Autism Spectrums And DORE Speculations

So, I’m still waiting on a reply from DORE Australia, after reading a great blogger on the topic of DORE. You see, I have an unanswered question. Something I emailed to them last month and got a cheery reply to, even!

Simple enough question, I thought. “Why would the Australian website for DORE claim that they do not publish research on that site which hasn’t been peer reviewed… when an article in the Leamington Courier, dated January 2008 features claims about research that isn’t peer reviewed yet in any journals?”

“…In addition 56 people who had been formally diagnosed as suffering from autism have now completed the programme. Of this number 100 per cent showed improvement across a battery of cognitive, literacy and motor tests and 72 per cent showed improvement in social skills, self esteem and mood.”

Hell of a claim, huh? I’m still waiting, DORE? About a month now, or near enough?

See, I first bumped into DORE at the ‘Mind, Body, Spirit‘ Festival in Melbourne, in November. Amongst the psychic halls, magnetic masseuses, really bad cherry-cordial touted to be great for my constitution (note, organisers of MBS - don’t put competing tonic drinks next to each other, because they snipe. I ended up with five sodding cups of goo before I was bullied into saying ‘yes, your organic berry-drink tastes just a little less crappier than theirs‘).

Oh, many people in Australia watch the popular current affairs program Four Corners, which featured a report on DORE last year. Good summary, if you wish to read the transcript.

My M.Ed in Special Learning Needs mostly focused on gender issues and gifted and talented education. But you can’t really escape looking at topics like autism and dyslexia, dyspraxia and ADHD and the like - certainly not as a teacher in schools, where professional development is pretty much expected. In fact, the very things that DORE claims to care about have been a part of my education for a very long time.

If you’re not a regular reader of science blogs, then you should probably catch up on some of the important issues regarding vaccination myths and autism, and the snake-oil garbage / claims like chelation therapy and mercury myths that abound. I’d suggest sites like Neurologica Blog, Brain Duck, Holford Watch and of course Respectful Insolence on the topic. More recently you may have heard about the political element involved with ‘what causes autism’ - Aetiology has recently summed up some of the unfortunate comments made in the USA.

In fact, it was Brain Duck who pointed out to me that when the DORE people in Melbourne handed me this pdf form, that it looks very much like a basic crib sheet for ‘difficult questions’ to ward off people like myself. Do I just read the research at the end of that handy sheet and leave it as that? The answer is no. I ask questions.

You see, I have access to not only blogs and news articles, but journal articles that say things about DORE Achievement Centers, like:

Remarkable success is claimed for an exercise-based treatment that is designed to accelerate cerebellar development. Unfortunately, the published studies are seriously flawed. On measures where control data are available, there is no credible evidence of significant gains in literacy associated with this intervention. There are no published studies on efficacy with the clinical groups for whom the programme is advocated. It is important that family practitioners and paediatricians are aware that the claims made for this expensive treatment are misleading.

The most recent paper I can find (and yes, you can read all about the saga of this particular journal Dyslexia here, thanks to Brain Duck) only said:

How likely is it that the linguistic gains reported by Reynolds and Nicolson (Dyslexia, 2007; 13: 78-96) are due to test-retest effects?… findings suggest that two of the four linguistic gains reported by Reynolds and Nicolson (2007) are due to test-retest effects (phonemic segmentation and working memory). The remaining two tests are measures of spoken language and not reading. Hence, the data reported by Reynolds and Nicolson (2007) are not sufficient to support DDAT as an effective treatment for children with reading difficulties.

Not only have I been waiting for DORE’s answer, I’ve also become a little more aware how people really do think some rather odd things about autism. A mailing list that I subscribe too had a bunch of people (yes, professionals in their field) demonstrate this to me. It centered around this lady: Amanda Baggs.

According to some in the mailing list I subscribed to, she’s a fake - ‘What an elaborate hoax.’

Sadly, this just indicates that the stereotype is stronger than the research and evidence one can find upon three main forms of Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD), being autism, Asperger’s syndrome, and PDD-NOS (or Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified). ASDs can’t be easily dismissed as involving ‘just able to do X and Y and nothing else’. It’s not true that it equals being like the silent, beautiful blonde toddler in the children’s novel October’s Child by Eleanor Spence or even just being like Charlie in the recently released Australian film, The Black Balloon.

One of the blog entries on Science Based Medicine discusses the changes in definition and continuing investigations - a book I picked up recently by Daniel Tammet, ‘Born on a Blue Day‘ kind of says some of it for me:

When I was a child, doctors did not know about Asperger’s Syndrome (it was not recognised as a unique disorder until 1994) and so for many years I grew up with no understanding of why I felt so different from my peers and apart from the world around me. By writing about my own experiences of growing up on the autism spectrum, it is my hope that I can help other young people living with high-functioning autism, like my brother Steven, to feel less isolated and to have confidence in the knowledge that it is ultimately possible to lead a happy and productive life. I’m living proof of that. Born on a Blue Day, Daniel Tammet, p.15.

I can also point to the example of Dr Temple Grandin. I can and have taught the novel ‘The Curious Incidence of the Dog in the Night-time‘. Science blogger John Wilkins even talks about his son and himself as having high-functioning Asperger’s Syndrome. There’s more than a handful of people I admire who I’ve met online (more often than not, online) and in real life who fit somewhere on the spectrum, all unique as anyone else you might care to mention. That’s kind of the point behind the word ‘spectrum‘?

Amanda Baggs herself, in an interview on CNN’s site, recommends a book - ‘Autism and the Myth of the Person Alone’. I hoped that posting a link to the Wired interview with her would help a little with the dismissal that her YouTube videos got - The Truth About Autism: Scientists Reconsider What They Think They Know.

Oh, whilst SWIFT claims that a fifteen-year old documentary on FC, ‘Frontline: Prisoners of Silence‘ will be taken from public viewing - (’before the zealots who support this farce can get it taken down‘) - to be brutally frank, it just isn’t the case.

Frontline has had this out for SO many years, James Randi, and it’s hardly likely to remove the evidence of it that easily! There’s a great transcript of that documentary ‘Prisoners of Silence’ here, for a start. There’s a few libraries that still carry VHS copies, like my local - and clearly it’s found in full online.

I am still looking into communication methods, but I know that other test situations, using linguistic analysis and documentation of physical and independent typing, indicate shown individual authorship (Cardinal, Hanson and Wakeham, 1996; Tuzzi, Cemin and Castagna 2004). All of this just points again to uniqueness and variation in capabilities, as Amanda Baggs and the other authors and researchers I’ve mention, show.

As for unique evidence, in my opinion it’s kind of a pity that DORE seems to be more keen on charging for the ‘therapy’ rather than producing some evidence for what the newspaper article said about ‘100% recovery’? I guess I’ll keep waiting to see if that’s true…

Speaking of ‘online’ - I’ll let Amanda Baggs and the words of David Spicer finish this off:

References:

Bishop, D. (2007). Curing dyslexia and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder by training motor co-ordination: Miracle or myth? Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health. Vol 43(10), 653-655.

McArthur, G. (2007) Test-retest effects in treatment studies of reading disability: The devil is in the detail. Dyslexia: An International Journal of Research and Practice. Vol 13(4), 240-252.

Rutter M. Incidence of autism spectrum disorders: changes over time and their meaning. Acta Paediatr. 2005 Jan;94(1):2-15.

Tammet, D. ( 2006). Born on a Blue Day. Hodder and Stoughton, London.

Crossley, R & McDonald, A. (1989). Annie’s Coming Out. Penguin Books, Melbourne.

Good Reading, More Wanted!

I hope you’ve enjoyed the latest Skeptic’s Circle, hosted on the Skepbitch site! I particularly enjoyed laughing at Digital Cuttlefish’s brand new book…

But! More is indeed wanted (and here’s hoping that some of the keen readers of the awesome “Evolving Thoughts” are such writers!) - as the next edition of Encephalon will be hosted here!

Every two weeks, Encephalon “selects” the best psychology and neuroscience blog posts from around the blogosphere, giving readers the chance to “decide” which ones they’d like to investigate further.

You can submit suggestions for the next edition to encephalon.host at gmail dot com. Encephalon has been predestined to appear next at PodBlack Blog, on May 12; before May 11th would be appreciated!

If you’re in Australia, you may also like to contribute to Skeptics of Carlos:

We think that taking blog posts beyond the blog-o-sphere and encouraging authors who contribute to the Skeptics of Carlos to take the step and get published in more than their own blog and ours.

Write in your post details to skepticsofcarlos at gmail.com.

Entries will appear on this site on 13th May; entries in before 12th May!

Oh, if you’re wondering - both will be a little more intellectual and informative than the 3rd Annual Nigerian Email Conference. I particularly liked the subtle reference to the wonderful Dean Cameron’s Nigerian Spam Scam Scam…

• Debate:
  Attend  a lively debate between Lady Mariam Abacha and Mr. Godwin Oyathelem. Topic: “The effectiveness of using all UPPERCASE characters.”

• Practical Discussion:
  Mallam Mahmud Abacah answers the question, “Are 10 million emails a day too many?“

• Tech Session:
  Mrs. M Sese-Seko reveals valuable secrets in her session titled, “Those Pesky Email Headers“

Scientiae Carnival And Platypus Revealed!

Just a few quick linky-poos - first, I will be taking part in this great challenge:

My “challenge”, for those sciencebloggers who choose to accept it, is this: read and research an old, classic scientific paper and write a blog post about it. I recommend choosing something pre- World War II, as that was the era of hand-crafted, “in your basement”-style science. There’s a lot to learn not only about the ingenuity of researchers in an era when materials were not readily available, but also about the problems and concerns of scientists of that era, often things we take for granted now!

The platypus - indeed revealed!

The genome of the Platypus has been sequenced:

The first analysis of the genome sequence of the duck-billed platypus was published today by an international team of scientists, revealing clues about how genomes were organized during the early evolution of mammals. The research was supported in part by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

This nearly makes me cheerful in the face of Western Australia’s decision to veto stem-cell research:

Health Minister and Attorney-General Jim McGinty said the defeat of the therapeutic cloning laws was a bitter blow for people with life-threatening conditions who were desperate for research into tissue regeneration, and it signalled a worrying trend.

…Mr McGinty admitted five government MPs also voted in the conscience vote against the therapeutic cloning bill based on religious or ethical beliefs, but he said many MPs had less acceptable motives.

He said the bill offered the potential to find cures or provide real improvements for conditions including spinal cord injury, dementia, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, and many cancers.

His stance was supported by Peter Klinken from the WA Institute for Medical Research, who said it was very disappointing. “We need to explore all options in terms of regenerative medicine,” he said.

Mr McGinty said the bill could not be reintroduced in the current parliament and was now dead until after an election.

*Sigh*… yes, bring on the next election…

And don’t forget Scientiae carnival goodness! Some brilliant items here, will keep me reading all day - enjoy! Gah, my entry was indeed off-topic, but still about my current work - ’How do our career goals change over time?’ It is fascinating to see just how many women echo my own experiences. Just a few that captured my attention included:

Kim at Shear Sensibility (great name for a Geology blog!), who echoes the enthusiasm I have found in writing: “But I can’t do it by simply sitting down and writing an impersonal article. I need to be driven by the sense of wonder, as well.”

Hannah of Young Stellar Objects who writes of the important challenge of networking that come with the career in her post “Changing with the times”; something that I learned through school politics and the example of my co-workers and even parents of my students, which still remain to me today. Oh, and Sciencewoman’s “It’s not exactly what I planned, but I really think it’s where I was meant to be“… which was something I thought this morning as I walked past my former workplace - and was beeped at by my former boss heading into my former office! I’ll have to get in touch with her today!

Oh, and I love the way Flicka Mawa rounded it all up:

Luckily, there are still many brave women scientists for whom the current state of the system is workable, and for many, their love of science may get them through. Hopefully, all of us will do what we can to help effect some change, from outside the academic science world and from within it, so that those who truly do want an academic science career won’t be hindered by many of the biases we still face today.

Superstition Gets Your Goat And Podblack Does Perth Atheist Meetup!

Sheesh, here I am researching superstitions for my thesis from the past to now… and even today another item pops up - NY Times:

The goat option was tested at Katmandu Airport in September to propitiate Akash Bhairab, the Hindu sky god. Officials of Nepal Airlines told Reuters that they had sacrificed two goats in front of a Boeing 757 whose mechanical problems had forced the airline to suspend some flights.

You may recognize the name of one of the people they interviewed on the matter of magical thinking -  Gilovich is the author of How We Know What Isn’t So: Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life, one of the books I’m using in my research.

Our brains may understand meteorology, but in our guts we still think that not carrying an umbrella will make it rain, a belief that was demonstrated in experiments by Jane Risen of the University of Chicago and Thomas Gilovich of Cornell.

…Even people who consciously reject superstitions seem to have these gut feelings, says Orit Tykocinski, a professor of psychology at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in Israel. She found that rationalists were just as likely as superstitious people to believe that insurance would ward off accidents.

A magical belief in insurance sounds crazy because at a rational level we realize that our decision to forgo an insurance policy is not going to affect pilots or mechanics. But Dr. Risen and Dr. Gilovich say that there’s a logical explanation for this superstition: Because calamities are so vivid and easily brought to mind, we tend to overestimate their probability when we intuitively judge what will happen if we tempt fate.

And if you’d like to read the paper that Gilovich co-authored last year on superstition influencing the exchange of lottery tickets (‘the theory of “anticipated regret”: Even though the people realized the odds were no different for any ticket, they anticipated feeling especially stupid if they traded away a winner, so they held on to their ticket just to avoid that regret’) -  you can download it here!

First, I have to briefly mention in passing, the news item about black cats in Seattle:

An obvious reason [to avoid getting black cats] would be superstition, but S.A.R.A’s Fram disagrees. “I don’t think it’s witchcraft or anything,” she said. “I think it’s because they’re plain.”

PLAIN?? Hmmph.

I’ve blogged about some serious prejudice against black cats before (my own, pictured, is probably a good example of the Humane Society’s reason number eight for getting one - ‘holding a black cat is very slimming‘ - because she’s naturally short and round!) - but I must admit, I’ve always liked cats regardless.

I also like good meetings regardless of their reasons! Which is why I greatly enjoyed the Perth Athiest Meeting last Monday! A brilliant Meetup hosted by the very erudite and congenial Grant, aka “Protium”, with a great gang of about fifteen at the very cosy sidebar at the Flying Scotsman in Mount Lawley.

I’ve yet to zip over all the photos to Protium (currently putting them together now! I hope some of them will be of use for promoting the group), but here’s a photo of the poster on the door. More to come, I hope.

Best of all, it was my first opportunity to hear the Secular party member for Western Australia speak! Michael Tan led a wonderful discussion of the benefits of atheism, drawing upon his informal lecture on the ideas stemming from the popular work of Sam Harris, The End of Faith. The group also suggested some other texts to get into - the documentary ‘History of Disbelief’ by Jonathan Miller; another member handed around copies of The Quotable Atheist: Ammunition for Non-Believers, Political Junkies, Gadflies, and Those Generally Hell-Bound by Jack Huberman for perusal.

Oooh, if you’re reading this, Grant - my suggestion was to catch the Skepticality episode of Dr Karl here, by my friend Michael McRae. I think my problem with responding to your earlier comment about Dr Karl’s political preferences was that I hadn’t looked into it myself, since I knew I couldn’t vote for him anyway! And I honestly don’t remember Dr Karl talking about religious matters, except in passing on Skepticality? But he is active on Facebook and has been more than happy to answer questions before - I’ll be keeping an ear out in future!

I don’t consider myself to be the most sociable person when trying something new (I don’t drink alcohol, so bars are usually not that appealing) - but the Perth Atheist Meetup was a fantastic example of a gathering of like-minded people, who were more than willing to engage and discuss the intellectual and social challenges.

Don’t forget, the APIS Philosophy Club will be meeting on May 15th, at the King’s Street Arts Center!

References:

Risen, J.L., & Gilovich, T. (2007). Another look at why people are reluctant to exchange lottery tickets. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 12-22.

Dragon! Fold Your Own!

Yes, it’s origami dragon - if you’re a subscriber to eSkeptic, you’d be folding one now! All thanks to the magic of Richard Saunders:

To conjure up a winged dragon of your own — or a flock of them! — all you need are a square piece of paper and an internet connection. Richard has kindly made a step-by-step instruction video showing exactly how to fold the figure, which you can watch online for free. Have fun!

WATCH the video
(78MB Quicktime)

Uh, yes, that is the very same dragon that I was naughty with on Bad Origami. You were warned…

Little Kitten - Skeptic Of Giraffes

With thanks to Skeptopia, who has more talent and less hang-ups than I have. And she uses words like ‘axiraphism’, which I don’t get. Bugger.

Blogging, In Print And Beyond

I first have some great news - two of my fave Australian skeptics, Dr Karen Stollznow and Dr Martin Bridgstock are in the most recent Skeptical Inquirer!

Skeptical Ethics - What Should We Investigate? - Dr Martin Bridgstock

Merchandising God: The Pope Tart and

Anonymous vs. Scientology - both by Dr Karen Stollznow!

As for me? A minor victory, as I wanted to test a hypothesis - how amenable are campus magazines and street publications to having contributors who write about skepticism?

The answer, as inspired by Jayson Cooke, one of the fantastic co-presenters of The TANK Vodcast and the example of ‘Fryish’ from the NY Skeptics Forum - turns out to be yes! So one of my blog articles will be in the next Curtin University publication ‘Grok’. All part of a bigger plan, which I’m about to tell you!

Today I was immensely flattered to get an email from a reader, who wanted some tips about blogging and getting an audience.

I’m no expert (in fact, if you want some links from those who have done a little historical overview of blogging and ‘how to run a blog carnival’ - zip to the end of this post). But I will say what I’ve seen and why I started the way I have.

Firstly, I was very much turned off blogging by the boast of someone who thought he ‘had all the answers’. Sheesh, wouldn’t that be nice? He said that he dedicated his time to writing articles on skeptical topics, so they’d hit the top of Google searches.

Ironically, I’ve never found a single one of his articles ever hit the top of any Google search. In fact, I doubt I’ve seen them published anywhere!

But it got me thinking. Was it as ’simple’ as he seemed to believe it was? So, I started writing here and there’s a few things I’ve done that might be of use to others.

First, there’s a couple of strategies that you can use. Although it depends on what your eventual goals are for a blog?

I’ve found that blogs are useful for networking, for drafting a few ideas out and finding like-minded people, useful as a repository for articles and amusing friends, etc. There’s people like me who love British comedy and science fiction, who keep an ear to the ground for the latest books and enjoy Japanese culture, perhaps are Australian like me, educators or (highly unlikely… ) are interested in studies of the paranormal and pseudoscientific!

I’m interested in taking it a little further? I’ve noticed that Science Blogs and sites like Skeptic’s Dictionary ‘SkeptiMedia’ get a lot of readers, with many of the authors hailing from academia or presenters who use their sites to alert others on issues, coordinating events or elaborating on items within their particular field of interest.

Quite a few Science Bloggers are writers or presenters in different arenas, so I’d like to think that a blog can be useful in that way - as a way of brainstorming articles ideas or responding to each other. Skeptic’s Dictionary also highlights blogs which have educational resources.

I know that there are educational providers in the UK and Australia who have critical thinking and philosophy units that could use more resources. Encouraging students to do blogs are an interesting way to exercising skills learnt in the classroom online. It’s even been the topic of several articles in educational publications and the focus of some Blog Conventions.

To begin with, there’s a few strategies to get your blog known: blog circles and features like Technorati and StumbleUpon. Technorati and StumbleUpon are fairly well-known and you just list your blog with them. A few blog circles include:

• Skeptic’s Circle - the ever-enjoyable and brain-challenging Skeptic’s Circle site is here - hosting one of the ’rounds’ is also a good idea!
• Networking sites like Skeptic Journal are popping up, with great collections of links for people to use as their own handy RSS feed of what’s out there! Good places to join!
• Blog Carnivals of many sorts are here - http://blogcarnival.com/bc/ - some of the popular ones include the Carnival of the Godless and there’s also ones that have particular themes like Tangled Bank. Doing a search online for topics and ‘blog carnival’ should help; finding your favorite bloggers or ones that share similarities to you and joining blog circles they do is also a great strategy.

More recently I started the following blog circle - to encourage people to think beyond online publications: Skeptics Of Carlos:

‘Skeptics Of Carlos’ is a monthly carnival for bloggers who apply critical thought to questionable stories.

What is slightly different is that we hope to encourage authors to submit articles to:

• To the Australian Skeptics website and Australian Skeptics Journal,
• student magazines,
• street-press and
• college and university publications

Like the Skeptics’ Circle, it intends to be apolitical but will encourage entries on: mysteries, the paranormal, pseudoscience, frauds, urban legends, scams, untested medical claims, historical revisionism, creationism and intelligent design claims.

Preference is for Australian writers but we will allow for overseas contributors.

If you’re after more blog-centric links and advice:

A Blog Around the Clock has written about this before:

“Blog Carnivals And The Future Of Journalism”

“Blogs and the Future of Science“

And for hosting a Blog Carnival -the wonderful Feminists and SciFi carnival suggested the following:

“Ringmistress”

Orac Knows on Advice

Sour Duck’s Advice To Hosting

Oh - don’t forget - the next Neuroscience blogging carnival Encephalon will be hosted here, on May 12th!

Little Kitten - Teaser For Doctor’s Daughter

Yep, that’s what the closing credits of the show held for us.

Georgia Moffett, who plays Jenny, is the real-life daughter of Fifth Doctor actor Peter Davison and The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy star Sandra Dickinson. David Tennant described the episode by saying “We get to see the Doctor’s daughter, played by the Doctor’s daughter.”