Neurological Complications With Autism

Although many people consider autism to be a neurological abnormality, many of us audies do not agree. We say that it is what it is, and we just are the way we are. Still, we could have neurological problems along WITH being autistic. Yes, people on the lower-functioning end of the spectrum will probably always be debilitated. They may never be verbal or never be able to live independently. Yes, there are audies that have Fragile X Syndrome, mental retardation, or even seizure disorders. In this article, I will not be focusing on this group. Instead, I will mention things that people with autism experience that are less obvious at first glance. Recently, I have met fellow audies and parents of autistic children who shared with me the neurological problems they deal with. I identified with their concerns very well because I too have neurological problems which, in and of themselves, I would never have associated with autism at all.

When I was a young child, my physical developmental delays were quite noticeable. Over the years, though, I’ve learned to compensate for them, somewhat. At the age of five months, I had suffered from salmonella food poisoning. The 108° fever and the three weeks I spent in intensive care nearly took my life. Even the doctors told my parents I would not live. Although everyone considered it a miracle that I did live, I point the finger at this illness as the main cause of my neurological problems, and perhaps the autism as well. During the rest of my childhood, I learned that I would need to wear glasses the rest of my life because my eyesight was very poor. Uncorrected, my right eye sees 20/200 and my left eye 20/400. Although I have a 20% hearing loss in my left ear, I suffer from chronic tinnitus in my right ear. This baffled the audiologist I visited recently because she said that tinnitus should happen on the side with hearing loss, not the normal side! My arm and hand strength and leg coordination were noticeably weaker on the left side. Also, I had a chronically weak voice and poor fricative pronunciation. On top of everything, I have always had some sort of sleep disturbance especially from my junior year of high school on to the present day.

I was definitely a funny-looking and certainly odd acting creature when I was a kid. I wore Coke-bottle glasses until I was in 11th grade, which is when my parents finally found a doctor who was willing to prescribe contact lenses for me. I didn’t learn to sit up or walk during the normal times a toddler should be able to do these things. I also wore a brace between my shoes to correct my foot flare. I was the last one in my kindergarten class to learn how to tie his shoes. Because of my coordination problem, I had a habit of tripping and falling whenever I ran or played. Some of those falls resulted in me either breaking my glasses or needing a trip to the emergency room to get stitches. In order to strengthen my left side and improve my coordination, my parents started me in piano lessons when I was four years old. The years of piano training that followed definitely made a difference. They helped mostly because my teacher was quite a demanding, old-school classical pianist. I had seen a speech therapist when I was in third grade, and again when in my senior year of high school, to improve the quality of my voice. As for my hearing and my sleep disturbances, they are today the way they have always been. My brain has become accustomed to ignoring the chronic high-pitched ringing in my right ear, and my circadian rhythm is permanently set for me to be a lifelong night owl.

Because of my developmental delays and stunted growth, my parents would take me to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia every year for evaluations by an endocrinologist. When I was twelve years old, my annual visit yielded the discovery of a heart defect. I had a leaking aortic valve. Now the yearly visits switched gears from monitoring my stunted (but within normal range) growth to checking on the adequacy of the pumping of my heart. At the age of eighteen, the leak in my heart valve finally became so severe that I needed open heart surgery to correct it. As for my lack of coordination, I’ve learned to compensate over the years. Even though all those years of piano lessons as a child made significant improvements, you will still occasionally find me walking into people, furniture, and doorways. Because it’s not so debilitating these days, I just laugh when it happens.

Other health woes have challenged me throughout the years as well. From April 10, 1995 until October 15, 2009, I suffered from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I remember the exact dates because you never forget the day you wake up with a life-changing illness, and the only thing that successfully brought it to an end, once and for all, was the occurrence of a tragic event. On October 15, 2009, I woke up suffering from a stroke. My entire right side was paralyzed from head to toe. The stroke was caused by a brain hemorrhage. Even though I spent four days in intensive care, I surprised everyone, including the neurologist who treated me, by being back to my old self again, with full-strength and energy, just six weeks later. Not only was I back to my pre-stroke self, I was back to my pre-Chronic Fatigue Syndrome self! In addition, all of the voice weakness that I still  had for all these years was also gone! I did battle with bouts of insomnia, which is common for many stroke survivors to have for several months after a stroke. The insomnia was treatable with melatonin, and it eventually disappeared all together on the one-year anniversary of the stroke.

Because I recently found out about other people with autism who have similar neurological problems, I am wondering if there is a direct connection between such neurological conditions and autism. The neuropsychologist who confirmed my autism diagnosis with the Wechsler Intelligence Scale in July of 2008 agreed that my illness as an infant must have damaged my nerve system. One particular child I learned about recently has developmental problems almost identical to mine, yet never had such an illness. In that light, I feel that it would be appropriate to place such developmental problems on a parallel spectrum. On the lower end you have such things as Fragile X Syndrome, while on the higher end you have conditions milder than what I have. This would probably make a great subject for a survey or study.