Take the online Aspergers Test


For those concerned they may have Aspergers Syndrome, the Aspergers Test can help with self diagnosis. The Autism Quotient AQ Test was developed by Simon Baron-Cohen from the Autism Research Centre. Please see the Aspergers Test explained for a more detailed explanation of the test format.

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It is important to note that while this test can be used to give an indication of the likelihood of having Aspergers Syndrome, it is not meant to replace a formal medical diagnosis but should be the basis of an understanding about whether you may have Aspergers Syndrome, PDD Nos or other forms of Autism.

 

Take the AQ / Asperger’s Test

The test is completely FREE and is comprised of a number of multiple choice questions. For each question please indicate to what degree you relate to each statement ( ie definitely agree, slightly agree, slightly disagree, definitely disagree).

Please visit the post entitled Interpreting AQ Test Results for an understanding of what these results mean in layman’s terms.

How the squeeze machine came to be

We had published a few articles lately about sensory processing issues and thought that it wouldn’t feel complete with an exploration of the squeeze machine developed by Temple Grandin. For those of you that have seen the movie you will understand what we are talking about.

The squeeze machine was invented by Temple Grandin to help relieve “tactual defensiveness.”  In her book Emergence: Labeled Autistic she writes how in second grade she dreamed of a “magical device that would provide intense, pleasant pressure.” By the time Temple Grandin was in third grade she was dreaming of a machine to provide “pleasant stimulation” when she “outgrew wrapping [herself] in a blanket or crawling under a sofa pillow.”  However, it wasn’t until the summer after her junior year in high school while visiting her aunt’s ranch in Arizona that she configured the type of machine that would help apply the appropriate pressure.

The squeeze chute that is used to hold cattle in place while being branded and vaccinated was Grandin’s inspiration for her tactile device.  While on the ranch her aunt helped Temple in the device and had to standby to help pull the rope to apply the right amount of pressure.

When Temple returned to Mountain Country School for her senior year in high school she was still fixated on the squeeze machine.  Why wouldn’t she be fixated?  She dreamt of a device that would help with her panic attacks all her life and now she had found one.  Her teacher, Mr. Carlock, advised Grandin to build one.

So Temple’s first model was made of scrap wood and was similar to the cattle chute at the ranch.  A person other than the one in the device was needed to pull the rope to administer and/or release the side walls that created the “squeeze.”  When Temple Grandin started attending Franklin Pierce College, her high school teacher, Mr. Carlock still visited Temple for encouragement.  People were giving Temple a lot of grief about the machine so Mr. Carlock told Temple, “Well, let’s build a better one and do some scientific experiments with college students. Let’s find out if the squeeze machine really does relax. Find out if the effect is, indeed, real.”  He helped Temple focus her fixation into a useful assignment that led her to study about the sensory system.  After much research and work, the second squeeze machine came to be.  Temple named it “PACES” (pressure apparatus controlled environment sensory).  It was much larger than the initial one that was built from scrap wood.  PACES helped Temple to have empathy.  Temple’s experiment proved that out of 40 normal college students, 62% of the students that tried PACES found it relaxing.  Unfortunately, Grandin’s “therapists, friends, and relatives” tried to take the machine away from her which made her feel guilty.  It took Grandin many years to accept the machine.

Now the squeeze machine is quite popular as a device that can be used to help with sensory issues.

We looked for a video featuring Temple herself to end this blog post but sadly couldn’t find one to embed but heres a link to an interview Temple did with the BBC. If you are interested in building your own there is an article here about how to do it.

So we hope you enjoyed this post, as ever, we would love to know what you think. Please leave us a comment below.

 

 

Is Autism Hereditary? What is the link between Autism and Genetics?

This is the first of a sequence of posts that will discuss the causes of Autism. We will start with one of the questions parents often ask themselves “Is Autism Hereditary”?

Before I start I want to address this post with a word of caution, that everybody’s Autism is different. By different I mean they have slightly different symptoms, different signs of Sensory Processing Issues and different ways of functioning. No two people with Autism are the same and I suspect that it may also be very difficult to identify one specific cause.  The Autism Spectrum is a fairly new idea in the field of behavioural psychology, but one thing is clear; not all autistic children and adults behave in the same way; rather, they act according to their personal position on the spectrum, which may or may not change with time.

The Autism Spectrum encapsulates all kinds of subtypes, including Asperger’s, Pervasive Development Disorder (PDD-Nos) and Rett’s Disorder. People on the spectrum can be either high or low functioning which effects their ability to copy in the world.

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The genetic root of Autism has been the subject of numerous studies and scientific curiosity, and has yielded many answers, which have helped the understanding of autism worldwide. And while it isn’t as simple as saying, that the only cause of Autism is genetics passed on by the parent’s or grandparents it is fair to say that Autism definitely has an element in some cases, which is hereditary.

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What is the link between Autism and Genetics?

Genetics is a complex field, and while new discoveries are being made every day, there is still much that remains to be found out. Autism is a complex condition and genes that trigger its onset are even more so. Within the study of a genetic cause to identify hereditary sources it had been found that no specific gene that the scientific community is aware of actually causes autism. Rather, it is a group of genes, many of which may or may not mutate or alter during early development to create the behaviour patterns, which make an autistic child different from their peers. It is estimated that 400 to 1,000 genes are involved in the in the neurological issues that are involved in Autism. Autism in children can result from gene mutation, recessive genomes being expressed, or even viruses damaging the genetic makeup of a foetus or infant. The Mount Sinai School of medicine offers a new blood test that looks at 30 genes that looks for mutations that are associated with Autism.

While the exact studies of genetics have failed to prove conclusively a hereditary cause of Autism, there have been other studies, which indirectly prove a link with genes carried by the parents. In recent research performed by Simon Baron-Cohen (professor at the Autism Research Institute in Cambridge), there seems to be a higher a probability that parents who are scientists and engineers are more likely to have children that are Autistic. This logical thinking that element that makes a good scientist seems to propagate down to their children in the form of Autism. Baron-Cohen had been known to illustrate that there are particularly high concentrations of Autism in children around such areas as Silicon Valley, which is renowned for being a hot spot of innovation.

Autism is a condition that comes with it the ability to think in a way that can analyse, understand and systemize complex problems. This is why the natural employment path for people with Autism is to work in a field that supports that mind-set such as engineering, science and increasingly computer science.

In the research performed by Baron-Cohen it was discovered that the fathers of Autistic children were more than twice as likely to be engineers as were fathers of non-autistic children. It appears that the gene responsible for systemizing seems to be passed down through the generations.

Similar studies carried out by Dr John Constantino indicated that the parents with more autistic type traits tend to attract each other somehow and are then subsequently likely to have a child that is autistic. In Silicon Valley this is particularly true with the geek mind-set being very much prominent and subsequently leading to like minded people attracting each other romantically. If a couple have two children that have Autism there is a 35% probability that the third child will have Autism too.

As we mentioned at the beginning of the post, it’s important not to get to hung up in causes. There are many potential ones and we will explore these in future posts. For parents, the potential hereditary nature of their child’s Autism is not a reason to give themselves a hard time.

Ok, over to you guys, we’d really like to know what you think, please leave us a comment below with your thoughts.

We are giving away our book: Emotional Mastery For Adults With Aspergers

As part of Autism awareness week, we wanted to give away our book, Emotional Mastery for Adults with Aspergers. The book will be available for free between the 5th and 9th of April.

The book covers issues such as:

  • Understanding the emotions
  • Anger
  • Depression
  • Anxiety
  • OCD (Obsessive compulsive disorder)
  • Tips and techniques for dealing with emotions

The book can be download at the associated kindle store for your country:

(US ) http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009N45B0I

(UK) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Emotional-Mastery-Adults-Aspergers-ebook/dp/B009N45B0I/

(FR) http://www.amazon.fr/Emotional-Mastery-Adults-Aspergers-ebook/dp/B009N45B0I/

(DE) http://www.amazon.de/Emotional-Mastery-Adults-Aspergers-ebook/dp/B009N45B0I/

The book can be read on devices such as  kindle, ipad, iphone, android, pc, mac or any other where the kindle software can be downloaded.

If you know anyone who would benefit from this book please help to spread the word .

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The ABC’s of Autism from the ICAHN school of medicine at Mount Sinai

As part of Autism Awareness month, the Icahn school of medicine brought out this info graphic. We thought we would share it because it contains a lot of interesting statistics about the scale of Autism in the USA. 1 in every 100 individual is now on the Autism Spectrum. This is quite a big number, whether you put this down to the increased availability of diagnosis or an increase in the environmental factors that are believed to cause Autism.

What is interesting is the statistic that the younger siblings of individuals with Autism also have a 15-20% risk of developing the condition.
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Source: Mount Sinai Medical Center

Why Asperger’s Won’t Exist after May 2013

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So it has been made public that Asperger’s Syndrome is no longer a separate diagnosis in the DSM V (Diagnostic Statistical Manual) that is set to be released this May.  Instead the DSM autism group has combined all forms of autism into one general umbrella to try to “better address the needs of everyone on the spectrum.  However, this has brought about a variety of varying opinions.  Some think that it will be easier to diagnose, where as other believe Aspie’s will be left out and/or not want to be compared to the stigma of the opposite end of the spectrum.

The main anxieties relate to how this change will influence clinical practice. One suggestion is that many high-functioning children (that is, children with fewer behavioral difficulties) who would meet criteria for a diagnosis under DSM-IV guidelines, would not qualify for a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder under the criteria set out by DSM-V.

Allen J. Francis, M.D., was the chair of the DSM IV and has not stayed silent on the many heated issues raised in regard to the DSM V.  In his article Will the DSM-5 Reduce Rates of Autism, Francis states that Dr. Catherine Lord (the head of the DSM-5 autism group) “did find that using the new DSM-5 criteria caused about a 10% reduction in ASD diagnoses. That’s a lot of kids who will no longer qualify for the diagnosis and who will not get services. And Dr. Lord’s 10% estimate is almost certainly way too low because two of her study’s three data sets were not really representative of the typical children assessed for ASD. It is a very good bet that her results won’t generalize very accurately to real world settings where a much larger percentage of kids would lose the diagnosis.”

He goes on to reference doctors (Mattila, from Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry that have done studies proving that 46-63% of people diagnosed under the DSM-IV would still qualify under the DSM-V.

If you are not familiar with the diagnostic criteria for Aspergers see this link.

http://www.autreat.com/dsm4-aspergers.html  You’ll note the distinguishing criteria is not clinically delayed development of speech. And this is also where you’ll see a divergance between those who write the current DSM diagnostic criteria and those who work with autism and Aspergers as a field of speciality.

The American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) publication of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) in May, 2013 will render the conditions of Asperger’s Syndrome, Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, and Non-verbal Learning Disability as historical footnotes-similar to quaint terms like minimal brain dysfunction and hyperkinesis-since these conditions are not to be included in the newest version.

AS, ADHD, NLD, LD and PDD-NOS are all examples of high prevalence, neurologically-based developmental disorders which affect the way the brain processes information. As “hidden disabilities”, these conditions are based on a cluster of observable symptoms due to brain abnormalities, not emotional trauma. It is well-known that many people with these disorders generally have average to superior intelligence and above average verbal ability, yet have significant difficulty with job performance and social interactions

Aspies enjoy the fact that they share common traits with notable historic figures who may have had Asperger’s Syndrome, like Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, several American presidents, and artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent van Gogh, Beethoven, and Elvis. Many adults with Asperger’s dont want to live with the perceived stigma of being labelled with Autism, particuarly as Simon Baron-Cohen suggests in this article that science hasn’t had a chance to prove whether Autism and Asperger’s are biologically different.

The diagnostic criteria  for Asperger’s has been: lack of eye contact, no delay in speech, difficulty making friends, unusual body posture or stimming, an obsession with one subject, not engaging in interactive play, severe difficulties in adjusting to change (transitioning from one activity or place to another).  However, the criteria for autism under the DSM IV contains all the previously mentioned in acquiring an Asperger’s diagnosis except the person has no speech or delayed speech.

To compare the DSM IV diagnostic criteria click the CDC link http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/hcp-dsm.html.

Other changes proposed by DSM-5 include defining autism spectrum disorders by two sets of core features — impaired social communication and social interactions, and restricted and repetitive behavior and interests. DSM-5 reorganizes the symptoms in these domains and includes those not previously included in DSM-IV, such as sensory interests and aversions.

DSM-5 deliberately added and organized things to try to bring in and better address the needs of people with autism spectrum disorders of all developmental levels and ages — including girls, who were not represented as well as they should be in DSM-IV,” Dr. Lord says.

The DSM V is scheduled to be published in May 2013, and people are eager to find out if insurance companies and school districts will be quick to undiagnosed the high-functioning autistics. I guess time will tell.

 

Anyway, we’d love to know what you think, good or bad. Please leave us a comment below