Special Needs Education
- While we were sleeping... (are vouchers coming?)
- No Dentist Left Behind?
- It's Coming: Response to Intervention
- IDEA 2004 Part B Final Regs Finally Out
- Does your child have dyslexia?
- NY State's New Temporary Regs Allow Electric Shock
- JAASEP Call for Papers
- Full Funding & Rights...
- Mercury-Autism Study in Quebec
Posted by
Greg Cruey
My van exploded. Well, not really. I don't even have a van. But the image of that helps my kids remember something...
Can you name the eight planets?
Now before you get all snitty with me, I know there used to be nine planets. But for a few days now there's only been eight, officially. The International Astronomical Union decided last month to come up with a clearer definition of the term "planet." They look at two choices - one that would make for 12 planets and promote the asteroid Ceres to be the fifth planet in between Mars and Jupiter), and another model that would remove Pluto from the list of planets for being, well, too small. The second plan won. So now there are only eight planets (although there are a lot of Pluto-lovers in the world and the issue is far from settled).
I talked with my science class mixed group of 4th and 5th graders) about the news on Pluto and discovered that few of them could name all eight of the planets in order. So we came up with a type of acrostic together.
An acrostic is a string of words that help you remember something semantically unrelated based on the first letter of each word. The acrostic we came up with was this: My Van Exploded, My Jeep Stopped Underneath New York. (My students actually came up with all the words except for "Jeep," they couldn't think of the name of a car that started with "j" on their own). How does the acrostic help? The first letter of each word is the first letter of the name of a planet:
Why did this happen underneath New York? Beats me. But it works. And the kids think they know twice as much as they did a week ago because the class average was only four planets from memory before the acrostic.
And success breeds success...
Now before you get all snitty with me, I know there used to be nine planets. But for a few days now there's only been eight, officially. The International Astronomical Union decided last month to come up with a clearer definition of the term "planet." They look at two choices - one that would make for 12 planets and promote the asteroid Ceres to be the fifth planet in between Mars and Jupiter), and another model that would remove Pluto from the list of planets for being, well, too small. The second plan won. So now there are only eight planets (although there are a lot of Pluto-lovers in the world and the issue is far from settled).
I talked with my science class mixed group of 4th and 5th graders) about the news on Pluto and discovered that few of them could name all eight of the planets in order. So we came up with a type of acrostic together.
An acrostic is a string of words that help you remember something semantically unrelated based on the first letter of each word. The acrostic we came up with was this: My Van Exploded, My Jeep Stopped Underneath New York. (My students actually came up with all the words except for "Jeep," they couldn't think of the name of a car that started with "j" on their own). How does the acrostic help? The first letter of each word is the first letter of the name of a planet:
- My (Which starts with "m" and should help you think of Mercury)
- Van (Which starts with "v" and should help you think of Venus)
- Exploded (Which starts with "e" and should help you think of Earth)
- My (Which starts with "m" and should help you think of Mars)
- Jeep (Which starts with "j" and should help you think of Jupiter)
- Stopped (Which starts with "s" and should help you think of Saturn)
- Underneath (Which starts with "u" and should help you think of Uranus)
- New York (Which starts with "n" and should help you think of Neptune)
Why did this happen underneath New York? Beats me. But it works. And the kids think they know twice as much as they did a week ago because the class average was only four planets from memory before the acrostic.
And success breeds success...
While we were sleeping... (are vouchers coming?)
Posted by
Greg Cruey
With all the hooplah in the last few months over new regulations for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, it would be easy to miss the new push for vouchers.
On July 19 Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings went up to Capitol Hill to join some GOP lawmakers in proposing that $100 million be set aside to fund a voucher program for students whose schools consistently haven't lived up to the academic requirements of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). The program, dubbed America's Opportunity Scholarships for Kids, would pay private school tuition of up to $4,000 a year for children from failing schools to attend a private school.
The proposal itself is nothing new. Though this year's push is perhaps a little more concrete and forceful than in the past, the Bush Administration has asked Congress for funding for vouchers every year since 2001. USA Today quoted Spellings as saying that "The day of reckoning is coming. Accountability is hollow without real options for parents and without real options for kids," during her time on the Hill.
The prophetic tone of of Spellings' remarks reinforced the perception that Peter Laarman expresses so eloquently. Republicans are on an almost Biblical "crusade" to help "deliver" the American underclass from the "Egypt" of the American public school system. Laarman's July 19th Blog on the topic is entertaining. (Lest anyone think ill of me, I should make clear that I'm poking fun at voucher advocates, not God; I may teach in the Egypt of the public school system, but I'm a Baptist who spent 10 years in overseas missions before becoming a teacher...)
The real irony of this year's proposal is its timing. A few days before the Spellings proposal, the Department of Education's very own National Assessment of Educational Progress office (NAEP) released a report comparing public and private education. The report, Comparing Private Schools and Public Schools Using Hierarchical Linear Modeling, concluded that yes private school students get better scores on reading and math -- but that it was because of the students, not the teaching at private school. When factors like socio-economic status and disability were controlled for, private schools didn't perform any better than public school overall.
The NAEP report itself was embarrassing for voucher advocates. More embarrassing is the perception that Secretary of Education Spellings either was unaware of the report before she went up to the Hill to promote this year's voucher plans or, worse, tried to hide the report. National Public Radio has a good piece on that controversy...
The proposal itself is nothing new. Though this year's push is perhaps a little more concrete and forceful than in the past, the Bush Administration has asked Congress for funding for vouchers every year since 2001. USA Today quoted Spellings as saying that "The day of reckoning is coming. Accountability is hollow without real options for parents and without real options for kids," during her time on the Hill.
The prophetic tone of of Spellings' remarks reinforced the perception that Peter Laarman expresses so eloquently. Republicans are on an almost Biblical "crusade" to help "deliver" the American underclass from the "Egypt" of the American public school system. Laarman's July 19th Blog on the topic is entertaining. (Lest anyone think ill of me, I should make clear that I'm poking fun at voucher advocates, not God; I may teach in the Egypt of the public school system, but I'm a Baptist who spent 10 years in overseas missions before becoming a teacher...)
The real irony of this year's proposal is its timing. A few days before the Spellings proposal, the Department of Education's very own National Assessment of Educational Progress office (NAEP) released a report comparing public and private education. The report, Comparing Private Schools and Public Schools Using Hierarchical Linear Modeling, concluded that yes private school students get better scores on reading and math -- but that it was because of the students, not the teaching at private school. When factors like socio-economic status and disability were controlled for, private schools didn't perform any better than public school overall.
The NAEP report itself was embarrassing for voucher advocates. More embarrassing is the perception that Secretary of Education Spellings either was unaware of the report before she went up to the Hill to promote this year's voucher plans or, worse, tried to hide the report. National Public Radio has a good piece on that controversy...
Posted by
Greg Cruey
Cavities: that's what it comes down to, right? Shouldn't dentists be rated (Excellent, Average, & Unsatisfactory) based on cavities in their client? Okay, it's humor...
No Dentist Left Behind is making the email rounds. Again. The story has been around for a number of years - since before No Child Left Behind became law. It was originally meant to ridicule a South Carolina state law designed to "bring accountability" to public schools. The parody, originally titled Absolutely the Best Dentists, was sent to every legislator and newspaper in that state when it was composed by a retired school superintendent.
Think about it. Shouldn't someone be telling us whether dentists are doing a good job or not? Shouldn't we have the right to compare dentists based on the only thing that really matters in dentistry: cavities? And if we're going to a dentist that's only "above average" (and not improving that rating every year), we should have the right to move our business to a practice where the dentist has at least an "outstanding" or "excellent" rating. Dentists who don't manage to prevent cavities should lose their licenses, don't you think...?
Some of the parody's comparisons have teeth (no pun intended). The idea that one day we'll rate all schools based on a single, statewide measure of mastery -- regardless of the different educational levels of individual communities, regardless of the value those individual communities places on education, regardless of the resources available to parents during the preschool years -- seems at least as ludicrous as rating dentists based on the average number of cavities their clients have regardless of whether a dentist's clients have access to fluoride in their water or understand how diet impacts their dental health.
On the other hand, dentists exist largely in private practice while schools are public agencies. And the sense of government intrusion that so offends the dentist in the parody is probably misapplied to in a school system setting because, well, schools (mostly) are government.
Is the parody a fair look at No Child Left Behind? I'll leave that to you, the reader...
Think about it. Shouldn't someone be telling us whether dentists are doing a good job or not? Shouldn't we have the right to compare dentists based on the only thing that really matters in dentistry: cavities? And if we're going to a dentist that's only "above average" (and not improving that rating every year), we should have the right to move our business to a practice where the dentist has at least an "outstanding" or "excellent" rating. Dentists who don't manage to prevent cavities should lose their licenses, don't you think...?
Some of the parody's comparisons have teeth (no pun intended). The idea that one day we'll rate all schools based on a single, statewide measure of mastery -- regardless of the different educational levels of individual communities, regardless of the value those individual communities places on education, regardless of the resources available to parents during the preschool years -- seems at least as ludicrous as rating dentists based on the average number of cavities their clients have regardless of whether a dentist's clients have access to fluoride in their water or understand how diet impacts their dental health.
On the other hand, dentists exist largely in private practice while schools are public agencies. And the sense of government intrusion that so offends the dentist in the parody is probably misapplied to in a school system setting because, well, schools (mostly) are government.
Is the parody a fair look at No Child Left Behind? I'll leave that to you, the reader...
It's Coming: Response to Intervention
Posted by
Greg Cruey
The newly released federal regulations for IDEA 2004 say that states MUST allow schools to use Response to Intervention and CAN'T make them use the discrepancy model...
And on top of that, the regs say that an eligibility committee can decide that a child has a specific learning disability if "the child does not make sufficient progress ...when using a process based on the child's response to scientific, research-based intervention..." which makes it sound like that without the Response to Intervention (RtI) model, it may be impossible under the new regs to identify learning disabilities.
We're going to take a closer look at the RtI model. We already have one article online about Response to Intervention that simply described the model.
Coming up in a couple of days we'll look at some of the problems the model will pose for identifying learning disabilities in particular. Quantifying the decision to place a child in special education looks set to become much more difficulty, which means that when parents disagree with the decision they will have a much harder time winning in the due process.
In just over a week we'll look at the benefits the RtI model brings to the school setting. RtI has the potential to help children that in the past simply went without help. The model could also bring the expertise of reading specialists and learning disabilities specialists together and make them find a joint approach to the problems that students have in the classroom.
And then later this month we're going to take a look at the evaluation process itself - particularly at the role of IQ testing in the future. The day may soon come when a school principal doesn't have to wait for a very busy certified school psychologist to find the time to spend half a day evaluating Johnny's "cognitive function." The decision that Johnny has a learning disorder may not require an IQ test anymore. But that's a point of contention we'll look at in some detail (and the truth is that only time and court cases are likely to provide the answer with any certainty).
While discussion of those topics is more or less set in stone this month, we may also eventually look at the tone of RtI. I've heard it said that the reponse to intervention model had to be implemented because so many learning disabilities were being caused by bad teaching. We may talk about that.
The RtI model also has the potential to change the way school districts think about inclusion. My guess is that there will be pressure on schools to move students who are self-contained back into the general education classroom to see if they respond to interventions there. Doing that could also free up instructional time for special education teachers to do some of the Tier II intervention work.
We look forward to having you here with us as we examine the impact of RtI over the next few weeks...
We're going to take a closer look at the RtI model. We already have one article online about Response to Intervention that simply described the model.
Coming up in a couple of days we'll look at some of the problems the model will pose for identifying learning disabilities in particular. Quantifying the decision to place a child in special education looks set to become much more difficulty, which means that when parents disagree with the decision they will have a much harder time winning in the due process.
In just over a week we'll look at the benefits the RtI model brings to the school setting. RtI has the potential to help children that in the past simply went without help. The model could also bring the expertise of reading specialists and learning disabilities specialists together and make them find a joint approach to the problems that students have in the classroom.
And then later this month we're going to take a look at the evaluation process itself - particularly at the role of IQ testing in the future. The day may soon come when a school principal doesn't have to wait for a very busy certified school psychologist to find the time to spend half a day evaluating Johnny's "cognitive function." The decision that Johnny has a learning disorder may not require an IQ test anymore. But that's a point of contention we'll look at in some detail (and the truth is that only time and court cases are likely to provide the answer with any certainty).
While discussion of those topics is more or less set in stone this month, we may also eventually look at the tone of RtI. I've heard it said that the reponse to intervention model had to be implemented because so many learning disabilities were being caused by bad teaching. We may talk about that.
The RtI model also has the potential to change the way school districts think about inclusion. My guess is that there will be pressure on schools to move students who are self-contained back into the general education classroom to see if they respond to interventions there. Doing that could also free up instructional time for special education teachers to do some of the Tier II intervention work.
We look forward to having you here with us as we examine the impact of RtI over the next few weeks...
IDEA 2004 Part B Final Regs Finally Out
Posted by
Greg Cruey
The official version of the new regulations for IDEA 2004 won't be out until August 14. But you can download an unofficial version of the regs now...
The new regulations have been a long time in coming. An official version will be published in the Federal Register on August 14. But they are available now in MS Word or as a PDF file online - all 1,705 pages of them.
The regulations are supposed to help implement the new law. There are also 19 new topic briefs at the Department of Education's website on a wife number of issues - including procedural safeguards, the individualized education plan, disproportionality and overidentification, discipline, and how the new version of IDEA aligns with the No Child Left Behind Act.
Having trouble sleeping? The appendices alone take up almost 100 pages....
The regulations are supposed to help implement the new law. There are also 19 new topic briefs at the Department of Education's website on a wife number of issues - including procedural safeguards, the individualized education plan, disproportionality and overidentification, discipline, and how the new version of IDEA aligns with the No Child Left Behind Act.
Having trouble sleeping? The appendices alone take up almost 100 pages....
Does your child have dyslexia?
Posted by
Greg Cruey
I have the pleasure this week of attending a workshop on dyslexia by Dr. Susan Barton of Bright Solutions. If your child struggles with reading, you may be interested...
Dr. Barton is an internationally recognized expert in dyslexia (and ADD/ADHD), the founder of Bright Solutions for Dyslexia, LLC and the developer of the Barton Reading & Spelling System. Her website gives a checklist of sorts to help parents and educators decide whether a child's reading problem might be dyslexia. Among the many indicators that should be watched for:
Of course, none of these mean much in isolation. And the question becomes one of how many symptoms a child has from the list.
Dr. Barton's day with us was the most informative discussion of dyslexia I've ever attended. She has a number of free resources available, like her three free videos on the topic.
If you have a child that struggles with reading or if you're an educator who would like to know more about dyslexia, I encourage you to visit her site...
- Delayed Speech
- Problems with pencil grip and writing
- Problems telling left from right
- And (believe it or not) problems learning how to tie their shoes
Of course, none of these mean much in isolation. And the question becomes one of how many symptoms a child has from the list.
Dr. Barton's day with us was the most informative discussion of dyslexia I've ever attended. She has a number of free resources available, like her three free videos on the topic.
If you have a child that struggles with reading or if you're an educator who would like to know more about dyslexia, I encourage you to visit her site...
NY State's New Temporary Regs Allow Electric Shock
Posted by
Greg Cruey
But public hearings in August will likely help decide the long term role of "aversive interventions" for New York State students placed at the Judge Rotenburg Center.
The Rotenburg Center in Canton, Massachusetts, uses electric shock (along with a complicated system of other rewards and punishments) to condition students. Suite101 began following this story with a feature in May and I discussed my opinion of the situation in a blog that month.
The State of New York will have three public hearings in August on the new regulations. The first will be on August 8th in Albany, in the Administrative Board Room of the Capital Region BOCES at 3pm. There will be hearings in New York City on August 14th (at the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building at 2pm) and in Syracuse on August 15th (at Dr. King Elementary School starting at 3pm). Comments can also be sent to the State's Office of Vocational and Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities in Albany until August 28. You can email your comments (put "Comments: Behavioral Intervention Regulations" in your email's subject line).
One of the best explanations of the new temporary regulations is available from Wrightslaw.
The actual regulations are also available online.
The State of New York will have three public hearings in August on the new regulations. The first will be on August 8th in Albany, in the Administrative Board Room of the Capital Region BOCES at 3pm. There will be hearings in New York City on August 14th (at the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building at 2pm) and in Syracuse on August 15th (at Dr. King Elementary School starting at 3pm). Comments can also be sent to the State's Office of Vocational and Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities in Albany until August 28. You can email your comments (put "Comments: Behavioral Intervention Regulations" in your email's subject line).
One of the best explanations of the new temporary regulations is available from Wrightslaw.
The actual regulations are also available online.
Posted by
Greg Cruey
The Journal of the American Academy of Special Education Professionals (JAASEP) recently issued a call for papers for possible publication in the journal's Fall edition.
The journal JAASEP is available online.
The call for contributions to the upcoming issue of JAASEP was made jointly by Dr. Roger Pierangelo and Dr. George Giuliani, the executive directors of the Academy. The JAASEP is seeking contributions in the following areas:
JAASEP is an online peer-reviewed journal. The deadline for article submissions for the Fall, 2006 edition of JAASEP is October 15, 2006. To learn more you can contact JAASEP at editor@aasep.org
Membership in the Academy is available "to college and university professors, school administrators, educational evaluators, professionals, psychologists, psychiatrists, medical doctors, directors of special education services, directors of early intervention agencies, infant-toddler service coordinators, transition service coordinators, speech and language pathologists, occupational and physical therapists, and all other professionals in the field of special education," according to the Academy's website.
The call for contributions to the upcoming issue of JAASEP was made jointly by Dr. Roger Pierangelo and Dr. George Giuliani, the executive directors of the Academy. The JAASEP is seeking contributions in the following areas:
- Feature Manuscripts - quantitative and qualitative research based submissions that address current practice issues in the field of special education. Feature manuscripts are major articles which make a new contribution to the field of special education.
- Professional Reviews – reviews of conferences and workshops, books, DVDs, and other relevant sources of information.
- Commentaries and Letters to the Editor - your voice on issues pertaining to the field of special education.
JAASEP is an online peer-reviewed journal. The deadline for article submissions for the Fall, 2006 edition of JAASEP is October 15, 2006. To learn more you can contact JAASEP at editor@aasep.org
Membership in the Academy is available "to college and university professors, school administrators, educational evaluators, professionals, psychologists, psychiatrists, medical doctors, directors of special education services, directors of early intervention agencies, infant-toddler service coordinators, transition service coordinators, speech and language pathologists, occupational and physical therapists, and all other professionals in the field of special education," according to the Academy's website.
Posted by
Greg Cruey
One of the more confusing discussions in special education circles in the U.S. is the one over funding the provision of services to students with disabilities.
While we tend to think in terms of legislation when we consider the rights of special education students, the truth is that laws have consistently been passed by Congress primarily to catch up to what the courts have ruled must happen. Students with disabilities in America have a right to a free, appropriate public education (a FAPE), not because Congress made it law, but because the courts have said so - first in 1971 in the case Pennsylvania ARC v. the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and again the next year in the Mills v. the Board of Education. The Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA, later to become the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA) was an attempt in 1975 to bring order and legal organization to the rights the courts had already recognized.
Consider this:
Rights are rights. And one of the most profound and fundamental values of American society is the idea that money can’t buy you your rights. Neither can your lack of money cost you your rights.
So when Congress began, as part of the debate over passing EAHCA, to try and estimate the cost of educating students with disabilities in the public schools, the waters were muddied and clarity of thought on the topic has often been reduced as a result. The idea developed in many state and local educational agencies that the right of a severely retarded child, or of a blind and deaf girl, or of a Down syndrome boy to a FAPE was somehow contingent upon the degree to which federal funding could be used to secure that child’s right.
A monetary value was placed on a basic right in American society.
It would be nice if the federal government thought that the value of educating the disabled was worth more. It would be nice, for that matter, if the federal government thought that education in general was worth a greater investment. I’d be for that – for money to lower the student-teacher ratio in American schools and to raises teacher pay so that salaries reflect the level or training and professionalism required to do the job. Instead the current administration's long term goal seems to be the privatization of education in America and the dismantling of Great Society programs like Title I.
The truth is that regardless of the federal government's willingness (or unwillingness) to fund special education in individual states from Washington’s coffers, kids with autism or dyslexia, with emotional disturbances or traumatic brain injury have an unmitigated right to an education. A free education. An appropriate education. That's not to say that a disabled child has a right to the best available education; but they do have a right to an appropriate one.
The funding issue is simple, really. When a school system says that it can’t provide that kind of education because, well, it can’t afford to, it is offering to violate that child’s civil rights. And it bears liability for that regardless of federal funding priorities in the current fiscal year....
(For a more complete discussion of the issue, take a look at this examination of the idea of “full funding” for special education, by one of America’s leading legal minds in disability law, Reed Martin.)
Consider this:
- When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education that city and county school systems all across America would have to integrate their schools, not a penny in funding for the task was attached to the ruling.
- In 1972, when the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act (eventually to become known as Title IX) was passed requiring some level of parity in funding for sports for men and women, no funding was committed to that.
- When the Rehabilitation Act (including section 504, which prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities) was passed in 1973, not a cent was appropriated to help local government agencies comply with the new law's requirements.
- In 1990 the Americans with Disabilities Act was made law and extended still more civil rights protections to the disabled without a single thin dime of funding.
Rights are rights. And one of the most profound and fundamental values of American society is the idea that money can’t buy you your rights. Neither can your lack of money cost you your rights.
So when Congress began, as part of the debate over passing EAHCA, to try and estimate the cost of educating students with disabilities in the public schools, the waters were muddied and clarity of thought on the topic has often been reduced as a result. The idea developed in many state and local educational agencies that the right of a severely retarded child, or of a blind and deaf girl, or of a Down syndrome boy to a FAPE was somehow contingent upon the degree to which federal funding could be used to secure that child’s right.
A monetary value was placed on a basic right in American society.
It would be nice if the federal government thought that the value of educating the disabled was worth more. It would be nice, for that matter, if the federal government thought that education in general was worth a greater investment. I’d be for that – for money to lower the student-teacher ratio in American schools and to raises teacher pay so that salaries reflect the level or training and professionalism required to do the job. Instead the current administration's long term goal seems to be the privatization of education in America and the dismantling of Great Society programs like Title I.
The truth is that regardless of the federal government's willingness (or unwillingness) to fund special education in individual states from Washington’s coffers, kids with autism or dyslexia, with emotional disturbances or traumatic brain injury have an unmitigated right to an education. A free education. An appropriate education. That's not to say that a disabled child has a right to the best available education; but they do have a right to an appropriate one.
The funding issue is simple, really. When a school system says that it can’t provide that kind of education because, well, it can’t afford to, it is offering to violate that child’s civil rights. And it bears liability for that regardless of federal funding priorities in the current fiscal year....
(For a more complete discussion of the issue, take a look at this examination of the idea of “full funding” for special education, by one of America’s leading legal minds in disability law, Reed Martin.)
Mercury-Autism Study in Quebec
Posted by
Greg Cruey
The mercury-based preservative thimerosol is NOT the cause of Autism. At least that's the conclusion of a soon-to-be-published study done in Quebec.
According to a report by The Edmonton Journal, the study will be published in the journal Pediatrics next month. The study is significant because Quebec began using only vaccines without thimerosal in 1996. So children raised in Quebec and under the age of ten have never been given a vaccine with the mercury-based preservative in it.
The Quebec study actually shows that the incidence of autism has been higher in the years since the use of thimerosol as a preservative was stopped. Of course, the incidence of autism has increased everywhere in the last decade, making Quebec relatively normal in that trend.
The relationship between thimerosol, autism, and childhood vaccines is complicated and confusing. Much of the current buzz began in 1998 when a study published in the British medical journal The Lancet suggested a possible link between the Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. The study was not intended to examine that relationship (it was looking for a connection between viral infections and intestinal disease in children, and at the possibility that such intestinal diseases could contribute to the development of autism), included only 12 participants in the study, and has since had its validity questioned by many of the original researchers involved.
Another British study published in 2002 also suggested a link between measles (the disease, but not necessarily the vaccine), intestinal disease, and autism. The study was designed in a manner that prevented the researchers from determining whether either measles or intestinal disease actually caused autism. That study had only 161 participants. The Lancet published a study in 2004 with almost 6,000 participants; the study concluded that the MMR vaccine itself did not represent an increased risk for either autism or other disorders under the umbrella of autism spectrum.
To add to the confusion, the Centers for Disease Control says that while the preservative has been used in a number of other childhood vaccines in the past, the MMR vaccine has never contained thimerosal.
The cause (or causes) for the rising numbers of autism cases is among the most controversial issues in both medicine and education today.
The Quebec study actually shows that the incidence of autism has been higher in the years since the use of thimerosol as a preservative was stopped. Of course, the incidence of autism has increased everywhere in the last decade, making Quebec relatively normal in that trend.
The relationship between thimerosol, autism, and childhood vaccines is complicated and confusing. Much of the current buzz began in 1998 when a study published in the British medical journal The Lancet suggested a possible link between the Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. The study was not intended to examine that relationship (it was looking for a connection between viral infections and intestinal disease in children, and at the possibility that such intestinal diseases could contribute to the development of autism), included only 12 participants in the study, and has since had its validity questioned by many of the original researchers involved.
Another British study published in 2002 also suggested a link between measles (the disease, but not necessarily the vaccine), intestinal disease, and autism. The study was designed in a manner that prevented the researchers from determining whether either measles or intestinal disease actually caused autism. That study had only 161 participants. The Lancet published a study in 2004 with almost 6,000 participants; the study concluded that the MMR vaccine itself did not represent an increased risk for either autism or other disorders under the umbrella of autism spectrum.
To add to the confusion, the Centers for Disease Control says that while the preservative has been used in a number of other childhood vaccines in the past, the MMR vaccine has never contained thimerosal.
The cause (or causes) for the rising numbers of autism cases is among the most controversial issues in both medicine and education today.