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Editor's Blog

Neurodevelopmental Disorders in Children: Autism and ADHD

By Kenneth Barbalace
[Monday, April 14, 2008]

Autism, ADHD, learning disabilities, developmental delays and intellectual retardation are among the neurodevelopmental disorders that extract an enormous emotional, mental and financial toll in terms of compromised quality of life and lifelong disability. Additionally, these require special education, psychological and medical support services that drain resources and contribute to further stress on the families and communities. While it is generally accepted that the cause for these disabilities is likely to include genetic and environmental factors, for a vast majority of these disabilities, the cause remains unknown.

Many factors contribute in complex ways to brain development. These include gene expression, heredity, socioeconomic factors, stress, drugs, nutrition and chemical contaminants. Brain development is a long, complicated process involving cell proliferation, migration, differentiation and cell death (apoptosis). There are multiple ways by which chemicals can disrupt neurological development such as influencing gene expression, protein pathways and hypothyroidism.....

Read entire article by Mona S. Gupta, Ph.D.



Anonymous said...

Dr. Gupta writes very well but her writing is akin to a nice story that is not able to be substantiated by medical evidence - the epidemiological evidence of Thalidamide effecting anything other than the development of limbs is simply not there. Further,the research does not support a causal link to any of these neurobehavioral dysfunctions and the environmental associations she has proposed - the fact is if you look at the whole array of literature there is no evidence to link SES with ADHD CP autism...
Perhaps it would create a nice package for 'us' to have a reason but so far: immunization theory took the null hypothesis (does not cause autism)
I think that she may be looking at the children with emotional disabilities that may also develop learning disabilities but these children are not all truly ADHD or even anything more than children that are falling through the proverbial cracks
To end I am not aware of the evidence that shows the medication and rounded approach to treating ADHD has long-term subversive effects. The opposite is actually what the evidence thus far showed - those children that were treated with medication soon after diagnosis fared much better later in their life - that being said medication is not magic and is not enough to treat true ADHD.
SHOW the evidence!

Anonymous said...

WSS! This article is speculation - with no evidence. Did not cite that the original study on ritialan was debunked by its own authors in favor of CBT.

What is silly and tabliod journalism are the reported growth rates. This in NOT due to actual growth but in modern society turning to diagnose at earlier stages and more frequently. We can identify every classification of nerd and rebel now. That's all.

Anonymous said...

Step into our schools and see all the children with special needs and you will see the evidence!

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