Comments on Natural Variation - Autism Blog: Is Precipitation Associated with Autism? Now I'm Q...

Another idea is to compare sugar and fat (should d...

2009-01-01T10:12:00.000-08:00

Another idea is to compare sugar and fat (should distinguish between O3, O6 and transfats to be useful) consumption respectively (the cholesterol scare and fatless foods fad).

Notice though that the environmental conditions during your wife's mother's pregnancy may affect your childs health. This is because females get the full complement of eggs before birth.

I am not sure about the male physiology.

(Rainfall is not an easy variable as indoor living may confound the issue. I assume you are interested in the vitamin D hypothesis as you studied rainfall patterns. http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health/autism/vit-D-theory-autism.shtml)

Joe

Though one idea is to track Usenet postings from a...

2008-11-07T05:16:00.000-08:00

Though one idea is to track Usenet postings from about 1995 to 2005.

I was thinking exactly that. You could count the number of references to the word "California", for example.

Usenet is not necessarily representative of internet usage, especially in recent times, but that's where detrending would help.

Birth year data would not be very useful for such an analysis, though. Autistics born in a given year might have been diagnosed much later. I think it would be necessary to calculate prevalence of autistic 3 year olds in a given year.

The Internet would be an interesting variable to s...

2008-11-06T19:13:00.000-08:00

The Internet would be an interesting variable to study. Though I am not quite sure how one would do the study. Though one idea is to track Usenet postings from about 1995 to 2005. Google has a fairly complete archive that covers that time period, and includes some newer groups.

Going on my own very poor anecdotal experience, I know it would never be complete. When we got our first modem I stuck to the ISP forums (Compuserve*), and then an email listserv pertaining to my son's disability. There was a definite shift about the time of the turn of the century (Year 2000 crisis!), where there was a change in attitude and awareness (I remember it was when I found www.ratbags.com/rsoles as a link on Quackwatch when I was looking into some questionable treatments proposed on the listserv).

In the last five years there has been a shift towards blogs and forums, with some Yahoo and Google groups. So I believe that searching the groups.google might be a valid tactic.

*Note: An observation of awareness, one of the first things I did when I found the Compuserve Disabilities forum was to ask about my son's disability "dyspraxia". I got several replies, but they were all on "dyslexia"! sigh

(By the way, it turned out the ADD forum on Compuserve had a "Dyspraxia" section... and no, I not know why. But it was where I found out about the Apraxia-Kids listserv.)

@Socrates: Absolutely. But a couple observations a...

2008-11-06T13:14:00.000-08:00

@Socrates: Absolutely. But a couple observations about that:

(1) An association with the internet is quite plausible. I don't think it's a coincidence that autism diagnoses increased significantly in the 1990s, which is when the internet caught on. The internet drives a lot of awareness I'm sure.

(2) A detrended cross-correlation analysis is one technique that can be used to deal with this type of pirates vs. global warming association. Of course, it can still be confounded by more than just coincidence.

I suspect correlation between autism and the incre...

2008-11-06T13:09:00.000-08:00

I suspect correlation between autism and the increase in the use of mobile phones can easily be found; and the use of the internet; And the increase in the number of Tesco superstores in the UK...

Very cool... and very much what I was thinking the...

2008-11-06T12:48:00.000-08:00

Very cool... and very much what I was thinking the actual data would show.