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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 8 May 2023 and 11 August 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Zafomby (article contribs). Peer reviewers: LaDonna205, AddieGrace, Ddmiller12, Jkp0103, Corri123, April Sala.

— Assignment last updated by Rahneli (talk) 20:36, 4 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"individuals with autism have significantly reduced fecundity"

this came to me as a surprise, I've never heard of this before and can't seem to find any sources for it. I've looked at the references for that sentence and didn't find any mention of reduced fecundity, nor a "20 times less likely to have children" figure. should this passage be removed? StandardUser2 (talk) 16:34, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

this suggests significantly reduced fecundity (which, to be fair is not unexpected), thought I don't see the 20x figure. Black Kite (talk) 18:48, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

toxoplasmosis?!

I heard in recent years (on an NPR program) that the increasing rate of autism appears to correlate with the increasing popularity of cats as household pets (more closely than, say, vaccinations or thiomersal). Elsewhere I've heard that infection with toxoplasmosis has some correlation with autism. Toxoplasmosis is not mentioned under Autism or Causes of autism. Autism is not mentioned under toxoplasmosis or Toxoplasma gondii.

The Toxoplasmosis article says "Infection with T. gondii has been shown to alter the behavior of mice and rats in ways thought to increase the rodents' chances of being preyed upon by cats." It definitely modifies the brain, changing odor preferences, increasing activity, and reducing fear of predators, anxiety, and neophobia. Also: "Infections with toxoplasmosis are associated with a variety of neuropsychiatric and behavioral conditions." [in humans]. ((Or, Autism might be caused by something else that increases susceptibility to toxoplasmosis. Autism might increase exposure to toxoplasmosis and/or increase susceptibility to toxoplasmosis.))

(Of course, many other causes are possible, with varying degrees of speculation, such as allergens, lack of antigens, parasites, and lack of parasites.)

The idea of toxoplasmosis (and prenatal toxoplasmosis) correlated to autism is "out there" in medical and other literature. (Just search on "toxoplasmosis" "autism"; Google gets 646,000 hits; Google Books gets 4,050 hits; Google Scholar gets 5,750 hits.) I think it should be mentioned "in here". I don't want to do a sloppy job of it, though I might have to. (I wonder whether it has been added and removed in the past, but I have not checked for it.) -A876 (talk) 02:48, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Can you find reliable WP:MEDRS sources to back any of this up? IntentionallyDense (talk) 04:32, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi A876, the page already covers "infectious processes" underneath the "prenatal environment" section. Zenomonoz (talk) 09:08, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Removing the bulk of the Causes section from the main Autism entry

At the moment, the main Autism article has many, many pages on causes, even though this entry has already been broken out. This redundancy is unhelpful, so I am proposing to remove the Causes section from the main entry.

In case anything is lost in this change, here is a link to the section as it stands. Oolong (talk) 19:10, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Personally I wouldn’t remove the entire Causes section but instead just try to cut it down to one or two paragraphs. It may also be relevant to leave some of the content about the disproven vaccine theories since that is most likely (imo) one of the most relevant topics surrounding the causes of autism. IntentionallyDense ^(Contribs) 20:18, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you're right - I shouldn't have suggested removing the section entirely, merely reducing it to a summary.

Here's the draft I came up with it - do you have any suggestions for anything else it really ought to include (besides references)? Two sentences might be a little on the short side.

Exactly what causes autism remains unknown. It appears to be primarily genetic. It is not caused by vaccines, nor by 'cold' parenting. Oolong (talk) 18:18, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think that there should be a bit more information about why we've come to believe that autism is primarily genetic and what that means—importantly, that it does not exclude environmental factors playing a role. I could see a section with three short paragraphs, one about genetic factors, one about epigenetics, and one about environmental factors. The conclusively disproven theories could be mentioned in a single sentence at the end of the section. I believe that prominently mentioning them gives them undue weight.--TempusTacet (talk) 19:04, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yep this was the kind of thing I was thinking about as well. IntentionallyDense ^(Contribs) 22:41, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you're probably right that it warrants something a bit more. Would you consider drafting something on those lines yourself?

The vaccine thing, sadly, is still prevalent enough to be worth dismissing, however much or little we have on causes in the main entry! Oolong (talk) 17:39, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I can propose a draft within the next couple of days.--TempusTacet (talk) 21:46, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent! Thank you.

Ideally we also want short summaries for other sections that have been replaced entirely with links to separate pages, but I see that as a relatively low priority... Oolong (talk) 11:42, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hey! Just wondering if you got anywhere with this yet? Oolong (talk) 13:57, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Kyriakopoulou 2023 (source 184)

This statement is made under the vaccines section: "The most recent scientific research has determined that changes to brain structures correlated with the development of autism can already be detected while the child is still in the womb, well before any vaccines are administered."

In the cited paper, the researchers state:

"In this study we have shown that 37.5% of children with isolated fetal ventriculomegaly had ADOS-2 scores that met the threshold for an ASD diagnosis."

and

"Fetal ventriculomegaly affects 1% of fetuses and 50% of those are isolated cases. Based on our study results, VM + ASD might occur in 0.2% of all fetuses. The prevalence of ASD in children in England is 1.76%. Therefore, the estimated contribution of VM + ASD in the ASD population could reach 12%."

The article is currently implying that VM predicts autism in 100% of cases, thereby excluding vaccines as a possible explanation. However, the researchers found that VM predicts ASD in 37.5% of cases and at most 12% of ASD cases have VM. The flip side of this is that a minimum of 88% of ASD cases are not predicted by VM.

While I fully agree with the scientific consensus that vaccines do not cause autism, I do think we should represent the research accurately. This is exactly the sort of thing that could lead someone to question the science. Therefore, if this source is to be included at all, it should be clarified that these changes in brain structures only overlap with ASD in a maximum of 12% of cases. Dekadoka (talk) 11:34, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Dekadoka it's a primary source study anyway, not a secondary source. So it's not WP:MEDRS and probably should be removed or replaced with secondary source explanation (which probably exists). Zenomonoz (talk) 11:38, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Currently the article is citing SciTechDaily, which was published right after the paper came out. Seems like a case of WP:RECENT (popular press reporting on primary source =/= scientific reviews/consensus). My searches did not turn up any review articles linking VM and ASD, and this appears to be the only recent paper on the subject. I guess I can give it a few days in case someone else can find a better source, but I do think it should probably be removed. Dekadoka (talk) 12:19, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]