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Thank you. I did my best to edit a little the Google thing which was not so bad as I thought.


UNKNOWN AUTISM

Lapo Marini *

Autism affects, according to the official statistics, one person in hundred in the United Kingdom, one in 150 in the USA. But these numbers are very rough. It is likely, for example, that the statistics of the UK are more reliable, since the control over health conditions is much higher in this country than in the United States, for the simple fact of the existence of a health care system that covers all citizens in a fairly centralized fashion. Also the research more developed in the UK. In other words they know more. The data are very conservative also because there are a number of situations on the borderline region.

Classification

Among those that have been classified as psychotic (autism is not a psychosis, that is a disease of the mind, but a flaw, if anything, of the mind), there are certainly many persons that, once classified schizophrenic or manic depressive or paranoic, do not go through other types of diagnosis. They are hospitalised or assisted in some way, or they somehow managed to survive and will never submit to a diagnosis nor will they ever know what kind of disability is autism. It is extremely unlikely that the doctors they have encountered in life knew something about autism . Only by the'90s we are beginning to know something. Moreover in the presence of overlapping forms of depression and other mental disorders, the medical-psychiatric staff has a tendency to deal with those situations with a medical and psychiatric solution, without asking the question whether a severe depression did not grow out of the hardships which in which an autistic person must endure.

Suffering

Of course when we talk about the "autism spectrum" we intend situations ranging from the inability to use the language, to seemingly milder forms of inability to establish social ties, a failure which normally ignores the burden of suffering and effort that it is imposed on them. Even assuming that the statistics are closer to reality there is almost a million people in the UK and perhaps three million in the United States who suffer of the syndrome. In France they talk about 600,000, but French statistics are unreliable because of the tremendous influence in the institutions of the Lacanian psychoanalysts, quite reluctant to admit genetic influences, and therefore, in a sense, the very existence of something other than psycosis.

What kind of help?

Assistance to families who are always faced with a tremndous burden. Since autism is of genetic origin, often in a family there more individuals suffering from the syndrome. In the case of omozygotic twins the chance that both are autistic are 60% (which confirms, if needed, the genetic origin). . In the case of autism it is rare that the problem does not run in the family, if only as an underground streak. Of course, if a mother belongs to the autistic spectrum (as a case of Asperger for example, which involves the ability to express themselves very successfully in the language, but not to have social relationships conclusive) its sons and daughters will be faced with a double dose of problems: the difficulty of genetic origin and the lack of security have a protective mother. It's difficult to unravel the entaglements, especially if, for a psycoanalitic prejudice a greater weight is attributed to the existence of difficulties to deal with life, the relationship with the environment and the family. Here a more accurate understanding of the genetic component would be essential.
However, assistance is not enough, we should fight with all our strength to spread among general practitioners, in the public educated and less educated, between journalists and educational institutions all the knowledge we have about the real nature of the problem. If you ask a medical pratictioner, a teacher or a journalist to "what is autism? it is likely that the answer will be "children who are unable to speak" and that they do not go further.

*Lapo Marini is the author of the autobiographical book"Nella bolla. Come si vive con l'autismo" "In the bubble. How you live with autism"
(Ed. Erickson)

Paolo, I get the impression that Australia and New Zealand may be a bit ahead of the USA in awareness and resources regarding Autism research etc. . Where is Italy/ European Union relatively speaking regarding Autism issues in comparison?

Italy is certainly at the bottom in this matter as in many others. There some good researchers who might change the picture, but they are still very young. Somewhere in Parma they have discovered the mirror neuron.