Nice thought about opening a high school for aspergers or autistic kids. If the school started teaching them about the behavioral activities and communication skills which they are struggling will help them to better understand the things and they can lead their life happily.

Do you have them in India, Skyler? The schools, not the aspergers/autistic kids, I assume they're everywhere.

But come to think of it, that may not be a correct assumption. I wonder if the prevalence is higher in some countries?

It is. What's more, dark-skinned ethnicities are disproportionately more likely to be on the spectrum, and those living in Western countries are even more likely than those same ethnic groups living in their home countries.

Hmmm... western lifestyle plus ethnic susceptibility?

They think the ethnic susceptibility is about Vitamin D levels: darker skin means less absorption from the sun, thus less Vitamin D production in the body. Autism rates are also higher in colder/rainer climates as well. Vitamin D is critical to a functioning immune system.

I should think a western lifestyle would provide more opportunity to get all the nutritional needs. Oh wait, maybe not at McD's and Dunkin's. ;)

Vitamin D would be an interesting angle. We have laws putting D in milk but if you can't drink milk...

Well, according to the D gospel, the recommended daily amount (400 IU) is nowhere near what the average person really needs to maintain appropriate blood levels anyway. Up until 1990, all infants in East Germany routinely received 600,000 IU every three months at their pediatric checkups until they were 18 months old, after studies done within the country in the early 50s showed that nearly all infants were severely deficient in their blood levels. But when the wall came down, that practice and the research behind it got lost in the unification of the two medical systems.

Nowadays you can order a home blood test. Both kids had already been done as part of their medical workups (and were far below healthy levels, so now we supplement,) but my mother and I did ours out of curiosity. Both severely deficient, despite the fact that my mother had already been supplementing with twice the recommended allowance. I'm convinced it's one of a number of contributing factors for autism, anyway.

That is exactly opposite of my experience. I see a lot of autistism spectrum/Asperger's kids and adults, and they have all been Caucasian. And by "all," I mean every single one of them. Can't remember ever dealing with any Blacks, Asians, or Hispanics.

Well, you're talking about minority populations, so the overall numbers are still going to be lower. There are a total of 8 cites here. But where you really see the disparity in my experience is in Indian and Middle Eastern Americans. Of the 10 autistic children in my son's class, 4 are Indian/Pakistani/MiddleEastern, and we live in a very white community.

Me too. * I'm thinking*


Maybe one African American and American Indian but that is out of dozens of special ed classes, one residential training center and a state school.

When you see so many kids and adults with disabilities it's hard to pull the needle out of my haystack of memory.

Ugh... And on this note, just this evening Mr. Clod came home from work to tell me that a coworker had awkwardly approached him about what to do now that her 2-year-old daughter has been diagnosed with autism. She and her husband are Indian.

GFCF Lady to the rescue.

Yeah, but not until she's ready. We've both agreed I can't talk to her yet, because I'm bitter and jaded--time to take this bull and grab it by the horns!--and she's still in "she just needs a little speech therapy and everything will be fine" land. Everyone at his office actually already knows about our kids and the site, so the fact that she chose to approach him means she'll be on track in another couple of months.

We actually figured out last night that she lives pretty close to us--her daughter and Minifobette will be classmates in PPCD.

The amount of Vitamin D put in milk is literally just enough to prevent you from getting Rickets.