‘Children with autism are having to wait an average of three-and-a-half years before diagnosis, experts claim.
Adults with the condition have to wait an average of two years, causing anxiety and depression, the National Autistic Society and academics said.
In a letter to NHS England, 12,000 of the society’s supporters have demanded action to cut the wait for diagnosis.
NHS England said it was working to cut waiting times, but diagnosis could be complex and involve different agencies.’
See:
‘Beth Worboys was desperate to read a novel aimed at girls like her. “All the books about autism were for boys,” says the 17-year-old. “I wanted to read a book aimed at anxious, isolated girls like me”.
Thanks in large part to Beth, that novel now exists. At a 2014 autism event, the teenager, then a pupil at Limpsfield Grange, a Surrey-based school for girls with autism and communication difficulties – and the subject of an ITV documentary tomorrow – cornered Robert Pritchett, a leading figure at the National Autistic Society. She persuaded him to fund her book. The resulting novel, M is For Autism, was published last week. Co-written by the entire cohort of the school, it allows the reader to view the world through the eyes of a girl with autism. And with experts now recognising that female autism often goes undiagnosed, it’s a novel that could change lives.’
‘Aggressive and angry as a toddler and with delayed speech, she was different from her five siblings, and by the time she was 11 she was suffering from Tourette’s syndrome and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), both of which are linked to her autism.’
See:
A recent international study, lead by Prof Joseph Buxbaum of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai New York, has discovered that 33 genes are linked to autism traits arising from ‘15,480 DNA samples’ from children affected by the mental illness and their parents.
‘The researchers assessed 15,480 DNA samples to determine the impact of mutations to the DNA that are passed from parent to child as well as those that spring up spontaneously.
The study expanded the number of genes linked to autism up to 33.
Seven genes were completely new while 11 had not been classed as true risk genes due to lack of data. Fifteen of the genes were already known to be risky.
It also indicated that small, rare genetic mutations in 107 genes can contribute to the risk of autism.
More than 5% of the autistic people in the study had these non-inherited loss-of-function gene mutations.’
However, ‘The National Autistic Society said we were still “a long way” from knowing the cause of autism’.
Related Article:
Medicine is Alive Everywhere 