Comments on: Is the Prevalence of Low Functioning Autism Among the Amish Actually Lower Than Expected?

By: Autism Blog - How many autistic amish? | Left Brain/Right Brain

Autism Blog - How many autistic amish? | Left Brain/Right Brain — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 06:30:19 +0000

[...] Joseph wrote a great post that looked at the prevalence of low functioning autism amongst the Amish and found it correlated [...]

By: Prevalence of Autism among Amish at EBD Blog

Prevalence of Autism among Amish at EBD Blog — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 05:45:32 +0000

[...] Link to Mr. Joseph’s article. Sphere: Related Content « Epi Wonk [...]

By: Schwartz

Schwartz — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:53:03 +0000

ANB,

Is that after you selectively deleted the Cochrane report entries that didn’t support your position, or after selectively quoting the few you left out of context?

Kind of hypocritical for someone claiming to stick to the facts isn’t it?

Also interesting that no one else has ever banned me for quoting references.

By: AutismNewsBeat

AutismNewsBeat — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:27:18 +0000

Mr. Schwartz is feeling rejected because I marked his IP as spam. Harold, if you promise to be good, I’ll let you back in.

By: Kev

Kev — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 06:24:01 +0000

Fascinating piece Joseph, thanks for writing that.

The number (0.147%) is quite interesting. I am going to write about Olmsted vs Omnibus families Expert professor Greenland soon I think to see how those numbers stack up.

By: Schwartz

Schwartz — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 03:44:27 +0000

Thank you Joseph. Well presented as usual. So many different ways to look at the numbers.

My only beef is including the comment modifying Autism News Beat as a credible source.

By: Ms. Clark

Ms. Clark — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 03:32:56 +0000

This was done by Joseph. You have to check below they title of the blog to see who wrote it.

By: Albert

Albert — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 02:55:48 +0000

Nicely done, Kevin. You have provided more reason to read Olmsted’s reporting very carefully. What I find most revealing in his writing is the absence of interviewing. I do not know journalism well. I am sure there are many kinds! But most of what I read in the press involves attempts at balance. Towards that goal, journalists interview many people, and they interview people with differing opinions. This effort towards being thorough and balanced is what I find absent in Olmsted’s reporting and, frankly, I just don’t understand it—at least I do not understand it as journalism. So I really appreciate hearing your take on things. Your post showed a great deal of deep thinking about these issues.

By: Ms. Clark

Ms. Clark — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 02:37:16 +0000

Fombonne made an interesting point in his testimony in the Omnibus Autism hearing. He said basically that it wouldn’t make sense to do a survey of the number of 2 year olds in an area to see what the incidence of autism is, because it’s easier to miss 2 year olds than 8 year olds. So researchers are more likely to survey the number of 8 year olds in an area.

Meaning that if there were two year olds in that study and they were called merely “mentally retarded” they might find by the time the child was 8 that he or she also fits criteria for autism (since it takes time for some autistic traits to obviously manifest themselves). I haven’t looked at the study yet, maybe the 2 year olds were already diagnosed with ASD. But in general, it would be less likely to get a 2 year old into a study of MR and autism than it would be to get a 3,4, or 5 year old into one. Just because a developmentally delayed 2 year old is more similar to a normal 2 year old (in general) than a DD 5 year old is like a typical 5 year old.