Rachel Zamzow

Brady Huggett

In April of 2021, Emilie Wigdor finished up a paper titled “The female protective effect against autism spectrum disorder” and put it on the pre-print server medRxiv. Wigdor is a Ph.D. student in human genetics at the University of Cambridge and the Wellcome Sanger Institute in the United Kingdom, and the paper had taken three years to complete. It was also the first paper on which she was first author. She was proud of that, and she took to Twitter to promote the work in an 11-part thread.

“How is he?” my mother in law asked worriedly as she hugged me tight.

“Not good, I don’t know how to reach him, he is here, but so far away”, I explained through the tears running down my face.

My precious son had been struggling for weeks emotionally and physically. From my own personal experience with depression and suicidal thoughts, I knew the depths he was in, while fighting to keep his head above water.

On the spectrum himself, my little boy’s struggle was not uncommon. Autism and suicide, unfortunately, can go together often. My concern for him was great.

Alison Singer

Earlier this month, I attended the Autism-Europe International Congress in Kraków, Poland, where the theme was “Happy Journey Through Life.” Although this sounds like an admirable goal, I would not choose the word “happy” to describe my daughter Jodie’s life with profound autism, nor would many other families who struggle with the day-to-day challenges of life on the profound end of the autism spectrum, a reality that is largely invisible to mainstream society.

Peter Hess

Two changes to the criteria for diagnosing autism are slated for release tomorrow in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-5-TR), published by the American Psychiatric Association. The small changes add clarity and nuance to how the reference text defines autism, but they are unlikely to change diagnostic practice, experts say.