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rdos
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21 Mar 2013, 5:19 pm

eric76 wrote:
I'm a little puzzled how you can rule out Vitamin D based on that. It's not even on your list of "possible neurodiversity traits".


No, but there are a few other physical traits, and they all have insignificant relevance and low factor loadings. I just extrapolated those. :wink:



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23 Mar 2013, 7:26 am

rdos wrote:
Ettina wrote:
The Neanderthal theory should be scrapped. Autism is no more common among northern europeans than in any other race. Clearly, it has nothing to do with Neanderthals.


That is disproved in the Aspie Quiz paper. Not yet published, but regardless if it is published or not, the fact still stand that people of African descent has several magnitudes lower incidence of neurodiversity.

It's also not like you think that neurodiversity is highest in northern europeans. It is actually highest in native american indians.


What is 'neurodiversity?'

Don't you mean 'neuropathology'?



rdos
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23 Mar 2013, 8:23 am

Cafeaulait wrote:
What is 'neurodiversity?'


I defined it in a scientific manner previously: Neurodiversity is the primary factor output by factor analysis of a dataset of human preferences data which contains evenly distributed traits of all sorts that covers all of human diversity.

In more popular notation it could be defined: Neurodiversity is the sum of all human traits linked to autistic personality traits.



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24 Mar 2013, 2:05 am

rdos wrote:
Cafeaulait wrote:
What is 'neurodiversity?'


I defined it in a scientific manner previously: Neurodiversity is the primary factor output by factor analysis of a dataset of human preferences data which contains evenly distributed traits of all sorts that covers all of human diversity.

In more popular notation it could be defined: Neurodiversity is the sum of all human traits linked to autistic personality traits.


Where did you find this definition? Is it a widely accepted scientific definition of neurodiversity? Or is it your own private definition?

There is to be a national symposium on neurodiversity this year at Syracuse University. If I went to the symposium and asked around, would the participants agree with your definition?

This is from their web page:
Quote:
Neurodiversity is a concept and social movement that advocates for viewing autism as a variation of human wiring, rather than a disease. As such, neurodiversity activists reject the idea that autism should be cured, advocating instead for celebrating autistic forms of communication and self-expression, and for promoting support systems that allow autistic people to live as autistic people. While neurodiversity is known widely as a concept applied to the autistic community, individuals with other atypical forms of neurological wiring, such as ADHD, hydrocephalus, and dyslexia, to name a few, may also identify with a neurodiversity framework.


How does this definition of neurodiversity align with your definition of neurodiversity?



rdos
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24 Mar 2013, 3:01 am

eric76 wrote:
rdos wrote:
Cafeaulait wrote:
What is 'neurodiversity?'


I defined it in a scientific manner previously: Neurodiversity is the primary factor output by factor analysis of a dataset of human preferences data which contains evenly distributed traits of all sorts that covers all of human diversity.

In more popular notation it could be defined: Neurodiversity is the sum of all human traits linked to autistic personality traits.


Where did you find this definition? Is it a widely accepted scientific definition of neurodiversity? Or is it your own private definition?

There is to be a national symposium on neurodiversity this year at Syracuse University. If I went to the symposium and asked around, would the participants agree with your definition?

This is from their web page:
Quote:
Neurodiversity is a concept and social movement that advocates for viewing autism as a variation of human wiring, rather than a disease. As such, neurodiversity activists reject the idea that autism should be cured, advocating instead for celebrating autistic forms of communication and self-expression, and for promoting support systems that allow autistic people to live as autistic people. While neurodiversity is known widely as a concept applied to the autistic community, individuals with other atypical forms of neurological wiring, such as ADHD, hydrocephalus, and dyslexia, to name a few, may also identify with a neurodiversity framework.


How does this definition of neurodiversity align with your definition of neurodiversity?


My scientific neurodiversity definition map well with the social/cultural neurodiversity definition because:
1. The most related condition to neurodiversity is ASD
2. The additional conditions (like ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, Tourette, schizotypal) have good correlations in specific tests for these conditions.
3. Only traits with a probable evolutionary function are considered part of neurodiversity

In contrast to the usual definition, which is an admixture of neurodiversity and neurotypical traits, I also define neurotypical function: Neurotypical is the secondary factor output by factor analysis of a dataset of human preferences data which contains evenly distributed traits of all sorts that covers all of human diversity.

The main difference is that the social/cultural definition cannot be used as a basis for scientific research on neurodiversity since it contains no valid definition on how to judge if somebody is neurodiverse or not.



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01 Apr 2013, 11:59 am

My critic on your "theorie" are the following:

a) Bipolar disorder and other psychiatric disorders (neurotransmitter disorders) are more common in autism simply because autistic people have problems.
Bipolar disorder is not per se "autism" trait, it is rather an imbalance of neutransmitters. Neurotypical person can have Bipolar disorder at some point of his/her live too.

b) Your theorie does not explain all brain differences, you do not explain what the brain differences mean psychological.

c) You don't prove why autism is old evolution.

d) You do not prove the female-male ratio.

e) You do not use more common evidence for proving your neanderthaler theorie, for example; monotropism (more gray matter, less white matter).

f) ...



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01 Apr 2013, 1:02 pm

eric76 wrote:
Image

Several orders of magnitude?


Small numbers can be tricky, such as the new supposed 1 in 88 statistical prevalence of AS, but if you blow it up by about 100 times it can give you a better idea of the magnitude differences:

100 in 10,100 for non-hispanic white
100 in 13,900 for non-hispanic black (around 40% less prevalence than White)
100 in 17,000 for hispanic (around 70% less than White)

This does lend some credence... however I'm curious about the Native American part, I always assumed that some were of an Asian origin. I see many AS traits among Asian countries as well.


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Diagnosed 9/2013


eric76
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01 Apr 2013, 1:32 pm

xMistrox wrote:
eric76 wrote:
Image

Several orders of magnitude?


Small numbers can be tricky, such as the new supposed 1 in 88 statistical prevalence of AS, but if you blow it up by about 100 times it can give you a better idea of the magnitude differences:

100 in 10,100 for non-hispanic white
100 in 13,900 for non-hispanic black (around 40% less prevalence than White)
100 in 17,000 for hispanic (around 70% less than White)

This does lend some credence... however I'm curious about the Native American part, I always assumed that some were of an Asian origin. I see many AS traits among Asian countries as well.


His comment was
rdos wrote:
Not yet published, but regardless if it is published or not, the fact still stand that people of African descent has several magnitudes lower incidence of neurodiversity.


One order of magnitude is a factor of ten times. Two orders of magnitude is a factor of one hundred times. Three orders of magnitude is a factor of one thousand times.

If the statement was true rates for Europeans are 1 in 88, then the rate for people of African descent would be very much less than that. I generally figure that "several orders of magnitude" means at least "three orders of magnitude" and would expect that the rates for those with African descent to be 1 in 88,000 or less. That is clearly not the case.



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beneficii
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08 Jun 2013, 6:07 am

As I understand, there is no good evidence for differences in prevalence rates among racial or ethnic groups that cannot be explained by under- or overdiagnosis in those groups. Black and Hispanic children are less likely to receive autism spectrum diagnoses and are more likely to be considered maladjusted children instead, due to cultural differences and implicit racial biases.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19106426

http://www.researchgate.net/publication ... minorities

Because of that, I think that arguing that the Neanderthal theory of autism is correct by comparing the prevalence of Neanderthal genes and diagnosis rates of autism in different ethnic groups is mistaken.



naturalplastic
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08 Jun 2013, 8:20 am

eric76 wrote:
xMistrox wrote:
eric76 wrote:
Image

Several orders of magnitude?


Small numbers can be tricky, such as the new supposed 1 in 88 statistical prevalence of AS, but if you blow it up by about 100 times it can give you a better idea of the magnitude differences:

100 in 10,100 for non-hispanic white
100 in 13,900 for non-hispanic black (around 40% less prevalence than White)
100 in 17,000 for hispanic (around 70% less than White)

This does lend some credence... however I'm curious about the Native American part, I always assumed that some were of an Asian origin. I see many AS traits among Asian countries as well.


His comment was
rdos wrote:
Not yet published, but regardless if it is published or not, the fact still stand that people of African descent has several magnitudes lower incidence of neurodiversity.


One order of magnitude is a factor of ten times. Two orders of magnitude is a factor of one hundred times. Three orders of magnitude is a factor of one thousand times.

If the statement was true rates for Europeans are 1 in 88, then the rate for people of African descent would be very much less than that. I generally figure that "several orders of magnitude" means at least "three orders of magnitude" and would expect that the rates for those with African descent to be 1 in 88,000 or less. That is clearly not the case.


Bottom line: the rates do NOT differ by ANY of order of magnitude. They are within the same 'order of magnitude'. In fact, for practical purposes, they are the same number. What little difference there is is readily explanable by socioeconimic differences leading to differing rates of diagnoses. Autistics might well be missed in poor minority communities.

Further even if you go along with making the mountain out of the mole hills of differences in autism rates among the races it still doesnt support the neanderthal theory.

Blacks should have the lowest rate. But instead hispanics do.

Hispanics in the USA tend to be Mestizo (mixed european and native american) which means they are a mostly a mix of european and east asian ancestry. This should give them both more neanderthal, and more denisovian, genes than possessed by blacks (who's African ancestry would presumably be free of the ancestry of the high latitude middle paleolithic hominids ), and thus Hispanics should have higher rates of autism than blacks (maybe even higher than whites). But that is not what the bar graph shows.



rdos
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08 Jun 2013, 9:54 am

We are not talking about the same things / prevalences. It is neurodiversity (BAP) prevalence that is important, not severely disabling ASD (as in the presented "evidences"). The Neanderthal theory in fact predicts that mixes between neurotypical and neurodiversity traits increases risk for disability by gene incompabilities, which is exactly what we see in relation to African descent and autism.

In addition to that, using ASD diagnoses, which is known to rise and be related to culture, is not a useful method. We want to see BAP prevalence, not prevalence of a problem-based selection from the BAP population.



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08 Jun 2013, 9:57 am

rdos wrote:
We are not talking about the same things / prevalences. It is neurodiversity (BAP) prevalence that is important, not severely disabling ASD (as in the presented "evidences"). The Neanderthal theory in fact predicts that mixes between neurotypical and neurodiversity traits increases risk for disability by gene incompabilities, which is exactly what we see in relation to African descent and autism.

In addition to that, using ASD diagnoses, which is known to rise and be related to culture, is not a useful method. We want to see BAP prevalence, not prevalence of a problem-based selection from the BAP population.


You're going to have to be a bit more detailed and concrete.



rdos
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08 Jun 2013, 10:03 am

beneficii wrote:
rdos wrote:
We are not talking about the same things / prevalences. It is neurodiversity (BAP) prevalence that is important, not severely disabling ASD (as in the presented "evidences"). The Neanderthal theory in fact predicts that mixes between neurotypical and neurodiversity traits increases risk for disability by gene incompabilities, which is exactly what we see in relation to African descent and autism.

In addition to that, using ASD diagnoses, which is known to rise and be related to culture, is not a useful method. We want to see BAP prevalence, not prevalence of a problem-based selection from the BAP population.


You're going to have to be a bit more detailed and concrete.


I think I've already presented the evidence of expected participation rates in Aspie Quiz, which differ a factor 5 between people of African descent and European, Asian and Native American descent. This was done in the US sample, and replicated many times over a period of many years.

None of the proponents of "autism is just as common in Africa/African descent" can explain this.

In fact, this is the same symptom as the too low participation of people of African descent on WP, as well as in US support groups.



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08 Jun 2013, 10:33 am

rdos wrote:
beneficii wrote:
rdos wrote:
We are not talking about the same things / prevalences. It is neurodiversity (BAP) prevalence that is important, not severely disabling ASD (as in the presented "evidences"). The Neanderthal theory in fact predicts that mixes between neurotypical and neurodiversity traits increases risk for disability by gene incompabilities, which is exactly what we see in relation to African descent and autism.

In addition to that, using ASD diagnoses, which is known to rise and be related to culture, is not a useful method. We want to see BAP prevalence, not prevalence of a problem-based selection from the BAP population.


You're going to have to be a bit more detailed and concrete.


I think I've already presented the evidence of expected participation rates in Aspie Quiz, which differ a factor 5 between people of African descent and European, Asian and Native American descent. This was done in the US sample, and replicated many times over a period of many years.

None of the proponents of "autism is just as common in Africa/African descent" can explain this.

In fact, this is the same symptom as the too low participation of people of African descent on WP, as well as in US support groups.


OK, I was not sure what you were talking about in that statement.

I don't think participation rates are good evidence of that. That instead goes back to issues like cultural differences, implicit racial biases, differences in diagnoses, etc., that can explain those differences.

BTW, have you read the research that I presented?

The fact remains that until we can find a way to take into account the issue of cultural differences and implicit racial biases in diagnosis and recognition (i.e. the person recognizing it in themselves), then we cannot come to those conclusions.



rdos
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08 Jun 2013, 11:07 am

beneficii wrote:
I don't think participation rates are good evidence of that. That instead goes back to issues like cultural differences, implicit racial biases, differences in diagnoses, etc., that can explain those differences.


Actually, it is. If you take 100,000 US citizens that frequent a large range of forums (most not about ASD), you would expect to get about 12,500 with an African background since that is the proportion in US census. If you instead get 2,500 you definitely know something is wrong. Especially when other disadvantaged groups like Native Americans, doesn't show this pattern, you know for sure something is wrong.

And if you want to include the level of neurodiversity, the few participants with African background score at a similar level as Caucasians, which means you can be sure you have not just selected those with the most traits, and that people of African descent are not just less likely to identify as neurodiverse, but instead have a group with similar levels of traits as other groups.

That leaves the conclusion that the reason for the lower participation rates is that fewer people (1/5) of African descent are likely to feel different. Because this is the primary driver in taking an Aspie-survey, participating on WP and in support groups.

beneficii wrote:
BTW, have you read the research that I presented?


No, because it is irrelevant. The Neanderthal theory is about neurodiversity, not ASD diagnosis.

beneficii wrote:
The fact remains that until we can find a way to take into account the issue of cultural differences and implicit racial biases in diagnosis and recognition (i.e. the person recognizing it in themselves), then we cannot come to those conclusions.


I'll have to point out that people's self-perceptions before talking Aspie Quiz are extremely accurate. And self-awareness is a requirement in order to get an accurate diagnoses as well, because the diagnostic process also mostly relies on this.

Besides, Aspie Quiz has no gender bias, no age bias, and probably no cultural bias either as it has excluded environment. This is the sort of tools we need to research neurodiversity, not tools that have gender bias, cultural bias and changing prevalence over time.