The Age of Autism: The Amish anomaly
- From: "georgia" <jwissmille@xxxxxxx>
- Date: 22 Apr 2005 20:26:39 -0700
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20050321-115921-9566r.htm
The Washington Times
April 18, 2005
The Age of Autism: The Amish anomaly
By Dan Olmsted
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
Lancaster, PA, Apr. 18 (UPI) -- Part 1 of 2. Where are the autistic
Amish?
Here in Lancaster County, heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country, there
should
be well over 100 with some form of the disorder.
I have come here to find them, but so far my mission has failed, and
the
very few I have identified raise some very interesting questions about
some
widely held views on autism.
The mainstream scientific consensus says autism is a complex genetic
disorder, one that has been around for millennia at roughly the same
prevalence. That prevalence is now considered to be 1 in every 166
children
born in the United States.
Applying that model to Lancaster County, there ought to be 130 Amish
men,
women and children here with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Well over 100, in rough terms.
Typically, half would harbor milder variants such as Asperger's
Disorder or
the catch-all Pervasive Development Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified
--
PDD-NOS for short.
So let's drop those from our calculation, even though "mild" is a
relative
term when it comes to autism.
That means upwards of 50 Amish people of all ages should be living in
Lancaster County with full-syndrome autism, the "classic autism" first
described in 1943 by child psychiatrist Leo Kanner at Johns Hopkins
University. The full-syndrome disorder is hard to miss, characterized
by
"markedly abnormal or impaired development in social interaction and
communication and a markedly restricted repertoire of activities and
interests," according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental
Disorders.
Why bother looking for them among the Amish? Because they could hold
clues
to the cause of autism.
The first half-dozen articles in this ongoing series on the roots and
rise
of autism examined the initial studies and early accounts of the
disorder,
first identified by Kanner among 11 U.S. children born starting in
1931.
Kanner wrote that his 1938 encounter with a child from Mississippi,
identified as Donald T., "made me aware of a behavior pattern not known
to
me or anyone else theretofore." Kanner literally wrote the book on
"Child
Psychiatry," published in 1934.
If Kanner was correct -- if autism was new and increasingly prevalent
--
something must have happened in the 1930s to trigger those first
autistic
cases. Genetic disorders do not begin suddenly or increase dramatically
in
prevalence in a short period of time.
That is why it is worth looking for autistic Amish -- to test reasoning
against reality. Largely cut off for hundreds of years from American
culture
and scientific progress, the Amish might have had less exposure to some
new
factor triggering autism in the rest of population.
Surprising, but no one seems to have looked.
Of course, the Amish world is insular by nature; finding a small subset
of
Amish is a challenge by definition. Many Amish, particularly Old Order,
ride
horse-and-buggies, eschew electricity, do not attend public school,
will not
pose for pictures and do not chat casually with the "English," as they
warily call the non-Amish.
Still, some Amish today interact with the outside world in many ways.
Some
drive, use phones, see doctors and send out Christmas cards with family
photos. They all still refer to themselves as "Plain," but the
definition of
that word varies quite a bit.
So far, from sources inside and outside the Amish community, I have
identified three Amish residents of Lancaster County who apparently
have
full-syndrome autism, all of them children.
A local woman told me there is one classroom with about 30
"special-needs"
Amish children. In that classroom, there is one autistic Amish child.
Another autistic Amish child does not go to school.
The third is that woman's pre-school-age daughter.
If there were more, she said, she would know it.
What I learned about those children is the subject of the next column.
This ongoing series aims to be interactive with readers and will take
note
of comment, criticism and suggestions. E-mail: dolmsted@xxxxxxx
.
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