How Odd Behavior in Some Young Horses May Reveal a Cause of Autism

Re:How Odd Behavior in Some Young Horses May Reveal a Cause ... by jessaustin on Saturday February 28, 2015 @03:12PM (#9124859)

It may be important to note that "dummy" foals display those symptoms at birth. It's my understanding that autism typically does not become apparent until months later. If birth conditions are to blame, it may be difficult to counteract their effects when those are hidden for so long.

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Re:How Odd Behavior in Some Young Horses May Reveal a Cause ... by loosescrews on Saturday February 28, 2015 @05:00PM (#9125210)

Foals are far more developed at birth than humans. I looked up the timeline for human development, and it appears that autism starts to become apparent around (or a little after) the time that humans reach parity with the physical development of a newborn foal.

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Re:How Odd Behavior in Some Young Horses May Reveal a Cause ... by jessaustin on Monday March 02, 2015 @01:36PM (#9133457)

It's pretty clear that normal foals are far ahead of normal human infants in musculoskeletal terms, but they're about even in terms of breathing, nursing, digestion, etc. (And human infants are far more effective at vocalization.) The sort of comparison you make reminds of the flawed concept of "dog years": there are no linear relations here. Anyway, the most troublesome symptom of a "dummy" foal is that it doesn't nurse properly. I haven't heard that about autistic children.

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