By Tom Fields-Meyer
As the father of a teenage son with autism, I have coped with many challenges: finding the right school for a boy who can't sit still and has trouble connecting with peers; managing medications to help tame his anxiety and other symptoms; learning to negotiate endless one-sided conversations about my son's two obsessions — animated movies and animals.
But those demands have never annoyed me in the way The Question does. Rarely does a week pass without someone asking me: "So what do you think? What causes autism?"
This summer has seen a plethora of headlines on the topic. July brought news of a study showing an unexpectedly high occurrence of autism among fraternal twins, a finding that could implicate both genetic and environmental factors. Then new research revealed that younger siblings of children with the disorder have a 20 times greater chance of developing autism than the general population. Last month's story was British researcher Simon Baron Cohen's "assortative mating" theory. It speculates that parents who share certain tendencies — such as expertise in math and science — may produce children with a higher risk for autism.
So what's the parent of a living, breathing autism specimen to do with the constant barrage of speculation? My standard reply: I'm grateful that scientists are focusing on autism. I'm going to concentrate on my kid.
Read more of Tom Fields-Meyer's Los Angeles Times article HERE.
No comments:
Post a Comment