist in language development in children with Autism. Next time, before you go insulting the people who have devoted their careers to helping children with Autism, at least do them the courtesy of actually reading their articles, not just a 1 page synopsis with a biased lead in.

The blatant lie shown in this kind of thinking is what led Dr. Bernard Rimland to figure out the first steps of how to actually save our children. So there may be a silver lining to this cloud.

Kim, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. once said that one reason he started listening to us moms is that the tactics used by pharma reminded him of "Tobacco Science/Tobacco Law". Any chance you could get him to write an article for AOA and go through exactly how this applies, updated for the latest nasty attacks?

When I'd say something to the effect, "This is the green ring," my child's response would be something along the lines of "Annnghhh!!!" and my "maternal sensitivity" would tell me that my interaction with my child was causing her something like frustration, maybe even pain, causing me something like frustration, even pain, and so after trying this balancing act of attempting to help my child learn to interact in a world that is a little deficient in understanding of communication deficiencies, sensory overload, etc, and also trying to avoid having her learn to associate pain with such interaction (which may be like trying to teach a child to avoid associating pain with walking on a bed of hot coals), to me an ounce of PREVENTION and/or REVERSAL research would be worth POUNDS.

Making pounds off of not preventing harm, not helping reverse harm, just studying it, is that what research is all about today?

f*ck them. seriously.

Damn it! If I had only said "This is a green ring! This is a GREEN ring! This is a green ring!" more often, my child's chronic GI and inflammation issues would have gone away.

Coincidentally - and golly, here's a BIG coincidence - my non-verbal 3.6 year old starting talking 6 weeks exactly after beginning DMSA chelation.

Or, did I finally start saying, "This is a green ring!" at that age? Damn maternal sensitivity!

This reminds me of when my neighbor commented that his wife's two brothers were gay because their mother "wore the pants in the family." I laughed thinking he was joking but he was serious. These studies are for stupid people like my neighbor. People who believe that strong mothers make their children gay will believe that insensitive mothers cause autism.

Ann,

Your bias, as demonstrated by "But when researchers are looking for ways to understand how social interactions and parenting styles can influence the development of autism" speaks loud and clear that you don't get why this study offends so many parents (mothers). Mothers' communication styles do not "influence the development of autism." Autism is going to develop in a minor or significant way regardless of how much, how little, how effective, how ineffective, how appropriate, how inappropriate, etc... are the communication styles of the parent. To imply that we need to study why and where mothers go wrong or go right in affecting the development of autism and its severity in their children because that is where the problem seems to start is a mindset that keeps mothers in their place so that no one bothers to make the effort to research environmental, biological toxins.

Bettleheim's myopic interpretation of the behaviors of mothers of children with autism demonstrates the same lack of insight and mental effort contemporary psychologists put into their research. Focus on the behavioral manifestations of a biological disease process has inappropriately determined the research (psychology, a pseudoscience) that controls the science of autism.

Ann, how does this study help to address neurotoxin poisoning in more than a generation of children?

How is putting blame, no matter how slight, for any of the developmental delays on the parents helpful, when the fact is the children were injected with neurotoxins and carcinogens?

It is full circle, alright. Full circle counter-clockwise.

Except for the AS salaries and grant monies that were awarded.

I am sick of the excuses given for millions of dollars being wasted while families are wasting away due to vaccine injury (autism). The fact that some of these studies are so degrading to parents who do everything they possibly can to help their children, with no help from AS, makes it so much worse than inexcusable.

At UW-Madison the 5,000-pound blonde gorilla is Dr. Morton Ann Gernsbacher.

http://psych.wisc.edu/lang/autism-research.html

She has a "no epidemic, not vaccines, no cure" mindset. Her daughter is on the spectrum. Articles online laud Gernsbacher's use of communications to "treat" nonverbal ASD kids.

How someone can deny the existence of medical reality is beyond me.

I'm with Mary-- I guess within five days of starting GF/CF, I became much more jointy-attentiony and feedback-loopy because my son spoke for the first time in two years at that point. He had a vocabulary of 300 words within three weeks.

What a radical change must have occurred as I spent 10 hours a week with my back turned to my kids in the kitchen making elaborate allergen-free meals from scratch and measuring and blending dozens of supplements in various suspensions. Time that used to be spent just trying to pry a single word from my nonverbal son and more than a single word from my semi-verbal daughter-- all of us operating on four hours sleep for two long years. I guess the sleep helped too-- the solid sleep that was brought on within days of the diet.

Come to think of it, if we're going to stick the old blame-mom tactic, it sort of looks like LESS attention from me did the trick. Boy, I must have had a really toxic influence on those poor kids since they were so much better off having me preoccupied elsewhere.

Funny how my son was verbal until he was approx. 15 months old. Since then, it's been ME doing all the talking. I speak to Riley like I would any other 6 yr old child. I speak to him like some day he may pop off and just answer me. As a matter of fact, I let everyone know that they are to talk TO Riley, not at him, or above him, around him, OR like he's not there. He is well aware of his surroundings and well aware when people are talking about him.
Good to know that the U of Miami APPROVES of my technics, being I've been doing this very thing for 6 yrs.

OM MY FREAKIN GOD!!!! THEY SOLVED THE PUZZLE!!! THEY SOLVED THE PUZZLE!!!

Now we have no one to blame but ourselves!! Shame on me, shame on me for not seeing the solution.

Only if I would have known how to speak to my second child who has Autism because obviously I must have spoken to my first one who does not have autism the correct way.

Thats it Kim, pack up the website and let's just drown in our sorrows for not speaking to our children correctly. Obviously the 4 shots in one visit must not be the problem here or the flu shot 2 weeks after being hospitalized from the first four.

So thats it! I am calling Ed Arranga and tell him that AutismOne is just a sham and that we should all just fade away.........

Well, I guess I got a lot more sensitive once we treated our daughter's clostridia overgrowth. And I got a bit more sensitive once we started MB-12 shots, and wow! the sensitivity that followed DMSA. I'm with Henderson--it's all about the joint attention and the feedback loop.

Gurl - the 5% sibling rate is wrong and what they tell us. It really is 15+%. I've hooted while watching two different doctors (one a psychiatry jerk and the other a wonderful developmental pediatrician) present at a parent conference (thanking us for participating in their research - NOTE: we are in the sibstudies but they can't touch our DNA :) ).

The JERK 5% sibling rate. The Wonderful Doctor - 15-20%. The JERK pretended that he had never seen these rates before. The Wonderful Doctor and the JERK are research partners on the SAME papers. Oh my.

ANYWAY - at this very conference they also discussed how NOT NT our NT younger siblings are (for example, my younger NT has a 6 on his ADOS - that's NOT good for an NT. The range for ASD - 8=HF, 10=solid ASD, 12=the child is in BIG trouble. So you see a 6 isn't that good - He has articulation issues, OT issues, ADHD, anxiety, etc., etc.). The OLDER SIBS are just as NT as the rest of the population - and have a VERY different experience.

The YOUNGER SIBSexperience? GESTATIONALLY. Many of our younger siblings are BATHED in stress, rage, grief, etc. Check out some of the rat studies on stressed out pregnant rats and what that does to the babies. THEN CAP OFF THE EXPERIENCE POST BIRTH - a mother who is absorbed in her ASD child - so this poor baby is getting very divided, stressed out attention.

NOW, this is all on AVERAGE - statistically - and don't bother countering me - it really depends statistically on WHERE this child was (gestationally in time) in terms of the older child's story.

SO, I would stay FAR, FAR from this unvacinated group to prove our point re: vaccinations - it would only blow up in our faces.

Generally, our "NT" YOUNGER siblings are NOT as NT as the average family's NT children - and our younger ASD rate is HUGE as they, generally, have VERY hostile pregnancies.

And my poor damaged wee one will NEVER see a vaccination.

Since they've decided to completely ignore vaccines, and haven't found anything credible to blame autism on, they have decided to come full circle.

It's the refrigerator mothers! (And also mothers who are too old).

OMG! How about the infant is lacking joint attention - and the mother isn't getting the positive feedback loop? DUH?!?

I'm looking right now for articles I remember on that relate to this one - but I'm so enraged, I'm sending this one out right now:

The first: that by the time a NT child initiates - I can't remember - I think multiple-multiple thousands - I'm not going to type in the number I remember, as I don't want it misquoted - a NT toddler initiates multiple thousands upon thousands of conversations before they are 18m. MY very HF child initiated ZERO. ME? I NEVER stopped initiating. I spoke non-stop doing exactly what the city's speech therapist told me to do. "You are coloring with the BLUE crayon," "Child's Name is jumping." "Thank you sweetie." Result: thousands of TACTS - zero MANDS - echolalia ("thank you sweetie" in reverse), first third person speech, then entrenched pronoun reversal. OH - and his first 20 words - all the colors - I mean ALL - the 6 rainbow, black, white and GRAY!

HE'S deficient in joint attention - it wasn't because I wasn't an amazing mother.

The second article I'm going to find: something about mother's having a more natural love-connection with their NT children - again the feedback loop. NOT saying we don't LOVE our autism children - but have a more natural feedback loop with our NTs.

The third one: that a great deal of us (mothers) suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, etc. DUH?!? Well, of course we are depressed!

What IDIOTS!!!!

They were NOT videoing normal mothers - they were videoing mothers with worry/horror/fear that something A) MAY be wrong with their child or B) the even more horrifying reality - that something actually IS wrong with their child. How carefree and natural and "perfect" do you think the mothers' play would be. @#$%&%@ YOU!!!

I HATE PSYCHOLOGISTS!!!

This one is soooooo simple - they are such idiots. It is NOT a chicken/egg question!

The child's autism predates the mother's response - NOT the other way around. I was OVERJOYED to be a mother - I WAS an amazing mother - now I am a shattered vessel of the mother I once was.

Then add in the vaccine horror on top of my already very worried state (my kid was both - ASD - THEN vaccine injured on top of it - imagine: me screaming in HORROR!!!!). Imagine how well I played the next day (while weeping).

OMG!!!

Love always helps but C'MON. There hasn't been an epidemic of lovelessness. How is that children spoke on time during the era of child labor?? During war and famine? I'm sick to death of these ahistorical bullshit peddlers.

But pulling apart all the ways in which mom-blaming is intrinsic to autism therapy and the practice of child psychology in general is tricky. Bits and pieces of that philosophy are dug in deep. Part of the problem is relying on Skinner, who's just dead wrong about the origin of language capacity. Human beings are not tabula rasa on which language is imprinted. Language is innate AND learned. And if something innate is damaged, this means physical brain damage.

Noam Chomsky, the Einstein of linguistics, went up against Skinner on this point-- Chomsky argued for innate capacity coupled with learning, Skinnner for imprinting only.

Shifting ABA to include a philosophy of innate language loss/physical healing along with "rebuilding brain capacity" could not only revolutionize the practice and increase the understanding that damage to the brain is involved in autism, but this would also collapse the platform of the "mom-blamers".

I think it would also force more empathy towards children.

"Language problems are among the most important areas to address for children with autism, because they represent a significant impairment in daily living and communication,"

Idiots... The language problems are a side effect, not the root cause. This is obvious to anyone who has looked at any significant number of children with autism (with our without having a sheepskin).

People,

I think that there is one big point you are missing in all of this:

We are talking about a "sibs study", whose subject population is charachterized by two things highly relevant for us:

1. an exceptionally high autism rate (>5%)
2. an exceptionally high unvaccinated rate.

so many parents blame vaccines, or just suspect vaccines - and dont vaccinated subsequent siblings. and many parents don't suspect vaccines and do vaccinate subsequent siblings. the percentages of both autism and vaccination avoidance in those siblings are so high that you don't need a big sample for a vaxed/unvaxed study with statistically significant results. It's the easiest thing to measure, and they have already had enough babies in those studies to produce meaningful results.

I would really like to know how any of these studies can explain my little girl's mercury toxicity and the viral titers that show she processed only one of her vaccinations appropriately. Why are they not studying this in children who regress? Wouldn't it be helpful to know in the grand scheme of things if kids are processing the vaccines appropriately? I'm sure that there are more children out there with similar test results who could be studied....Seems like a much more valuable use of research dollars to me, but I'm just a mom, and according to this study, not a very good one.

Jack's dad: "I guarantee there are alot of other parents who suspected vaccines that never heard of Dr. Wakefield." You are so right!!! That would make things so nice and easy for them, wouldn't it? But really it comes back to the fact that "the problem is the problem."

My son was involved in a duke study that has since moved to U of M. I'm guessing I was probably insenstive to the researchers after answering the same stupid question on all the diagnostic tests at school, the neurologist, developmental ped, teacch, and duke researchers. I'm sorry if i wan't suzy cheerleader while having the same conversation over and over and over again w all these professionals. That was back when I thought these "professionals" gave a da@* and would have somehat interested in helping me help my son or in the very least trying to further real research. My conclusion is that it is the "professionals" who are at best insensitive and unresponive to our children. My son is now recovered - so you think any of these "professionals" have expressed any interest in him and how he got better. NO! And they have been made aware of his amazing progroess. They can go shag themselves.

Some people to thank for this research.

Acknowledgments. This study was funded by NIH grants R01HD047417, T32 HD007473 (University of Miami), and T32 HD07489 (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Autism Speaks, and the Marino Autism Research Institute. We wish to thank the students and staff of the UM Sib Study for their efforts with data collection and management and Whitney Gealy, Silviana Guerra, Maria Kimijima, and Katelyn Vertucci for their superb rating of maternal sensitivity. We thank Rachel Fenning, Naomi Ekas, and Lisa Ibanez for their input on drafts of the manuscript and we are especially grateful to the families for their participation.

This is exactly what the psychiatrist who diagnosed our son with autism told me when I argued with her that he didn't have echolalia or autism: "he only talked so well and did so well because of how I worked with him. He would only continue to degenerate between the ages of 2 and 3 and I was lucky I brought him there to bring to my attention all the further work I would need to do and hire others to do.

I guess it was my fault he showed immediate echolalia because I did teach him to repeat every word I said until his brain and mouth caught up and he could talk all on his own (which he does now. I wish I could un-teach him a few things, such as "I don't want to watch this f'in movie again" I'm pretty sure he learned this on his own!)

I guess my older kids are lucky I was so busy raising twins to pay any attention to them or teach them to talk.

What I don't know about this study is whether they compared a control group of mothers engaging their children for an equal amount of time doing a non-verbally structured activity such as cooking. Because I taught my son to talk AND cook, and I can see how if you didn't either of those things it would be the mom's fault if the outcome was less than positive (as if!) Did they study the moms who painstakingly taught the child their letters, numbers, colors, and words and watched that knowledge disappear, just like the word mom did for my son for a whole year?

If you continue to look for answers from the profession that thinks our children have a mental illness, you'll be the one who ends up crazy!

I like Chris O'connell Comment.
I think me spending every day from 0- 4 reading, feeding, playing,painting,singing was not enough-I should have kept it up till 1 am wich was his usual time he fell asleep. My bad!

I also have senstive school Old bitty Spec.ed lady to deal with that said he should be Independent as new student in 3rd gr-no aide-no supervision.?This world is whacked when u need the STATE involved to get Basic help for our kids.
Ahh-the Joys of life.

Has anyone noticed the new media pitch from the medical establishment that's coming through in news reports? The whole anti-vax crusade is largely rooted in a "controversial British study that suggested a link between MMR-autism (Wakefield)."

This way, now that the study has been disproven, we can all move ahead and get past this nonsense. Funny, I had no idea who Andrew Wakefield was when I witnessed two of my three kids tank after vaccines.

I guarantee there are alot of other parents who suspected vaccines and never heard of Wakefield. But of course the media is taking this angle hook, line and sinker.