WHO WAS BEHIND CALLING CHILDHOOD SCHIZOPHRENIA AUTISM AND IS HE PROFITING FROM THIS CHANGE IN DEFINITION?

CHANGING CHILDHOOD SCHIZOPHRENIA TO AUTISM CREATED A NEW LUCRETIVE FIELD OF RESEARCH FOR THE UPSWING IN PATERNAL AGE DERIVED CASES THAT HAD TO OCCUR DUE THE TO TREMENDOUS INCREASE IN MEN FATHERING BABIES PAST THE AGE OF 35 AND PAST THE AGE OF 50.

Fred R. Volkmar, M.D. is a child psychiatrist who trained at Stanford University and at Yale. He has a long standing interest in the assessment and classification of autism and related disorders. He was the coordinator of the International Field Trial for autism and related disorders, which developed the definition of autism used in DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association, Fourth Edition,1994). He is also an Associate editor of Psychoses and Pervasive Developmental Disorders in Childhood and Adolescence and, along with Drs. Paul, Klin & Cohen, of the Handbook of Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders, Third Edition (see our publications page for more information.)

WOULD YALE EVER TELL ANYBODY THAT FATHERING BABIES BEFORE 34 WOULD CUT DOWN THE AMOUNT OF AUTISM?????

$7.5 Million NIH Grant to Yale
for Autism Center of Excellence
Ami Klin

New Haven, Conn. — The Yale Child Study Center has been awarded the Autism Center of Excellence (ACE) status by the National Institutes of Health. This highly competitive and prestigious award comes with $7.5 million of direct funding over five years to the Autism Program led by Ami Klin.






“This is our largest award to date, and signifies a recognition of the national leadership in research of autism provided by our interdisciplinary group of clinical scientists,” said Klin, the Harris Associate Professor of Child Psychology & Psychiatry in the Child Study Center. “The Yale ACE will further strengthen our commitment to finding the causes of autism and developing more effective treatments.”

Klin’s colleagues on the Yale ACE include Fred Volkmar, Robert Schultz, Warren Jones, Kasia Chawarska, Rhea Paul, Matthew State, Elena Grigorenko and Joseph Chang. The team plans three longitudinal projects focused on infants with autism aged 12 to 24 months. Another project involves neuroimaging studies of a cohort of children evaluated at various stages in their development, first at two years of age, then at four and eight and finally at 10-years-old. The researchers hope to trace underlying mechanisms of brain growth and specialization of individuals with autism. A fifth project focuses on a family of genes and linked proteins found to be associated with forms of autism.

Autism is a complex brain disorder that inhibits a person’s ability to communicate and develop social relationships, and it is often accompanied by extreme behavioral challenges. Autism affects about two million Americans. Autism Spectrum Disorders are diagnosed in one in 150 children in the United States and affects four times as many boys as girls. Researchers do not know how many subtypes of autism exist. There are probably several causes giving rise to this neurodevelopmental syndrome, but researchers have found that it is the most strongly genetic condition among all developmental disorders.


“The Yale Child Study Center has led the way in research of autism for several decades,” said Volkmar, the Irving B. Harris Professor of Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics and Psychology, and Director of the Yale Child Study Center. “This award signifies a redoubling of our efforts in an attempt to meet the magnitude and urgency of the task at hand.”

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