Miley Cyrus and Autism: 10 Surprising Things They Have In Common

OR, What Will Autism Be Like in 100 Years?

I’ll confess: I didn’t come up with either of these titles on my own. They were simply two of the choices I was given by Hubspot’s new Blog Topic Generator Tool, which was unveiled to me (and presumably to many others) in an email last Thursday.  “Give us three nouns,” promised everyone’s favorite inbound marketing platform, “and we’ll give you a week’s worth of blog post titles in a matter of seconds.” (I’m paraphrasing, somewhat.) I gave them “autism,” “personality,” and “parenting.” At the end of this post you’ll find a screenshot of the other options I could have chosen. I’m sure you’ll agree I made the right choice.

Of course, as behooves any marketing guru, Hubspot does offer a fabulous disclaimer: “Our algorithm isn’t perfect,” they write. “After you have your titles, you may want to tweak them to be more relevant to your terms and grammatically correct.” To be honest, I wasn’t all that keen about tweaking (notice I didn’t say “twerking,” although you wouldn’t want to see me do that either).  

Rather, I chose to stick to what I was assigned, finding it very personally compelling. If only I had a snowball’s chance in Florida of coming anywhere close to living up to it, given that these subjects deserve serious treatment. At least, the subject of autism does, so that’s where our attention will be focused.  Forgive me, Hannah Montana fans, but I don’t think there are any connections to be made between the following recent autism studies and Miley Cyrus, although you’re welcome to challenge me in a comment if you feel otherwise. Nevertheless, I’m sure there are many Miley Cyrus fans who would appreciate a better understanding of autism, so welcome. Let’s start with these recent research reports:

1. Study Reveals Senses of Sight and Sound Separated in Children with Autism

January 14, 2014—Like watching a foreign movie that was badly dubbed, children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have trouble integrating simultaneous information from their eyes and their ears, according to a Vanderbilt study published today in The Journal of Neuroscience.

2. Hospital-Diagnosed Maternal Infections Linked to Increased Autism Risk

December 23, 2013—Hospital-diagnosed maternal bacterial infections during pregnancy were associated with an increased risk of autism spectrum disorders in children, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published Dec. 23 in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.
(Full story . . . )

3. Probiotic Therapy Alleviates Some Autism-like Behaviors in Mice

December 5, 2013—Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is diagnosed when individuals exhibit characteristic behaviors that include repetitive actions, decreased social interactions, and impaired communication. Curiously, many individuals with ASD also suffer from gastrointestinal (GI) issues, such as abdominal cramps and constipation.
(Full story . . . )

4. Video Could Transform How Schools Serve Teens with Autism

October 17, 2013—Video-based teaching helps teens with autism learn important social skills, and the method eventually could be used widely by schools with limited resources, a Michigan State University researcher says.
(Full story . . . )

5. Study Provides Clues about Imitation or “Empathy Impairments” in Autistic Children

September 30, 2013—Researchers say it’s clear that some cases of autism are hereditary, but have struggled to draw direct links between the condition and particular genes. Now a team at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology has devised a process for connecting a suspect gene to its function in autism.
(Full story . . . )

6. Researchers Discover a Potential Cause of Autism

CHAPEL HILL, NC; August 28, 2013—Key enzymes are found to have a ‘profound effect’ across dozens of genes linked to autism, the insight could help illuminate environmental factors behind autism spectrum disorder and contribute to a unified theory of how the disorder develops. This represents a significant advance in the hunt for environmental factors behind autism and lends new insights into the disorder’s genetic causes.
(Full story . . . )

7. Autistic Children Can Outgrow Difficulty Understanding Visual Cues and Sounds

BRONX, NY; August 28, 2013—Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have shown that high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (ASD) children appear to outgrow a critical social communication disability. Younger children with ASD have trouble integrating the auditory and visual cues associated with speech, but the researchers found that the problem clears up in adolescence. The study was published today in the online edition of the journal Cerebral Cortex.
(Full story with video . . . )

8. Autistic Kids Who Best Peers at Math Show Different Brain Organization

STANFORD, CA; August 16, 2013—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.(Full story . . . )

9. Making the Brain Attend to Faces in Autism

A new study in Biological Psychiatry explores the influence of oxytocin

Philadelphia, PA; August 15, 2013—Difficulty in registering and responding to the facial expressions of other people is a hallmark of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Relatedly, functional imaging studies have shown that individuals with ASD display altered brain activations when processing facial images. The hormone oxytocin plays a vital role in the social interactions of both animals and humans. In fact, multiple studies conducted with healthy volunteers have provided evidence for beneficial effects of oxytocin in terms of increased trust, improved emotion recognition, and preference for social stimuli.
(Full story . . . )

10. Elevated Gluten Antibodies Found in Children with Autism: But No Link to Celiac Disease

NEW YORK; June 20, 2013—Researchers have found elevated antibodies to gluten proteins of wheat in children with autism in comparison to those without autism. The results also indicated an association between the elevated antibodies and the presence of gastrointestinal symptoms in the affected children. They did not find any connection, however, between the elevated antibodies and celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder known to be triggered by gluten.
(Full story . . . )
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And yes, here’s a screenshot to prove that I did not make this up. (PS: I’ll let you know in my next post whether Hubspot is correct in its assessment that all you have to do is mention a celebrity to get people to read your blog):