With the recent passage of medical marijuana legislation in New York state parents of children on the autism spectrum are beginning to explore using medical marijuana to treat their children. There have been reported cases of parents treating their children on the spectrum with Cannabis products. While the practice is controversial and the discourse emotionally charged parents need a clear understanding of the facts about how medical marijuana may impact the children under their care. What follows is a summary of what medical neuroscience and neuropharmacology can tell us about the potential utility of medical marijuana as a treatment for autism spectrum disorders.
The Endocannabinoid System The Cannabinoids ASD and the Endocannabinoid System ASD and the Cannabinoids NYS Medical Marijuana Law Summary ASD and Medical Marijuana References
0 Comments
Eleven days to go in the funding campaign. Here are some topics to be covered in Parenting Autism: prevalence rates and what they mean for the future; protecting parent and child mental health; dealing with problem behavior; the search for the causes of autism and what that means for the parent-child relationship; the idea of recovery from autism and its influence on the lives of autistic people. If you've got any thoughts on these issues or have other issues that you think important to parenting autism please share. Click to set custom HTML I've been busy researching and writing my first book about autism, Parenting Autism. Please considering supporting my book by donating and/or spreading the word. Thanks! This graphic come from a presentation on the new DSM 5 diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorders prepared by Dr. Walter Kaufmann. I like this graphic of the conceptual framework of ASD because it looks very similar to the way that I have always thought of autism. Different people can inhabit several different spheres to varying degrees but still fall within the spectrum. This is why one autistic person can be so different from another but similar at the same time. So the DSM 5 is finally available to the public. The new diagnostic criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorders presents a bit of problem for researchers but also an opportunity. Previous research using DSM IV criteria will not be comparable to subsequent research using the new DSM 5 criteria. What does this mean for the research community? First, even though the diagnostic criteria in the DSM have changed the diagnostic tools, such as the ADOS and ADI-R, have not. So perhaps the data from studies using the same diagnostic tools can be evaluated using DSM 5 criteria. Second, hopefully previous studies will be replicated using the DSM 5 diagnostic criteria. This should lead to a better understanding of Autism Spectrum Disorders.
A recent New York Times article has stirred up a lot of concern about the coming revisions of the diagnostic criteria listed in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical manual (DSM V). Autism specialist Paul Meier shares his comments on the controversy and the upcoming changes in the DSM V. DSM V proposed revisions I will probably be taking an unpopular position. However, I want to calm some people who are legitimately upset as they are concerned about the well-being of their children, and the children of others, regarding the changes in the DSM-V as they pertain to autism. I do not see anyone getting undiagnosed. I do not see anyone getting services loosing those services. Hopefully I can sufficiently explain this to calm people. There is a critical flaw in the study the NY Times article relied on. They were using 1993 data for the study. In 1993 there was only the DSM-III. Asperger's and PDD-NOS were not even in the DSM. So much more has been learned about autism in the last 19 years using such old data is absurd. 19 years ago they still were not too sure what they were looking for. This would have a huge impact on the data gathered. I am guessing it was all there, but the people recording data didn't know to look for it and therefore could not record it. As someone who is around autism all day every day, and does diagnostic work, I don't think there needs to be fear about the proposed changes to the DSM coming out in 2013. I need to stay on top of all this, and intimately understand all the details and nuances. It is my job. I work with the DSM-IV and I am also familiar with the expected changes in the DSM-V. The proposed changes came out 2 years ago, and were last tweaked a year ago. The only recent change that ignited a firestorm was there was an article in the NY Times January 19, 2012. Autism, Asperger's, and PDD-NOS are all really the same thing. With recognizing that, and understanding it in an everyday clinical sense from professionals, the APA is combining the three into one diagnosis of "Autism Spectrum Disorder". This makes complete and total sense, and I support it 100%. The only question then is does the new diagnostic criteria make sense and work. Part of the problem is that a lot of people do not understand the criteria as they are now, including a lot of professionals. The autism spectrum is not a scale of mild to severe, with the diagnosis you receive depending on the severity of symptoms. Spectrum represents a diversity in individual manifestation of symptoms. |
Categories
All
Archives
December 2021
|