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Category: Research

Silos and Echo Chambers in the World of Autism

Silos and Echo Chambers in the World of Autism

Since the 1960s, numerous social psychology studies have shown that people in echo chambers become more extreme in their shared views.  This finding is important enough that it has a name: the group polarization effect.  This can be positive or negative, depending on the group: when people who aren’t racist get together with other non-racists, everybody gets even less racist, but when people who are a bit racist get together with other racists, they become more racist (Myers & Bishop,…

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Wait, Who Said Autistic Sensory Symptoms Aren’t Real?

Wait, Who Said Autistic Sensory Symptoms Aren’t Real?

Last week, I was unpleasantly startled to read in a Spectrum News article that the latest draft of the International Classification of Diseases, the ICD-11, excludes differences in sensory processing from its list of autism symptoms. I thought we were over this.  The ICD-11’s counterpart, the DSM-5, now includes sensory symptoms.  I still grumble a little that they’re just lumped as a single symptom under the general category of restricted and repetitive behaviours, but I’m at least happy that they’re…

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The So-Called “Autism Epidemic”

The So-Called “Autism Epidemic”

I usually keep a pretty close eye on the autism news, and it seems like a day can hardly go by without me seeing some new, hysterical reference to the rising rates of autism diagnosis.  It’s an epidemic, we’re told.  It’s a crisis, we’re told. I not only find it tiresome to hear this idea repeated endlessly, but I’m also concerned that this sort of fearmongering is dangerous. It’s true I have some biases here.  All communities want to imagine…

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Mouse Models

Mouse Models

Have I ever mentioned that “typically-developing” mice are disgusting?  They’re always spending their time going around “anogenitally sniffing” each other.  Horribly unhygienic. Look, mouse models of autism have problems at the behavioural level.  Just how are you going to equate the behaviour of this relatively simple creature with that of humans?  I mean, humans have language, elaborate ways of nonverbally signalling our intentions, and even things like social institutions and societies.  Mice have anogenital sniffing, which is apparently good for…

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Schools and School Placements are Very Important

Schools and School Placements are Very Important

If you read this blog, you might notice that I have devoted a lot of time to the question of inclusion and specialization in the school system.  Why am I so obsessed with schools and school placement? Well, I admit I hadn’t really thought about that question for the longest time – I just knew, from my own experiences and my observations of a couple of specialized schools in the community, that school placement can make a real difference in…

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The Limits of Laboratory Control

The Limits of Laboratory Control

Controlled laboratory environments are great, don’t get me wrong.  I hate the messy real world, with its confusing morass of different measurable and unmeasurable variables, just as much as the next researcher.  I realize why we often want to take people away from that messy quagmire and into a nice room where we can shove them in front of a computer and show them pictures and stuff, while we track their eye gaze or while we have them push little…

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Autistic People, Autism Research, Grants, and Journals

Autistic People, Autism Research, Grants, and Journals

There is something seriously wrong with the distribution of autism research funding. The most recent report of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) in the United States reported that fully half of all autism research funding continues to go to the area of biology and risk factors (Office of Autism Research Coordination, 2017).  For comparison, only 2% of all research funding was awarded to projects in the “lifespan” area.  A similar situation prevails in a number of other jurisdictions.[1] This…

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