That's interesting regarding auditory frequencies, especially in light of some comments by my autistic sister, who over the course of many arduous years of work by our mom became very high functioning. She leads a pretty normal life now (married, has a kid, works as an economist), but wrote the following:
"I don't remember much from before I could talk. The memories I do have are brief and disconnected from one another. I remember focusing intently on an object, such as a crayon or a piece of wire (you know mom, those twisties you use for the garbage) and being able to focus intently on that item, to the exclusion of everything else. I remember thinking that people could read my mind, thinking that they knew exactly what I wanted. I can even remember hearing and understanding some words but not understanding that they were an attempt to communicate. Hearing a sound from an air conditioning vent means the air conditioner is on, but it does not mean the air conditioner wants to engage me socially. It was not that I did not care about what they said, but rather that I did not know that they were trying to say anything to me. I vaguely recall interpreting human words, from family and teachers alike, in a similar manner. "
(from Triumphs in Early Autism Treatment )
Full disclosure - the mom mentioned above is also the founder of an Autism-related business; http://www.oaiautism.com/.
That's something I can tangentially relate to: I have ADHD (diagnosed as an adult, which is rare), and it has a few common symptoms with ASD when it comes to (what others term) 'social deficits'. And I'm also an economist :) I guess the study of complex systems would have a natural attraction to people with an ASD.
In high school, I used to complain to my mum that I couldn't hear my school friends when we chatted on the bus home. So naturally she took me to have a hearing test. It turns out that I have unusually acute hearing (and this was confirmed later in life when I took another hearing test; when I came out of the booth the tech actually said to me 'I can't believe you heard some of those tones!').
In hindsight it's pretty obvious what was happening: I could hear my friends just fine but I couldn't comprehend what they were saying, probably due to the background noise and activity in the bus. In other words, it was an auditory processing deficit (which is fairly typical in ADHD sufferers). It's also interesting when you consider that around 50% of ADHD sufferers also stutter during their earlier years (I did).
The fact that one potentially effective treatment is 'delayed auditory feedback' (basically the stutter has a walkman-type thingie that records what they say and plays it back with a split-second delay), it's not too much of a leap to suppose stuttering might also be caused by an underlying auditory processing deficit (in this case, the processing of one's own speech).
I wonder if ASD and ADHD are related in some way, maybe sharing some common causes. I don't know what the current scientific thinking is, but I'm convinced that both are ultimately neurological disorders. Even the GABA-Glutamate theory is consistent with some other typical features of ADHD: super-high co-morbidity with anxiety/panic disorders and 'night-terrors' in early childhood (again, I had these and they were awful).
It feels like we're very close to understanding these conditions via direct observation of their (immediate) causes. Neuroimaging is getting cheaper and cheaper, and will eventually result in neurology and psychiatry merging into a single field. At that point we'll have practitioners capable of really understanding causes (neuro) and determining appropriate treatments (psychopharmachology, and maybe neuro-physical treatments).
Thank you for story.
My son diagnosed with autism at age two. Now he is 7, and practically did't speak (not counting simple phrases like 'give water, give pasta' etc..).
Sorry for disturbing, but could you tell me (if it OK for you) at what age you sister start to understand / talk, and is there some 'aha!' moment maybe? And did you mom works only with ABA or some other method too?
Sorry about my english.
Of course. I don't think she really spoke at all until age 4, and it was only with very, very intense behavioural therapy over the course of years that she made any progress at all. To give a sense of scale, my mother quit her job, got a master's degree in the field, and dedicated herself to it full-time (as in - her whole life; not just her whole professional life).
I don't recall a particular "aha" moment, but then, I'm only two years older than her, so I might simply not have been paying attention.
Part of the issue was that this was in the late 80's, and diagnoses were much, much less common then.
"I don't remember much from before I could talk. The memories I do have are brief and disconnected from one another. I remember focusing intently on an object, such as a crayon or a piece of wire (you know mom, those twisties you use for the garbage) and being able to focus intently on that item, to the exclusion of everything else. I remember thinking that people could read my mind, thinking that they knew exactly what I wanted. I can even remember hearing and understanding some words but not understanding that they were an attempt to communicate. Hearing a sound from an air conditioning vent means the air conditioner is on, but it does not mean the air conditioner wants to engage me socially. It was not that I did not care about what they said, but rather that I did not know that they were trying to say anything to me. I vaguely recall interpreting human words, from family and teachers alike, in a similar manner. "
(from Triumphs in Early Autism Treatment )
Full disclosure - the mom mentioned above is also the founder of an Autism-related business; http://www.oaiautism.com/.