The Politics of Autism - Navigating the Contested Spectrum

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By Gene Pitney Political Science Professor published August 2015

The subject of the book is American Public and government autism policy. Since most of the studies and voices have been by NT's for NT's with the exception of the last chapter the book deals with Autism parental issues. Autism rights activists are quoted however. Pages and pages about the fight to get ABA therapy will more then annoy many WP readers. The author is not an autism scientist but a political one. Many autistics found the revelations about the roots of attitudes and treatments about autism in Neurotribes helpful. This book should be helpful to Autism parents for similar reasons. Services for children are so varied and conflicting and confusing so the extensive discussion of what they are should be helpful to bewildered Autism parents.

Many wrong planet members will find the last chapter about the future more relevant. There is an excellent section dealing with the dilemmas and dangers of disclosure. Fear of eugenics, dealings with police, the spree shooter stereotypes are discussed. The book concludes with a call for researching us to find out how we feel about these issues.

His blog with Autism Policy news

Thanks. I had a look at the blog and particularly noticed this piece:

It goes:
Neurotransmitter In The Politics of Autism, I write about medical and scientific research.
A release from MIT: MIT and Harvard University neuroscientists have found a link between a behavioral symptom of autism and reduced activity of a neurotransmitter whose job is to dampen neuron excitation. The findings suggest that drugs that boost the action of this neurotransmitter, known as GABA, may improve some of the symptoms of autism, the researchers say.
Brain activity is controlled by a constant interplay of inhibition and excitation, which is mediated by different neurotransmitters. GABA is one of the most important inhibitory neurotransmitters, and studies of animals with autism-like symptoms have found reduced GABA activity in the brain. However, until now, there has been no direct evidence for such a link in humans.
“This is the first connection in humans between a neurotransmitter in the brain and an autistic behavioral symptom,” says Caroline Robertson, a postdoc at MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research and a junior fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows. “It’s possible that increasing GABA would help to ameliorate some of the symptoms of autism, but more work needs to be done.”
Robertson is the lead author of the study, which appears in the Dec. 17 online edition of Current Biology. The paper’s senior author is Nancy Kanwisher, the Walter A. Rosenblith Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and a member of the McGovern Institute. Eva-Maria Ratai, an assistant professor of radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital, also contributed to the research."

There is already a substantial body of research on the GABA/autism which predates this by years in some cases, so I read with surprise the above claim by Caroline Robertson that this is a brand new discovery (hers) which it is not. Nevertheless, (despite the appropriation of the intellectual property of other scientists who have done the previous research and no reference by her to all that previous work), each additional study is interesting as GABA does seem to be very important indeed in modulating some of the everyday disadvantages of being on the spectrum, most notably anxiety. So thanks APOM, all of the GABA research is (one of) my special interest topics.

I recently started taking gabapentin for nerve pain in my back. It does make me feel less fuzzy headed and my fine motor skills have improved immensely. For the first time in my life I can write legibly.

Yes, I was prescribed Gabapentin for the same reason, and it helped a lot. Unfortunately I got a rare side effect (my tongue swelled up) and had to stop taking it. I haven't had side effects with GABA in other form though, so it must have been something other than the Gaba in the Gabapentin formulation which affected me. It really helped a lot with the spinal pain too.