10/4 FREE Online Conference: famous savant Wiltshire joins experts

[Guest guest]

Hello,Contents: 1. Papers now open for viewing in Awares’ free international online autism conference.2. Autism newsKey addresses:1. www.autismconnect.org 2. www.autism2006.org 1. First of all, you can now view the full papers at Awares’ free international online autism conference, to give you time to read them before the more than 60 top world autism experts come on line to answer your questions when the conference opens officially tomorrow, October 4. You can register for free right now at www.autism2006.org I am very excited to announce that, among the participants who will be online to take your questions tomorrow is Wiltshire, the world's most famous autistic savant artist. will be online on October 4, 6 and 11. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to put questions to an exceptional autistic talent. can look at a target once and then draw a very accurate and very detailed picture of it from memory. He once drew the whole of central London after a helicopter trip above it. Since 2004 he has drawn Berlin, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Rome and furt on giant panoramic canvasses entirely from memory. The writer and psychologist, Oliver Sacks, devoted an essay to in his book, An Anthropologist on Mars. joins more than 60 of the world's leading experts taking part in the Awares online conference from October 4-11, 2006. Entry to the conference is totally free and open to everyone. You can register right now at www.autism2006.org where you will find the abstracts of almost all the experts' papers and you can exchange views with other delegates.The conference is organised by Autism Cymru, Wales’s national charity for autism.This is the largest such conference ever to be held. The conference opens officially on October 4 and lasts for at least a week - but I will almost certainly extend the event, as I did twice last year because it proved so enormously popular (with more than 10,000 people joining in the discussions).Another late addition to the list of speakers this year is Professor Monaco, from Oxford, UK, one of the world’s leading authorities on the genetics of autismOther speakers this year include:* Donna and Lawson, two of the world's best-known autistic writers and speakers* Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, Professor t Mottron, Professor Margot Prior, Professor Jill Boucher, Professor Isabelle Rapin and Professor DeLong Professor Helen Tager-Flusberg, seven of the world's most outstanding autism experts* and Gisela Slater- (a married couple who provide two brilliant papers on living with Chris's Asperger's syndrome); * Dr Darold Treffert and Dr Becker, the world's two leading authorities on autistic savants* Larry Arnold and Danny Beath, two British photographers with Asperger's syndrome* Shattock and Dr Karl Reichelt, two of the world's foremost experts on autism and diet* Shore, a well-known speaker with autism* Dr Pierce and Dr Casanova, two leading authorities on the neurological aspects of autism* Dennis Debbaudt, the world's top expert on training the emergency services to recognise and understand autism* Jacqui , mother of seven children (including four on the autistic spectrum) and her son, Luke, a well-known author and speaker with Asperger's syndrome* Merry Barua (India), director of Action for Autism, the primary organisation in South Asia specialising in autistic spectrum disorders and related pervasive developmental disabilities* Dr Dinah Murray (UK), a worker, researcher, writer, campaigner and teacher in the field of autism and its variants* Dr Ulla Holck (Denmark) and Dorita Berger (USA), two of the world's most important specialists in music therapy for autism* Chantal Sicile-Kira (USA), one of the leading American experts on adolescence, who in her paper provides invaluable practical tips for teenagers with autism* Carole Rutherford (UK), co-founder of Autism-in-Mind (AIM), a national campaign and support group* Jeanette Purkis (Australia), an artist with Asperger's syndrome and an uplifting message* Breakey (UK), who has particular expertise in further and higher education and was responsible for setting up and developing the Autism Support Service in SheffieldOther international speakers include: Professor Fitzgerald (Ireland), Dr Mitzi Waltz (UK), Dr Donnelly (USA), Dr o Canitano (Italy), Dr Ring (UK), Dr Olga Bogdashina (Ukraine), Professor Colwyn Trevarthen (UK), Shore (USA), Dr Teija Kujala (Finland), Professor von Tetzchner (Norway), Professor t Danon-Boileau (France), Dr Sven Boelte (Germany), Dr Enticott (Australia), Dr Beversdorf (USA), Dr McGregor (UK), Dr Ashwood (USA), Dr Shari Au (USA), Dr Dirk Dossche (USA), Dr Diane (USA), Dr Cody Hazlett (USA), Dr McIntosh (USA), Dr Ring (UK), Dr (USA) and Dr Molly Losh (USA) .Topics for discussion include: Brain Research, Biomedical Approaches, Education, Asperger's syndrome, Autism and relationships, Autism and computers, Autism and perception, Communication methods, Sensory problems in autism, First-hand experiences - Voices from the spectrum, Genetics, The culture of autism, Autism and the environment, The immunology of autism, Diagnosis, Socialising difficulties in autism, Music therapy, Language and autism, Autism and the emergency services, Autism in film, Autism in adolescents and Adults with autism. To find out more about Autism2006, register for free and receive email updates with all the latest conference news, please go to www.autism2006.orgFor further details, please contact myself, Adam Feinstein, at adam@... or telephone on (0)29 20464940 in Cardiff. Don’t miss this invaluable, free opportunity to put your questions to more than sixty of the world's top autism experts – and tell your friends, too!2. On the research news front, a team from Kansas believes it may be possible to detect autism by studying the pupils in a child’s eyes. A Kansas University psychology professor, Dr Colombo, and a doctoral student, Christa , conducted a study in which they showed children, including a group of children with autism, various 4-inch images on a computer screen. The researchers gauged each child’s level of attention by measuring how much their pupils dilated or constricted. They found that children with an autistic spectrum disorder showed the strongest response to images of other faces, especially other children’s faces.I contacted Professor Colombo, who is associate director for cognitive neuroscience at Kansas University's Schiefelbusch Institute for Life Span Studies, about this study. He told me that the youngest children in the sample were about two years of age. He added: “Our rationale in doing this work was twofold: first, to move toward an early diagnostic measure (this one wasn't as ‘systemic’ as we would have liked, but it gives us other clues as to where to look), and second, to identify the candidate neural systems that may lie at the core of the disorder. There are only a limited number of systems that could produce pupillary constriction. Dissociating those is the next step in the work.â€Across the Atlantic, in Germany, brain researchers in Göttingen, using an animal model, have examined the effects of genetic mutations that may cause autism in humans. These are mutations which carry the building instructions for proteins in the neuroligin family. Their study, published in the scientific journal, Neuron, shows that neuroligins ensure that signal transmission between nerve cells functions. In the brain of genetically altered mice without neuroligins, the contact points at which the nerve cells communicate, the synapses, do not mature. The researchers assume that similar malfunctions are experienced by people with autism The new study, published by Nils Brose and Frederique Varoqueaux, of the Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine in Göttingen, and Weiqi Zhang from the neighbouring University Hospital, created a mouse line that not only lacked neuroligin-1 or neuroligin-2, both of which have been associated with autism, but were missing all four known variants of the protein simultaneously. The consequences are accordingly more drastic than with autistic individuals, who are thought only to have one mutated neuroligin gene. Without any neuroligins, the function of the nervous system breaks down completely and the mutant animals die immediately after birth. However, their nerve cells can be examined in detail. According to Brose, "they deliver important findings not only for brain research in general, but also for the possible causes of autism. Our investigations show that the neuroligins regulate the maturation of the synapses. They ensure that there are sufficient receptor proteins on the synaptic membrane of the receiving cell." Brose went as far as to declare: "I believe that autism is a disease of the synapses, a synaptopathy." Two stories involving Asperger’s syndrome featured in AurtismConnect’s recent news items. In the first, a couple from Hampden Township in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, filed a lawsuit against the local school district claiming that their son, who has Asperger's, was repeatedly bullied and harassed by students and teachers from 1998 to earlier this year. The parents, and Bloschichak, claim that the abuse and discrimination their son had endured had "exacerbated" his condition and caused him to regress, the suit states. The Bloschichaks are seeking unspecified monetary and punitive damages for "economic, psychological, emotional and physical injuries." The boy, who is identified only by his initials in the lawsuit because he is a minor, was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome in 1998 and also found to be "mentally gifted." The lawsuit describes him as "a strikingly handsome young man, talented with a brilliant mind, particularly in the area of maths." The suit says the boy, now 14, was subjected "to a pervasively hostile environment of bullying by non-disabled students and abusive staff" since first grade. Students taunted and humiliated him, ransacked his backpack, took his school supplies, stole his lunch box, covered the back of his head with spit and filled the hood of his jacket with spit balls and paper, according to the suit. Because some of his peers threatened to break into his house at night and steal things from his room, he slept with the lights on for a year, the suit states. To escape the abuse, he hid under his desk in the classroom and spent an "inordinate amount of time in the bathroom," the suit states. His teachers were unfamiliar with Asperger's, punished him for behaviour associated with the disorder and sometimes physically restrained him, the suit states. An aide restrained him once to remove from his pocket a caterpillar that he claimed was his "only friend," according to the suit. In the other story involving Asperger’s syndrome, a sacked Mc's worker who stabbed his former boss to death in a "horrific, frenzied, ferocious and crazed attack" in revenge for losing his job was jailed for life on September 21. Shane Freer, 21, killed Jackie Marshall, 56, with an eight-inch hunting knife, punching her and lunging at her in front of customers who had been dining at a branch of the fast food chain in Chichester, southern England, last year.Freer, who has Asperger's, denied murder but pleaded guilty at Lewes crown court in East Sussex to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. He will be detained indefinitely at a secure unit under the Mental Health Act.The court heard that a week before the attack, Freer had been suspended for hitting a girl who had been firing pieces of carrot and wet napkin at him through a straw.On the day of the killing, April 16, he attended a final disciplinary meeting at the restaurant, where he was told of his dismissal for gross misconduct. He also learned that he would not be allowed to reapply for his former position of dining area assistant.The court heard that Freer, who lived with his parents in Batchmere, West Sussex, had worked at the restaurant for two years. He had no previous convictions but had once hit a teacher and taken a knife to school to slash the throat of a girl who had teased him. Simon -Flint QC, prosecuting, said: "The psychiatrists concluded that the defendant poses a high risk to others." Donne QC, defending, said: "It was an offence committed by a very disturbed young man. He suffers from a very profound degree of autism in the shape of Asperger's. In the simplest terms, it means he lives in his own world, unable to respond or cope with everyday things."Finally, a leading British politician has run into trouble with autism campaigners after appearing to suggest the chancellor of the Wxchquer. Gordon Brown, was autistic. Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, faced criticism from campaigners for people with autism and calls from friends of Mr Brown to apologise for his remark. But Mr Osborne insisted he accepted that autism was a very serious condition and had made the remark during a discussion on how difficult he had found his dealings with Mr Brown. The row came after a fringe event at the Conservative Party conference in Bournemouth on October 1, at which Mr Osborne spoke about his childhood and recalled how his brothers used to call him “Knowledge†because of his memory. When Ann Sieghart, The Times columnist who was interviewing him at the event, suggested to him that he himself might have been faintly autistic, Mr Osborne replied: “We’re not getting into Gordon Brown yet.†His remark drew criticism from the National Autistic Society, whose director said that referring to autism as a means of conveying criticism of someone’s personal skills risked stigmatising the 535,000 people in Britain on the autistic spectrum. Nick Hornby, the best-selling writer whose 13-year-old son, Danny, has autism, joined the attack on Mr Osborne, saying that it was not acceptable to taunt an opponent as autistic. Mr Hornby, who helped to found TreeHouse, an educational charity for children with autism, said: “ Osborne doesn’t seem to have noticed that most people over the age of eight no longer use serious and distressing disabilities as a way of taunting people. (Mr) Osborne claims that, when he was younger, he was nicknamed Knowledge - I’m not sure anyone will be calling him Knowledge again for quite a while.â€There was also a furious response from friends of the Chancellor. A source close to Mr Brown said: “This isn’t offensive to Gordon Brown, but it is grossly offensive to the thousands of people affected by autism and their families that their condition should be used by Osborne as a term of political abuse and he should apologise.†Incidentally, a few weeks ago, the novelist, , writing in the British weekly, the Sunday Times, also called Gordon Brown ‘autistic’ In an article entitled “Autistic' Brown loses the plot,†wrote: “Brown, like Nixon, suffers from a kind of political Asperger’s syndrome. Intellectually brilliant, he sometimes seems socially barely functional: a little bit … odd.â€I will discuss this abuse of the terms “autism†and “autistic†in a forthcoming Adam’s Week column on AutismConnect.Hope to see you at the online conference tomorrow morning!Best wishes,Adam FeinsteinEditorAutismConnect

*********************I never endorse anything or anyone. Opinions expressed in what I send out may not be shared by me. Everything that I send out is for informational purposes only.Thanks,Val Dodd-Sarafwww.JP4HealthyLife.com24 hour info line "Juice Plus is America's Brand Name for Prevention"'Children are more harmed by poor diet than by exposure to alcohol, drugs, and tobacco combined.' L. Katz, M.D. Wall Street Journal March 10, 2004