Autism is an extremely complicated brain disorder that manifests itself in different ways. Currently, the cause is unknown and there are no specific well-proven medical treatments or cures, although scientists are making headway. Dr. Sarah Spence, medical director of the UCLA Autism Evaluation Clinic, recently spoke to the Palisadian-Post about autism. Autism is diagnosed by specific social, communication and behavioral problems: (1) difficulties responding to surroundings, forming relationships with others and responding appropriately to environmental clues, (2) the absence of speech or inhibitions in one’s ability to use language in a social manner to communicate, such as in conversation, and (3) restricted focus or repetitive behaviors. All three of these areas must be included for a diagnosis of autism. Autism manifests itself on a wide spectrum and symptoms may range from mild to severe. Some children with an autism spectrum disorder may have uncontrollable temper tantrums and an extreme resistance to change. Others have an under- or oversensitivity to sights and sounds. Myths abound. One is that all autistic kids make no eye contact, don’t talk, hate being hugged and rock back and forth in the corner. This is untrue; just as each child is unique, his or her autism and symptoms are unique. But what is universal is that these children need to be taught the types of things that come naturally to most other kids. Dr. Spence, who completed her training in June 2000, told about a child with autism who was having a haircut. As the barber cut the child’s hair, he spoke to the child. The child kept turning around to look at the barber. The barber was getting increasingly frustrated because he couldn’t cut the child’s hair because of the child’s swiveling. The mother intervened and told the child to look straight ahead. The child replied, “But, Mom, you told me to always look in someone’s eyes when they talk to me.” Children are usually diagnosed with autism after the age of three, although the onset of the disorder is earlier. However, diagnosing the disorder earlier is difficult because it’s based on a development. Many of the characteristics that point to autism in a 3-year-old are normal in 2-year-olds. One example is “parallel play” by 2-year-olds, which means if you put them in the room with toys, they often play side by side, but don’t interact with other children. By age 3, children start to play together and, soon after, go into pretend play. Over time, it becomes obvious when children aren’t interacting. An early diagnosis of autism is important because the prognosis is better with early intervention. Currently, researchers are working on methods of earlier detection. Some red-flag developmental items to look for and possibly discuss with your pediatrician are: ‘ No big smiles or other warm expressions by 6 months. ‘ No back-and-forth sharing of sounds or facial expressions by 9 months. ‘ No babbling by 12 months. ‘ No back-and-forth gestures, such as pointing, showing or waving by 12 months. ‘ No words by 16 months. ‘ No two-word meaningful phrases (without imitating or repeating) by 24 months. ‘ Any loss of speech, babbling or social skills at any age. With national media attention on autism, and a recent best-seller “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time” written by Mark Haddon from the viewpoint of an autistic child, many wonder whether there is an autism epidemic. “The jury is still out whether there is more autism now,” Spence said. “Is there better reporting and diagnosis or are there more environmental triggers setting off the disease?” she asked. Two major autism surveillance studies are currently funded, and Spence feels the results of those studies will help answer that question. Although it seems primitive in this day and age, one of the old myths of the cause of autism was cold mothers and poor parenting. Spence said that records have shown that autism tends to run in families. Current scientific thought says that autism is an extremely complex neurodevelopment genetic disorder, and researchers suspect that more than 20 genes may contribute to a portion of autism, which would account for the wide variation in symptoms and severity. Although autism is more common in boys than girls (by a ratio of 4:1), there is no single gene on the Y chromosome that determines autism. Some parents and researchers feel that individuals are predisposed to autism but that environmental factors trigger the disease. For example, thimerosal, an additive used in vaccines, was a prime suspect in the 1990s which led it to be removed from all vaccines (except the flu shot) by 2001. If thimerosal were a trigger, then the number of autism cases should be decreasing since it was removed from vaccines four years ago. Spence said that could be a logical conclusion but there are mitigating factors. Recently, California’s Regional Centers, which provides services for children with developmental disabilities and records the occurrence of the disease, changed the definition of autism, making it harder to qualify for services with an autism diagnosis. Some researchers speculated in 1998 that the MMR vaccine could be a trigger. Spence said there is data, including stable vaccination rates and no major increase of autism when the MMR was introduced, that refutes the vaccine is a trigger despite subsequent increased diagnoses. Other proposed triggers are pesticides and frequent infections in the first two years of life which result in the overuse of antibiotics in the first two years. The bottom line is that no one has the definitive answer on what causes autism. Major research is currently being done in the area of mirror neurons, motor neurons in the brain that can react to another’s action without having to perform the action. Scientists suspect that mirror neurons could be responsible for empathy and imitation. UCLA researchers Marco Iacoboni and Mirella Dapretto were the first to compare mirror neuron activity in the brains of autistic to non-autistic children and discovered that the system was less active in autistic children. It’s an exciting breakthrough because it signals a location in the brain that could be responsible for autism and where therapies could then be focused. [Editor’s Note: Dr. Spence and her colleagues continue to conduct multiple ongoing studies at UCLA’s Center for Autism Research and Treatment. For more information, visit www.autism.ucla.edu.]

Someone who has been pregnant once, but is having trouble getting pregnant the second time, is defined as having secondary infertility. Dr. Ingrid Rodi of Parker Rosenman Rodi Gynecology and Infertility Medical Group in Santa Monica, recently spoke to the Palisadian-Post about this subject. “The best predictor for fertility, in general, is age,” said Rodi, who is board certified in reproductive endocrinology and infertility. “Many people have their first baby at 33 and have no trouble getting pregnant. Now they’re 37 and think it will be that easy a second time, but it may not be.” As women grow older, it becomes increasingly harder to conceive. Menopause, a naturally occurring change, happens sometime between the ages of 40 and 60. Fertility starts to decrease about 13 years before a woman goes through menopause. Rodi says there are a few woman who get pregnant naturally at 47, but they are a tiny percentage, less than one percent. It’s impossible to tell from a woman’s history when she might go through menopause. Some women think that if their mothers went through late, they will as well. Not so. “You can’t tell from your mother’s history,” Rodi said. “A woman inherits her genetics from her father’s side of the family as well.” “Age becomes an issue for another reason,” Rodi said. “There’s an increased chance of miscarriages because of chromosomal abnormalities.” Many women’s groups argue that doctors are trying to scare women into having children younger, which means their careers will suffer. “The decrease in fertility is not a disease, but a natural progression,” Rodi said. “I’m not trying to scare anyone. If we were trying to drum up business for our practice, we’d tell women to wait to have children until they’re 40.” Even when Rodi performs in vitro fertilization (IVF), women under 34 have a success rate of about 50 percent, whereas women over 41 have a success rate of about 15 percent. The general rule, Rodi tells couples who are trying to get pregnant the second time is, if the woman is under 35 and it didn’t take any time to get pregnant with the first child, try for a year. If she still hasn’t conceived, consult a physician. If the woman is over 35, has tried for six months and is not pregnant, it’s time to see a physician. And if a woman had problems getting pregnant the first time and wants to try for a second pregnancy, Rodi advises going back to her physician. Although decreased fertility due to age is the primary reason for secondary infertility, there are other medical reasons that might contribute to the problems. Endometriosis, pelvic infections like chlamydia or gonorrhea, fibroids that require surgery or perhaps even a ruptured appendix can be culprits. Women who have gone through chemo or radiation treatment for cancer after their first child may also experience difficulties getting pregnant the second time. The husband or male partner should also be checked to make sure his sperm count is adequate. Some medications like blood pressure medicine will lower the count. Another factor could be erectile disfunction; although the sperm are there, they aren’t reaching the egg. “Sometimes couples can’t conceive because of decreased sexual frequency,” Rodi said. “They have a baby or a toddler, so they’re more tired. Often the baby is even sleeping in their bed, which means they don’t have sex often enough.” If a couple is trying to get pregnant, they should be having sex three times a week in order to hit the ovulation peak. If the couple is having sex less than once a week, they should use an ovulation kit. Sometimes couples wait too long to try for their second child because there’s a disagreement among partners. One will drag his or her feet too long, until it’s too late to get pregnant naturally. Occasionally Rodi will see couples with problems in their marriage who are fighting and not having sex. “Whereas until the middle of the 20th century, sex generally meant having children and you had to have sex to have children,” Rodi said, “today, you do not have to have children when you have sex and you do not necessarily have to have sex to have children. “That phenomenon led to a delay in having children, which has pointed out to doctors the decrease in fertility as a woman gets older.” For more information go to Rodi’s Web site RodiMD.com or contact 451-8144.

Imagine. You’re living your life, doing your thing. It’s all good. Then, one day, there’s a knock on the door and BAM’nothing is ever the same. You’re taken away in handcuffs and accused of a crime you know nothing about. What’s more, you’re found guilty. In an instant, all that you hold dear, all of your freedoms are suddenly wrestled from you based on a complete fabrication. And you have no control. Your whole future is gone. You’re incarcerated, degraded and spend the next 18 years in prison. Your confidence, sense of self-worth, pride, ego all destroyed. No, it’s not Nazi Germany or communist Russia. It’s the United States of America, and it’s today. This is a subject on which movies are made, and 28-year-old filmmaker Jessica Sanders, a Palisades resident, has done just that in “After Innocence,” her feature documentary debut which she directed, produced and wrote. “It was all so random,” says Sanders, who attended Crossroads and then Harvard-Westlake. “I got a call from a friend of a friend who is a lawyer, who had an idea for a film and was looking for a filmmaker. As soon as he told me about the idea, I jumped on it.” The “friend of a friend” was Marc H. Simon, who became Sanders’s writing and producing partner, and had worked with the Innocence Project, a nonprofit legal clinic founded by lawyers Barry C. Sheck and Peter J. Neufeld that handles only cases in which post-conviction DNA testing can yield conclusive proof of innocence. Sanders had worked on the NBC documentary series “Crime and Punishment” as an associate producer and camera operator and had become immersed in the whole criminal justice world. It was then that she began to question the country’s sentencing process. “I had already seen prosecutors really happy about winning, but not necessarily doing what I thought was right in terms of justice,” explains Sanders. “I saw a lot of ‘high fives,’ and going for the worst possible sentence instead of really ‘seeing.’ I felt that it was more about winning. So this project was a great way to explore the other side.” Exploring is second nature to Sanders, who grew up in a family of artists and filmmakers. It’s literally in her blood. Her sister, Brittany, is an artist whose work has been shown at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Her grandmother, Altina Miranda, was an artist who produced a film about her teacher, painter George Gross. And both her parents, Frieda Lee Mock and Terry Sanders, are award-winning documentary filmmakers. “All of my childhood was shot on film,” laughs Sanders, “and it will probably never stop.” Sanders graduated with honors in film, cum laude, from Wesleyan University in Connecticut with a double major in film studies and English. Her first job was as a director’s assistant for an HBO film, “Strangers Inside,” about mothers and daughters in prison. Her senior honor film, “Los Angels,” which she wrote, produced, directed and edited, about a girl born with a birthmark on her stomach in the likeness of the Great Wall of China, won several film festival awards and played theatrically. “Once I graduated from Wesleyan, just working gave me incredible experience,” says Sanders. “I worked with my mom as producer on her documentary, “SING!” which she directed. I worked on casting, putting the crew together and how we wanted to tell the story. Working with the director gave me clear ideas on what I wanted and where I wanted a film to go. I love directing.” “SING!” was a 2002 Academy Award and Emmy nominee documentary about the Los Angeles Children’s Choir. After “SING!” Sanders wrote, produced and directed two dramatic short films, “Stormy Weather,” about a man in his pool and “Pool King,” a film shot underwater starring the U.S. champion for holding his breath underwater. And then came “After Innocence.” “When I first started the project, we had no money,” says Sanders, who worked on the film for two and a half years. “It was kind of like ‘I want to make this film and I feel passionate about it.’ And you just fundraise.” As it happened, just when Sanders agreed to do the film, the Innocence Project was celebrating its 10th anniversary in New York City. Sanders got a couple of cinematographers to shoot pro bono and off she went. It was essentially a casting session for Sanders. At the event she met five of the seven men who were featured in the film. Through those men she knew that she wanted to show the larger story of wrongful conviction, and who those people were would reflect the larger group. “At the time, there were 127 exonerees,” says Sanders. “I wanted a diverse geography. I wanted to know where they were from and how they were convicted. Did they get support? What are they doing now? Did they get compensated? So in terms of writing the film, casting was very key. Additionally, I wanted the film to follow a person in prison who was fighting for his innocence.” That person would turn out to be Wilton Dedge, who had to wait 15 years to get a DNA test. Then, the state of Florida opposed his release because his DNA tests were taken five years before the law provided for such testing. After the tests found him innocent, he had to wait still another three years before he could get a hearing. By the time of his release, Dedge had spent a total of 22 years in prison. “We’d call the Innocence Project and ask them if they had anyone who might be getting out,” explains Sanders. “It was a big unknown and we lucked out on how dramatic Wilton’s story was and how we were able to convince the Florida prison to give us the access. It was pretty amazing.” According to Sanders, as youngsters, she and her sister were exposed to a cadre of talented, creative people while traveling with her parents on their projects. And watching her parents work was very integral to her upbringing. “I know that when I was growing up, documentaries weren’t considered to be cool,” says Sanders. “They weren’t like the ‘movies.’ But I think documentaries are very much like a feature film. You have to have good characters and a dramatic story and you have to cast the same way you cast a dramatic film. I had to find people who would work well on film, people who were articulate, so there are definitely similar elements. There are badly made, boring documentaries and uninteresting films. In each genre you have to use your filmmaking tools. I was trained in dramatic sensibility and I think using that in documentaries is helpful and fundamental. That’s how I structured ‘After Innocence,’ and maybe that’s why it’s successful. There is a big, dramatic arc and you care about the characters. In fact, I feel that sometimes the impact of a great documentary stays with someone more than a good dramatic film.” Sanders is currently developing a TV documentary series and has other projects that are in the very early stages. She says that she is drawn to “voices that aren’t heard and underdogs that aren’t recognized.”

Once upon a time, libraries were designed for books, and accommodated people. But looking at the new 104,000-sq.-ft. Santa Monica Main Library, you know times have changed. “This building is designed for people and accommodates a healthy book collection,” says City Librarian Greg Mullen, whose job for the past year has involved overseeing a virtual library, which became a reality Saturday when it opened to enormous fanfare and throngs of elated patrons. Mullen was a key consultant advising the architects of Moore Ruble Yudell in designing a library that is not only a repository for materials but also a place for young and old to read, research, relax and enjoy a meal. Clearly elated with what must be the crowning glory of his career, Mullen served as assistant librarian before taking over the top job in September 2005, which gives him jurisdiction over the main library at its same site on 6th street and Santa Monica Blvd. and three branches. The contents remain more or less the same, over 300,000 books, tapes, DVDs and compact discs, but the shell is radically different, taking up a full city block between 6th and 7th, Arizona and Santa Monica. What was formerly the outside parking area on the north side of the old building has turned into the entry courtyard. Patrons will be able to enter the library from there only to find another courtyard and the Bookmark Caf’ from which they can enter the main lobby. This is an extension of the library box, so users can sit al fresco, read a book and enjoy a coffee surrounded by a garden and the under-the-sea art installation. Located just six blocks from the sea, the library benefits from the ocean breezes, and all who were involved in the creative design, including the architects, landscaper Pamela Burton and public artist Carl Cheng, capitalized on the marine influence. The building’s mass is fragmented by its split levels, in-and-out planes and occasional walls painted in a bold palette of burnt orange, chartreuse and ochre. In the garden, succulents, grasses and natives suggest coral and seaweeds, and Cheng’s “Underwater Canopy” evokes an under-the-sea experience with fish floating by. A strong feature of this library is its association with the outside, allowing patrons inside to see the world go by on Santa Monica and 7th. While activity goes on outside, the building is double-paned so the sounds of buses and cars stay outside. The “business” of the library’perusing, researching, securing and borrowing books’will go on as usual, but Mullen hopes with greater ease. “There are improvements, such as service desks that encourage a more collaborative relationship between the librarian and the customers. Computer ‘card catalogues’ are also conveniently spaced at intervals at the end of the stacks so patrons will not have to walk across an entire room to find them.” There is also a bow towards merchandising in presenting the books. “Sixty-five percent of our visitors are browsing for something to read,” Mullen says. “And the popular materials’new books and magazines’are located in a central location on the first level. And there is also a lot more face-out shelving, which shows off the covers of the books rather than the spines.” The children’s area is equipped with kid-sized furniture, computer tables and even miniature toilets and sinks. There is also a stroller parking lot to accommodate what in the past has been a traffic jam. The young adults’ area features a sea of state-of-the-art computer terminals, adjacent to a seating area, the envy of any couch potato. The blond wood Eames chairs and the white and brushed steel lighting fixtures create a clean, modernist atmosphere. Reading nooks abound, especially on the second level, where the nonfiction stacks, the periodical collection and the Santa Monica history collection are located. One seating area on the southwest corner affords a view straight down Santa Monica Boulevard to the pier. Mullen has high hopes for the electronic self-checkout system, which will eliminate the old cumbersome open-book scanning desk and security gate. Six stations are located in the main lobby of the library, just inside the building. The grand entrance to the library on Santa Monica will invite pedestrians, while the Arizona entrance will be more convenient for those arriving in cars. The elevator to the three-level underground parking structure opens on this side. In the original library, built in 1935, a series of chromatic murals created by Palisadian artist Stanton MacDonald-Wright warped in and around the rooms of the Spanish-style building. But in the mid-1960s, when the library was rebuilt, the murals were removed from the walls, crated and banished to the Smithsonian Institution, until they were called back by Santa Monica officials, this time to be displayed in the new library. While the mural panels retain their customized shapes that fit in and around vaulted windows and doorways, and don’t tuck seamlessly into the new architecture, they add a colorful focal point to the upper-level spaces, and their story retains much of its narrative sequencing. Macdonald-Wright’s panels, originally funded by the Federal Public Works Art Project, illustrate man’s progress in technology and science, as well as achievements in art, religion and literature. While the architects could not remount the entire sequence, the library plans to label the panels and offer educational tours and brochures to explain the murals’ historical context. Jamie Lee Loves Books When Jamie Lee Curtis, a longtime Palisadian, film star and author of six award-winning children’s books, learned that her storytelling presentation on the opening day of the library was to be live on City TV Channel 16, she whispered to the kids in the audience that they greet the public with a shout. “We love books.” Curtis, a natural-born storyteller and self-described rebel, was thrilled to be the inaugural author. “This is the first time any people have been in this room (the Martin Luther King, Jr. auditorium). The first fannies that have brushed these seats. Yours will be the first piece of gum stuck on the bottom of the chairs. You should have your names engraved here. The whole idea of a library is a place for people to gather together.” Curtis, the daughter of Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, recalled her first experience in a library in a conversation on the phone with the Palisadian-Post. “I went to the Beverly Hills Library to research a school (Hawthorne Elementary) paper. My sense memory is the feeling that you could actually get information through the card catalogue. The Dewey Decimal System seemed like another language, but I was amazed that I could do it. It gave me a real feeling of accomplishment and independence. I was in control. “Using the library became more real when I had my own children. I realized that you could take as many as 40 books at a time, a basket of books every week! When I had a daughter, Annie, it proved to be a weekly adventure. I have used the Ocean Park branch, Santa Monica library and the Palisades library. I’ve navigated them all. Now, when I call my daughter at college, if she’s not in her room, her roommate will often say, ‘She’s in the library studying.'” She expects many visits to the new library with her 9-year-old son Tom. Curtis has completed her seventh book, “Is There Really a Human Race, and Am I in It?” which she considers “potentially the most important I’ll ever write. It’s an examination of what we’re doing today as a group of people, based on how we are in the world right now. This book is an exploration with human compassion of what we are doing. ‘Why are we racing, what are we winning, does all my running keep the world spinning?’ The child in the book asks that question, ‘What are we doing?’ I answer it.”