Stanford Study Provides False Hope For Many Parents, Misrepresents Autism Disorders By Excluding Subjects With Intellectual Disability

A Stanford study which excluded autistic subjects with intellectual disability is being used to spread the false notion that autism is not a disability ... just a difference. This misrepresentation of autism disorders appears in the August 16, 2013 San Jose Mercury News (I added the underlining, HLD):

"Autistic kids with math abilities show different brain patterns

By Lisa M. Krieger

lkrieger@mercurynews.com

"Stanford researchers have unearthed clues about the formidable brains of some autistic children, suggesting that the diagnosis may signal a different cognitive style, not disability. 

Superior math skills were found in autistic Bay Area children with average intelligence compared with matched children who were not autistic. The two group's brain scans were different, as well. Images of the autistic children's brains while calculating math problems revealed a different pattern of activity than those of non-autistic children.

This small but important study, the first of its type, "makes us better aware of the unique talents that these people have, which could help them have better academic and professional lives," said postdoctoral scholar Teresa Iuculano, lead author of the study. "We think it could be reassuring for parents," she said. The study is being published online Saturday in the journal Biological Psychiatry. Like all people with autism, the children had difficulty with social interactions. But they showed strengths, as well, according to the team of scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.

"It is not necessarily a deficient brain, but a different brain," said Iuculano."

There is no mention of the fact that approximately 50% of persons with autism disorders have intellectual disabilities according to the World Health Organization, have intellectual disability. The San Jose Mercury News article does go on to acknowledge that some persons with autism may also suffer from profound "retardation" but downplays it by going on in the same sentence goes to state some also have savant abilities.:

"Autism comes in many forms. It can be a devastating diagnosis with profound retardation. But people can also have exceptional skills or talents, known as "savant" abilities."

The Stanford School of Medicine report on the study wasn't any better in  so far as it describes the study as  involving only high functioning autistic subjects but makes no mention of the 50% with autism AND intellectual disability. It generalizes the results to persons with autism and while it does refers to deficits in autism it refers only to social communication deficits, repetitive behaviors and restricted interests. The article makes no mention of the intellectual disability which restricts the lives of approximately 50% of persons with autism disorders:

"Children with autism and average IQs consistently demonstrated superior math skills compared with nonautistic children in the same IQ range, according to a study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.

 

There appears to be a unique pattern of brain organization that underlies superior problem-solving abilities in children with autism,” said Vinod Menon, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and a member of the Child Health Research Institute at Packard Children's.

The autistic children’s enhanced math abilities were tied to patterns of activation in a particular area of their brains — an area normally associated with recognizing faces and visual objects.

Menon is senior author of the study, published online Aug. 17 in Biological Psychiatry. Postdoctoral scholar Teresa luculano, PhD, is the lead author.

Children with autism have difficulty with social interactions, especially interpreting nonverbal cues in face-to-face conversations. They often engage in repetitive behaviors and have a restricted range of interests.

But in addition to such deficits, children with autism sometimes exhibit exceptional skills or talents, known as savant abilities. For example, some can instantly recall the day of the week of any calendar date within a particular range of years — for example, that May 21, 1982, was a Friday. And some display superior mathematical skills. "

.................

The research team is now gathering data from a larger group of children with autism to learn more about individual differences in their mathematical abilities. Menon emphasized that not all children with autism have superior math abilities, and that understanding the neural basis of variations in problem-solving abilities is an important topic for future research."