Monday, January 09, 2006

Clinic Notes: Viruses and Autism

This morning I published a summary of a study on my web site which found that cerebral palsy was twice as frequent in children exposed to the herpes B virus perinatally. I was reminded of the studies that have implicated the Borna virus in schizophrenia.
In a study we presented at a conference earlier this year,(And posted in this blog),infections in the biological mother were a predictor of autism. Unfortunately,we did not ask mothers the type of infection they had.
In a second survey that we are conducting now, we will gather as much information as we can as to the type of infections in mothers of children with autism. We have nearly 900 surveys that we are analyzing, but it is not too late to go to my web site (ABA4Autism.com) and take the survey. We can use surveys from mothers of children on the Autism Spectrum as well as mothers of normally developing children. Thanks for your participation