What type of research is most important to you?

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What type of research is most important to you?
(1) Research with the sole intent of understanding and explaining Autistic behaviors.
(2) Research to use observed behaviors in an effort to trace them back to the cause of Autism.


A full developmental profile of Autistic Children from Birth to at-least teenage years....

It's just not enough to have a vague understanding of the parts i.e eye gazing, face recognition, reciprocal behavior, ToM, etc and a few other pieces of the puzzle( forgive the pun) by using Non-Autistics and animal models.

So, both types of research are important to me.

TheSunAlsoRises

Thanks

While genes/molecular biology is clearly important, and while I wholeheartedly support learning anything about science that is possible, I just feel as though research is getting too involved with the minutiae recently and missing bigger, unanswered questions. What I'm seeing right now with gene research is that there will be significant results in linkage/association studies, but we have no clue what most of the significant genes even do. I like genetic research when studies specifically look at a gene that likely is involved with a disorder's pathology. I feel like my area of interest (bipolar disorder) does this much more than ASD research. With ASD research, lots of studies are just looking for common genes, with no real reason behind their searching. We barely know any valid, conclusive functional or structural neuroanatomy findings for ASDs.

The logical way to go about it is to find significant results that are replicated and THEN look for genes likely involved in these results. Honestly, the method a lot of studies are using now is like trying to figure out what a quark does before knowing what a molecule does. We barely know anything about how the brain works on a systems/behavioral/functional level, so the sheer volume of genetic studies in certain areas of research is somewhat unnecessary at the moment. Just my two cents...

Although I do agree with virtually everything that is said here, I do have to point out that much of what has been autism research has resulted in research in other fields of study or other topics/questions. In my own study of autism research I have found that much of the research that is being performed today is rarely focused solely on autism itself but is performed with a general sweep of any disorders that are related as social/behavior disorders.

I've recently read 3-4 articles that have performed such research(whatever they had been looking for originally) and found the "trouble" to be located on the 7th chromosome in a specific region that is beginning to be labeled as a possible autistic region. You likely already know about this but my point is that the research being performed was not looking for the cause of autism but instead on various topics surrounding it such as the correlation between a weakened immune system, gastrointestinal problems, and social disorders.

This is more or less what I had originally meant for the option in the poll to imply. Many studies find a certain problem and trace it back to its roots. Maybe or maybe not surprisingly, those roots can at times come back to the same source. With the case that I mentioned before, maybe the 7th chromosome has a role in the origin of the cause of autism? The research for this has come from a compilation of various studied behaviors or biological troubles that seem to point to a possible single source, not one research study that went looking at that chromosome (although that time will likely come soon).

Rascall77: I did some quick looking into what I had seen before and found that it was not exactly what you indicated before. It focused more simply on the walk of ASD individuals, not the exact placement of feet while standing (which is what I assume you are asking about). So, I will write that down as something I will continue to look into since I am now curious about your finding . I'll keep you posted on what I find.

In the meantime, I might as well share with you what I had read before. Hopefully you'll be able to open these websites up (not sure what the accessibility is for pubmed on these articles)
PUBMED 1
PUBMED 2
PUBMED 3

Please do!! I would love to learn from you!! !

Thanks for this anberre. I'm going to read the links after I post this. I will be seeing some ASD researchers at Stanford University next Friday and will ask them also. The reason I'm so curious about this is probably obvious to you.

Great, let me know what they tell you, I'm interested to hear what theories may be present about that

Although I voted for finding the cause I was being idealistic and don't consider gene mutations to be the cause but an effect of likely a large variety of things ... and although it doesn't apply to all cases the causes I would want found and identified are toxic things in the environment that effect development like pesticides and medications that need better regulation. Realistically on an individual scale though, I agree more good could probably be accomplished researching understanding.

I voted for understanding behaviors. Though I'd love to know the cause of autism, given our society's view of autism, I don't think society at large is ready to know the cause of autism. It terrifies me to think of kids like me being selectively aborted. There already is selective abortion for the few cases of autism with a known genetic cause, such as Fragile X Syndrome.

Not only do I feel sad about all the little kids like me not existing, but I'm pretty sure if autism started being regularly screened out, those of us born before the screening would suffer. As would our parents, they could face criticism for not aborting us (many people won't bother to know when autism screening came out). Just like that one woman who had six kids, all on the spectrum. Even though the first diagnosis came after the birth of the sixth child, people still criticized her for not aborting.

Anyway, regarding understanding behaviors, I'd like to make another comment. I want to see more cognitive research done on lower functioning people. Most in-depth analysis of the cognitive abilities of autistics has screened out any with IQ under 75 or significant language delay. You're only getting half the picture that way. I know, it's harder to study lower-functioning autism, but it's also harder to study children under 3, and researchers don't just decide to extrapolate from 3 year olds to understand infancy. And many of the same testing methods used for infants and toddlers could be used on older nonverbal or minimally verbal people as well, such as monitoring heart rate to detect surprise, or training them in differential responding to see if they perceive a difference. Plus some of the tests that do involve verbal skills could be reworded so that yes/no answers suffice, and used on individuals with good receptive language and expressive language limited to yes/no. And furthermore, what about autistic assistive communication users? Not all of them use facilitated communication - if you research nonverbal independent typists on the autistic spectrum, you'll get a whole different perspective on autism.

Plus, the lower-functioning individuals are the ones most in need of research that could inform educational design and clinical practice. Not that HFAs don't need autism-specific education strategies, but we can often get along without them. LFAs, it's often that or nothing.

Me too I think I'm going to have to remember to always clarify if I take another one of these surveys because although I think preventing autism is very important, when I say that people jump to the wrong conclusion assuming genetics when what I mean is controlling pollution and healthier living.

I honestly have an intellectual curiosity about the cause of Autism. I'm sure behaviours can be traced back, at least partly, due to external stimuli, if that makes sense... And they have been to some extent.

I'd also love for scientists who are looking for a cure to find out for sure that there is none, it is actually just genetics. As long as people don't start killing babies, that is...

The era of easy cheap genome sequencing is VERY close. People will select for desirable traits and dispense with undesirable characteristics...for a fee...of course. It is already being done.

We could all stand a bit of healthier living. Think of all the medications in our drinking water these days, because of stuff getting washed down drains and flushed down toilets. We're basically all on drugs now, to varying degrees, it seems. However, if this were the cause of autism, I couldn't use it to account for the traits appearing in my family members for multiple generations. Also, why would I not be more autistic than previous generations and less than those that follow? Same argument as in my response to the now well discredited argument over vaccines.

Very good point. One thing that I hope gets studied more in particular (because it's puzzling to me) is how some nonverbal autistics have outstanding receptive language and can communicate via touch pad computers but can't physically speak. I'd like to know what about their brains makes them able to use language through writing and reading but not vocalization. Even more interviews with this population would be good. I'd like to hear more from this subgroup about what makes them unable to create words, you know? Is it a motor impairment or a form of permanent selective mutism (from anxiety) or something else? I think it would be really cool to look at these individuals' Broca's and Wernicke's areas through fMRI and see what results are found.

I can't say that about my family, I'm unaware of any ancestors with autism however my cousin and I were born with non-hereditary birth defects (different things) and we both present with mild autistic traits and both of us have kids diagnosed with classic autism with speech delays.