Portland State Magazine Spring 2012

SEEING AUTISM Autism diagnoses are rising at an alarming rate, but help is out there. WRITTEN BY SU YIM JEN RE IN MUTH remembers well the five hours she spent in the waiting room. Her 18-month-old straddled her hip, a diaper bag hung from her shoulder, and stubborn resolve filled her heart: She was not leaving without seeing a specialist. Reinmuth knew that something was wrong with one of her twin boys and was tired of being written off as an overly worried mother. Ten minutes with the doctor, and the diagnosis was clear: autism. Reinmuth was devastated. Unpre– pared, she had joined a growing wave of parents whose children had been given a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder-a range of brain disorders that can include language and social chal– lenges, sensory disorders, cognitive and motor difficulties, and emotional and behavioral problems. There is no proven cause or cure. Like a lot of parents, Reinmuth worried about how her son, Mike, would get the additional help he needed. That's where PSU's Autism Training and Research Center comes in. The center, established in 2005, developed a com– prehensive autism program for teaching strategies rooted in research. It partnered with Oregon education districts to pilot the program, and quickly demonstrated improvements for kids. The center now is testing the program in a five-year proj– ect with 350 children in 40 Washington school districts. The need for this training continues to grow. Since Mike's diagnosis in 2004, numbers for autism have skyrocketed. In April, the Oregon Department of Education reported serving 8,694 8 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZIN E SPRING 2012 students with autism, a 14.7 percent increase since 2008-09. Earlier this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Pre– vention (CDC) reported its latest data estimate that 1 in 88 American children have some form of autism spectrum disorder, a 70 percent increase in six years. And boys with autism continue to outnumber girls 5-to-l, according to the CDC report. This increase in diagnoses has prompted intense speculation. Some researchers attribute the rise to increased awareness of parents and medical professionals. Others point to broadening diagnostic criteria, which include children who in the past simply might have been considered odd or shy. Debate over diagnostic criteria has been especially heated this year as the American Psychiatric Association considers possible changes in how autism is defined in the fifrh edition of the D iagnostic and Statistical M anual of M ental Disorders, due out next year. In many states, a shift in the DSM definition rings alarm bells because a medical diagnosis is required before a child may receive special education services tailored to autism. Critics worry that the change will sharply cut autism disorder diagnoses, and abandon people who have benefited from services but no longer fit the narrower definition. However, Oregon is relatively insulated from DSM changes, says Helen Young, director of PSU's autism center. Unlike many other states, the Oregon Department of Education does not require a medical diagnosis to grant services. Instead, it follows state rules to establish eligibility for school-based programs. As a result, Young says, any change in the DSM likely will have minimal effects on Oregon families. PSU'S AUTISM CENTER believes in early intervention, a value that most special education researchers share, says Young. "If kids get services early, their lives can be so improved," she says. The PSU program includes trial training of unique language and social skills for children who are two to five years old. An example of that train- ing might look like this: An autistic three-year-old with language difficulties wants to play with a truck on a shelf and communicates by pointing or grunting. The adult, who put the truck out of reach intentionally, coaches the child to ask for the truck by encouraging him to make the "t" sound. The child then gets the truck. Over time, the adult helps the child form the full word. While PSU's center focuses primarily on training educators to work with kids in preschool or school settings, it also provides training to parents through workshops. "Parents can be doing a lot of these things at home," says professor Ruth Falco, a special education colleague of Young. This kind of early training is inexpensive, Falco says, especially when compared to the plethora of unproven goods and services sold on the Internet for thousands of dollars. "I've seen families sell their house, sell everything, to get the money to buy services to help their kid," Young says. "That's tragic."