A Quote by Elizabeth Emken

What makes autism different is the history of neglect into the disorder. It's remained such a mystery that science has been very slow to address it. — © Elizabeth Emken
What makes autism different is the history of neglect into the disorder. It's remained such a mystery that science has been very slow to address it.
I think one of the problems with the definition of autism is we keep expanding it. It started as "early infantile autism", and then it became "autism", and now it's "autism spectrum disorder". I'm not opposed to that from the standpoint of trying to broaden our vistas, and so forth. But from a research point of view, the term autism is lost in specificity.
As a scientist leading a funding agency for autism research, I think of autism as a neurodevelopmental disorder.
If you have a child with autism, and he or she has good intelligence, with no delay in language learning maybe there is an advantage to autism as well? Maybe it gives them a better understanding of mathematics, or science? After all, the essence of science and the essence of autism is to notice patterns that others have not noticed.
I think that if I could do any sort of research of autism that I wanted to do, at this point I would take a sample of classic, early infantile autism persons and compare them with what I call "classic late onset autism", individuals. I think we will find that the cause of those youngsters with autism who have autism from birth is probably different than those who have late onset autism.
From a scientific standpoint, Aspergers and autism are one syndrome. Aspergers is part of the autism spectrum, not a separate disorder.
The idea of a cure for autism is itself controversial. Some people with autism say they don't want to be cured, because autism gives them a different way of looking at the world.
Mild autism can give you a genius like Einstein. If you have severe autism, you could remain nonverbal. You don't want people to be on the severe end of the spectrum. But if you got rid of all the autism genetics, you wouldn't have science or art. All you would have is a bunch of social 'yak yaks.'
Savant syndrome is not a disorder in the same way as autism is a disorder or dementia is a disorder. Savant syndrome are some conditions that are superimposed and grafted on to some underlying disability. So savant syndrome is not a disease or disorder in and of itself. It is a collection of characteristics, or symptoms, or behaviors that have grafted on to the underlying disability.
The thing is, autism is all different, you know, variables. And you start out with a certain amount of, you know, the point where the differences in the brain are going to just be a personality variant and, like, for very mild Asperger's. But you get into more severe kinds of autism where there's obvious speech delay, obvious abnormal behavior in a two and three-year-old child, you know, the initial neurology is different from case to case. But all children with autism are going to do better if they get really good educational intervention.
My life - autism's an important part of it, but it bothers me when I see kids where autism and their autism is the only thing they think about. I'd rather have them think about, you know, some art work they were gonna do or some science they wanted to do.
Autism is an extremely variable disorder.
It is not all that common, but there is a phenomenon where autism could get worse at about age two. There are some controversies whether regression is a prominent part of autism, but many people feel that it's very hard to diagnose autism before you can begin really talking in detail with a child.
It's very important to reveal the mystery of the pyramid. Science in archaeology is very important. People all over the world are waiting to solve this mystery.
What is important is to treat everyone like an individual and learning not to generalize autism. With autism, people make assumptions, but it's very broad, and everyone's so different. You have to treat each person as an individual.
To come very near to a true theory, and to grasp its precise application, are two different things, as the history of science teaches us. Everything of importance has been said before by someone who did not discover it.
The history of lead is a history of neglect. It's a history of decisions on our part not to address the broad implications of what we did to ourselves during the industrial revolution and in the first part of the century when our cities expanded broadly, when we built our housing and we began to depend upon lead as a mainstay of our new industrial culture. We put this stuff in even though we knew it was dangerous, we knew it was going to hurt kids.
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