Near Sightedness as a Possible Contributing Cause to AS

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If they are brain-damaged later in life, and develop autistic-like symptoms, they are not autistic. They just appear that way. Brain-damage has long been known to cause changes to personality. But that's not autism. There are many autistics, and they don't all have the same personality. There's as much variety in personality among us, as there is in NT's.
Blind from birth, I agree can develop autistic-like symptoms with regard to lack of social abilities etc. But lack of social ability is not the thing that makes autism what it is. They're really completely separate things. And mere shortsightedness would not have the magnitude of the impact you are suggesting.

All the literature i have read on autism suggests that it can be caused by brain damage but usually is congenital.

Hi Danlo,

You are right: acquired brain injury patients may look like autistics from a simple behavioural perspective and respond to management/treatment strategies that are the same as for ASD clients. Similarly clients with Prader Willee Syndrome for instance fit well into management structures that also suit low functioning autistics, but PWS is a chromosomal abnormality leading to an insatiable appetite and other features that one might see in ASD, learning disabled and/or ADHD clients.

Jim Crawford

I am far-sighted and have astigmatism. Both were mild enough that I didn't start wearing glasses until I was 23. As a child my vision was close enough to 20/20 that it couldn't have had any significant impact on the development of social skills.

I don't think there's any direct connection between autism and refractory errors in vision. One is neurological and the other is purely physical.

The fact that people who are born blind have autistic-like symptoms is probably just a matter of similar effect, and doesn't imply anything about cause.

No he isnt, both of you are wrong. Read up on it.

"Asperger syndrome is usually congenital or arises on the basis of brain damage sustained during parturition or the first few years of life. Very rarely does it appear as a consequence of brain damage acquired in later life." From 'A Guide to Asperger Syndrome by Christopher Gillberg'. Most of the experts agree with this. I know this will irk those on the internet who are trying to make out it is the next stage of human evolution but you have autism if you display enough of the criteria for autism diagnosis (presuming there is no condition to over-rule it).

Hi eamonn,

What causes this "brain damage" or injury you claim occurs at parturition or in the first few years of life? [And here I must point out that if you suffer acquired brain injury manifesting itself in motor and other dysfunction in the developmental period, i.e. conception to 18 years, you will be considered to have cerebral palsy, but if you are over 18 and are injured in a car accident leading to the same symptomology then you will likely be classified as having acquired brain injury.] My point is what causes this so-called brain damage you claim to exist in ASD people? As my deceased father was likely HFA, so is my brother and so is a nephew [father's youngest grandson] there is a genetic link. [All four of us have been or are very successful in our lives and chosen fields of work.] If so can the manifestation of ASD in we four males be considered as indicative of brain "damage" or simply brain difference? I have no problem, as stated, with noting autistic traits in people dipslaying other diagnostic profiles and providing services and managing them accordingly - I and my colleagues will often describe people as presenting autistic-like profiles, but are careful not to state they are diagnostically autistic, so as not to blur the diagnostic criteria to the point they become meaningless.

Please enlighten me as to whether a difference resulting from apparent genetic make-up can truly be called "brain damage"?

Jim Crawford.

Hi Jim, Well the literature i have read points out the majority of autistics arent caused by brain damage just that it can happen through brain damage. I have only read a few books though, maybe you have read differently? I will need to research more to be sure that what i have read is commonly accepted in autism criteria.

Maybe there is different criteria in different countries? The books i have read are from recognised autism experts though. The guy i quoted was Christopher Gillberg, a proffesor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the university of Goteborg in Sweden and the university of London here in the UK. It was published by Cambridge press.

Hi eamonn,

Now I understand what you are meaning: "the literature i have read points out the majority of autistics arent caused by brain damage just that it can happen through brain damage." In 1979 I was teaching in a Chicago special school and one of my students, aged 15, was to all intents and purposes a classic "Kanner" autistic, non-verbal though he signed well, toe-walked and stimmed almost non-stop, especially by spinning. We treated and managed him as though he was autistic, but strictly speaking his "autism" was adventitiously caused. His family lived in slum housing and in infancy and early childhood his 13 year old mother frequently left him in a cot next to a wall in the apartment in which his family lived. He sucked and ate the lead-based paint and was, by about 3-4 years old, mentally ret*d and autistic by any operational definition, yet he was also suffering, by definition, an acquired brain injury as he was born neurologially intact, i.e. normal. I have no problem describing him as functionally autistic, but I do like to be careful about defining his "path" to becoming autistic lest the clarity of diagnostic criteria become blurred. Clearly there are several "pathways" to becoming autistic in function.

Thanks for clarifying what you meant.

Jim Crawford.

Blindness can cause autistic-like symtoms. Not Autism.

And I know plenty of NAs who are as near-sighted as I am, myself.

Yes I've heard blindness can cause autistic-like behaviors but never heard of it being a cause for autism.

I'm near-sighted myself and as I've gotten older, I can't see as well up close but I do know a lot of NAs that are near-sighted like me as well.

The majority of autistics aren't caused by blunt trauma to the head. But the "brain damage" thing is becoming debatable the more and more scientists are looking into possible infections and other trauma before, at, or during birth, or even a little after.

Similarly how about 14% of the schizophrenic population has a correlation with being subjected to the influenza virus in utero within the first and second trimesters when the brain is most delicate in its development. I would believe this would qualify as brain damage.

I think many cases along the Autism Spectrum might have similar origins. But this is only a semi-educated suspicion on my part.

There could be a correlation. I have near sighted as well. There could be some possible connections.

One website made the distinction between classic autism and complex autism. Complex autism was a secondary result of another chromosomal mutation or brain injury. Classic autism was thought to be mostly genetic.
Neither the DSM-IV-TR nor the ICD-10 defines Asperger's syndrome or any other pervasive developmental disorder on anything but observable signs. Etiological factors leading to the autistic syndrome are not a part of diagnosis. If a child was normally developping until the age of five when they had a traumatic brain injury, after whiich they regressed and developed autistic-like behaviors, they probably meet the diagnosis for atypical autism (ICD-10) or pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (DSM-IV-TR). For research, however, this blurring of etiologies does no good.

I have not suggested that neat-sightedness is the cause of autistic-like behavior; but it can, in some instances, contribute to its development.

I speculate that complex autism may be more severe because, in this case, the autistic person's autism is not congruent with innate temperamental differences. That is, the autism and the individual's personality will pull the individual in different directions, making things all the more diffuclt psychologically. In the case of inherited autism, I do believe a certain temperament tends to be inherited with it that works best with autism (i.e., high introversion).

If you wear glasses or contacts which correct the near-sightedness, there should be no problem.

Blindness is not near-sightedness. Especially if for near-sightedness one has corrective lenses.

If you are totally blind or even at least legally blind, your other senses accomodate. But this is a very visual society. The brain rewires in a blind person and they experience the world differently. They almost live in another world and thus they can seem to have some autistic deficits.

But near-sightedness is NOT the same thing.

It's not only people who are legally blind and totally blind, but people who also are classed as having low vision or partially sighted. Look at this site: http://www.nichcy.org/pubs/factshe/fs13txt.htm

that's pretty much sums up me too. i had excellent vision til 3rd grade, i was popular, had lots of friends, decent self esteem etc. then my vision went to s**ts (i'm now about -5.50 near sighted) as did my self esteem, though that happened basically when i went to 7th grade and had to change schools for that, also teens is a difficult time. i used to draw a lot too. was compulsive almost. though that only lessened very slowly and gradually and had much to do with not being able to concentrate and having OCD... my dad is nearsighted as well. he's also AS and ADD like me.

dyslexia is related to autism. i'm told i had a cousin who was severely disabled and dyslexic.

it's interesting... dunno really what to make of that. i would venture a guess that maybe it's more the other way around, that non NTs tend to have problems with vision, not that problems with vision cause neurological differences/problems. or who knows, maybe it goes both ways.

anyways, interesting post.