Children can GROW OUT of autism: Controversial research suggests not all youngsters have the same fate

It seems mnost likely that some kids were simply smart enough  to adapt

Autism is a condition some children manage to grow out of, a study has shown.

Experts studied 34 school-age children and young adults who had been diagnosed with autism early in life but now appeared to be functioning normally.

Tests confirmed that the group, aged eight to 21, no longer suffered symptoms of the developmental condition that makes it difficult to communicate and socialise.

The results, published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, provide no estimate of the proportion of children likely to recover from autism.

But the researchers say they offer hope that in at least some cases, the handicap of autism can be left behind.

Dr Thomas Insel, director of the US National Institute of Mental Health which supported the study, said: 'Although the diagnosis of autism is not usually lost over time, the findings suggest that there is a very wide range of possible outcomes.

'For an individual child, the outcome may be knowable only with time and after some years of intervention. Subsequent reports from this study should tell us more about the nature of autism and the role of therapy and other factors in the long term out come for these children.'

Previous studies looking at the likelihood of autism recovery have proved inconclusive.

Questions remained over the accuracy of the original diagnosis, and whether children who appeared to grow up functioning normally started out with mild forms of the condition.

For the new study, early diagnostic reports by doctors were reviewed by a team of expert investigators.

The results suggested that recovering children tended to have relatively milder social difficulties early in life. But they were likely to suffer more severe symptoms relating to communication and repetitive behaviour.

The research team, led by Dr Deborah Fein, from the University of Connecticut, compared the 34 'optimal outcome' participants with the same number of normally functioning peers and 44 children and young adults affected by high-functioning autism. Each group was matched by age, sex, and non-verbal IQ.

Optimal outcome individuals showed no signs of problems with language, face recognition, communication or social interaction despite their previous diagnosis of autism.

The researchers are continuing to analyse data on changes in brain function in the children.

They are also reviewing records of the kinds of treatment the children received, and to what extent they may have contributed to their recovery, as well as the role played by IQ.

'All children with ASD (autism spectrum disorder) are capable of making progress with intensive therapy, but with our current state of knowledge most do not achieve the kind of optimal outcome that we are studying,' said Dr Fein.

'Our hope is that further research will help us better understand the mechanisms of change so that each child can have the best possible life.

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Study challenges link between pot use, low IQ

Not very convincingly

 A new analysis challenges previous research that suggested teens put their long-term brainpower in danger when they smoke marijuana heavily.

Instead, the analysis indicated that the earlier findings could have been thrown off by another factor -- the effect of poverty on IQ.

The author of the new analysis, Ole Rogeberg, cautioned that his theory may not hold much water. "Or, it may turn out that it explains a lot," said Rogeberg, a research economist at the Ragnar Frisch Center for Economic Research in Oslo, Norway.

The authors of the initial study responded to a request for comment with a joint statement saying they stand by their findings. "While Dr. Rogeberg's ideas are interesting, they are not supported by our data," wrote researchers Terrie Moffitt, Avshalom Caspi and Madeline Meier. Moffitt and Caspi are psychology professors at Duke University, while Meier is a postdoctoral associate there.

Their study, published in August in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, attracted media attention because it suggested that smoking pot has more than short-term effects on how people think.

Based on an analysis of mental tests given to more than 1,000 New Zealanders when they were 13 and 38, the Duke researchers found that those who heavily used marijuana as teens lost an average of eight IQ points over that time period. It didn't seem to matter if the teens later cut back on smoking pot or stopped using it entirely.

In the short term, people who use marijuana have memory problems and trouble focusing, research has shown. So, why wouldn't users have problems for years?

"The question reminds me of something adults say when kids make weird faces: 'Careful, or your face will stay that way,'" Rogeberg said. "It is certainly possible that in the long term, heavy cannabis use has permanent or persistent effects on the brain. But to find out what these changes are and what they mean is not easy. We can't just look at the short-term effects and assume that these gradually become fixed and permanent over time."

In his report, Rogeberg used simulation computer modeling to argue that the initial study was possibly flawed because of the effects of poverty on IQ.

"Recent research indicates that IQ and brainpower are kind of like muscular strength: strengthened if it is regularly challenged. IQ is strengthened or sustained by taking education, studying hard, spending time with smart, challenging people, doing demanding work in our jobs," he said. "Some kids, unfortunately, are burdened with a poor home environment, poor self-control and conduct problems. These kids are likely to gradually shift away from the kinds of activities and environments that would exercise their IQs."

Rogeberg, whose report appears in this week's online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that the initial study didn't properly take this into account. "Although it would be too strong to say that the results have been discredited, the methodology is flawed and the causal inference drawn from the results premature," he wrote.

In their response, the Duke researchers said that only 23 percent of the people they studied were from poor families, making it unlikely that these participants threw off the overall results. And, they added, their results were the same when they only focused on people from middle-class families.

The Duke team also noted that another group shows similar results from marijuana exposure: rats. And, as they pointed out, rats don't go to school or fall into rich, middle-class or poor categories.

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