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CDC Reports 1 In 88 Children Now Affected With Autism In the US
An anonymous reader writes "A new government health report indicated that about one in 88 children in the United State has autism or a related disorder, the highest estimate to date, which represented an overall increase of 25 percent since the last analysis in 2006. The Centers for Disease Control reported on Thursday that the rate increased by 78 percent compared to the reported rate in 2002. From the article: '"The CDC’s new estimate of autism prevalence demands that we recognize autism as a public health emergency warranting immediate attention," Autism Speaks Chief Science Officer Geri Dawson said in a new release.
"More than ever, these numbers compel us to redouble our investment in the research that can reveal causes, validate effective treatments and guide the effective delivery of services to all our communities," she added.'"
Just like ADHD.
And all of them are lurking on 4chan.
Whereas on slashdot the ratio is the prevelance is the far more alarming 1 in 2.
Or are we changing how we mesure it? How we define "autism"? Maybe it's because autism is more acceptable, and doesn't require someone to be locked in a basement until a group of 1980s teens decide that they need to find a treasure in order to save their housing development.
All kidding aside, I'd be interested to know how much the autism scale has changed over the years. I realize that highly functioning people with autism still count as having autism, but was that always the case?
There's a reason there is no "Disagree" mod...
It would be useful to know if there's more autism by some objective measure, or just more diagnosis. I've heard it pointed out that children who are diagnosed as autistic get a very large amount more attention, private tutoring, and such, in many school systems.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
So once they all have it, it'll be normal right? Then we can stop overdiagnosing it and get back to life.
Childhood friend never spoke until he was five. Seemed to be in a world of his own, but I still liked him. So he graduated from one of the Ivy League (honors or something) and finished two doctorates. He's still in his own world.
It's affected by autism, not affected with autism. And it's not an infection either. There.
For those who seek perfection there can be no rest on this side of the grave.
If it's that normal, maybe it's not abnormal after all?
Autism isn't a new issue. It's been around for hundreds of thousands of years. It's just it wouldn't be diagnosed before.
How many cases of appendicitis were there 10,000 years ago? Would be rational to look at existing reported cases and conclude that all of this just started in the modern era?
I'm not saying autism isn't a problem. It's just one of many old problems.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The article I read about this earlier today did actually credit better/more defined diagnosis criteria as a major part of the increase in diagnoses, but that roughly 50% of the increase is still unexplained. But yeah, years ago, just as with other mental diseases/development disorders, higher functioning sufferers were generally just considered slow or slightly odd, but otherwise normal.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
But when doing math, I do sit on the floor, rocking back and forth, whilst mumbling to myself.
In past years, autism was barely understood/defined, and often misdiagnosed as ADHD, mental retardation, or something similar. As awareness increases and the diagnostic criteria become more straightforward, autism is diagnosed more and more frequently. You can't call that increase in diagnosis an epidemic.
Doesn't it mostly depend on what definition is being used this month?
One of the ongoing problems with both medical and economic statistics is that the definitions of what's being measured changes on a time scale of a year or four. This confounds attempts to measure changes over time, since the statistics for constant things are often changing.
Here in the US, one of the ongoing examples is the changing definitions of "unemployment". This was made clear back during the Reagan years, when the military was changed from ignored to "employed". This lowered the unemployment rate by roughly 1% (and varied a lot by state). It also meant that unemployment rates before and after that change were incommensurable.
This is an old, and ongoing story. Both the political and marketing people like to change definitions periodically, so they can use the resulting statistical "changes" in their propaganda.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
... will be to end all vaccinations, and not to clean up the poisons that our kids breath, the crap that's in our food, and all the other potentially genetically damaging stuff that we do.
Check your premises.
I Had Asperger Syndrome. Briefly.
By BENJAMIN NUGENT
New York Times
Published: January 31, 2012
"FOR a brief, heady period in the history of autism spectrum diagnosis, in the late ’90s, I had Asperger syndrome.
I exhibited a “qualified impairment in social interaction,” specifically “failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level” (I had few friends) and a “lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests, or achievements with other people” (I spent a lot of time by myself in my room reading novels and listening to music, and when I did hang out with other kids I often tried to speak like an E. M. Forster narrator, annoying them). I exhibited an “encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal either in intensity or focus” (I memorized poems and spent a lot of time playing the guitar and writing terrible poems and novels).
The biggest single problem with the diagnostic criteria applied to me is this: You can be highly perceptive with regard to social interaction, as a child or adolescent, and still be a spectacular social failure. This is particularly true if you’re bad at sports or nervous or weird-looking.
But my experience can’t be unique. Under the rules in place today, any nerd, any withdrawn, bookish kid, can have Asperger syndrome."
General incompetence is increasing. People who are good at math get therapy until they aren't good at anything so they can be normal.
Equine Mammals Are Considerably Smaller
Which still warrants a different look. If we can now recognize what it is, and can do something about it that's better than just writing the situation off as a collection of unsolvable oddities that aren't worth investing much in.
Even your post describes them as "mental diseases/development disorders". So hey, let's try a little exercise:
Define "normal".
For one thing this was NOT a "study" it was a questionnaire. And there is no increase in Autism....there is an increase in the Diagnosis of autism. They have changed the definition down. sort of dumbing down the test. So guess what...you get more positive results. This helps the usual victim group industry such as the Jenny McCarthy vaccine nonsense.
"Normal" is by definition what the majority are.
It just seems strange to me there are so many children on heavy hitter psych meds. It can't be a total coincidence that their parent's generation started the trend toward better living through pharmacology. With their parents taking Zoloft, Seroquel, Zyprexa and Abilify like candy it just seems oddly coincidental that there are so many autistic kids running around.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Jenny McCarthy.
Asperger's seems to be included in that report. I know a bunch of people with AS so I am not at all surprised about the fact that over 1 percent of the US has some form of autism. I don't think these numbers are abnormal. I think that they are more accurate.
The sad thing about the whole vaccine scare is that vaccines are one of the most selfless things done in medicine today. (That's not to say that the vaccine field is entirely selfless, but your run-of-the-mill vaccines haven't the profits of Viagra.)
At the same time as people are questioning vaccines, there's very little questioning of the "chemical experiments" performed on us during the 50's and 60's, before anyone thought about such concerns. There's a pile of "better living through chemistry" that's so infrastructural we've barely begun to question it - like plastic milk jugs that may have a linkage to female precocious puberty, etc.
Back to vaccines for a moment, in the Muslim world the questioning of vaccines has turned them into a "Western plot" to the extent that many have stopped the practice. As a result, there are places where polio is making a comeback.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Define "normal".
Whatever society at that time had constructed as normal. 70 years ago, if you lived in a rural area, normal would be getting up early, walking several miles to school, playing with the school kids, then walking home and helping out around the family farm. If you lived in a city, you probably helped out in your parents' shop, or watched your younger siblings while your parents worked. But the biggest factor in normality has always been, and more than likely always will, be a certain level of social interaction. This is because we are by our very nature social animals. That is why kids that are less social than normal tend to get singled out, or people get "weird" around asocial adults: it's not a conscious act, but rather a response conditioned by evolution and years of social cues.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Expand what you call it so you can capture more people, claim its an epidemic, then ask for more funding
---- Booth was a patriot ----
There's also the possibility of it being both: More people genuinely have it than before, and more of those that have it are diagnosed.
Normal people know normal when they see it. But you knew that, right?
What utter nonsense.
Let me fix that for you;
"While an alpha male is fucking a hot chick on a Friday night, the autistic beta male is working on a project while waiting on the alpha male's report thats due on his desk first thing Monday morning."
Nice troll, dude. Not subtle or intelligent, but it's still a classic.
My son is autistic, and I can't stand it when people involve the words 'disease' or 'cure' when speaking of it. Autism Speaks goes so far as to use the word 'eradication', so I don't bother with them whatsoever. They want a cure for something, in my own opinion, isn't curable. It's the way you're made. There are no cures for Down's out there right now, are there?
And when it comes to the "OMG SO MANY AUTISTIC KIDS!" issue--I'm sure everyone here remembers the days back in grade-high school, where the special-needs kids were all dumped into one room. From Down's to ADHD, they resided in the basement where none of us "normal" kids ran the risk of running into them and giving us complexes. There were many, many children that were autistic, but they'd only get the colorful, cute euphemisms, like 'retards' or 'speds'. They were ALWAYS used with great care and kindness, of course. /sarcasm
Nowadays, more people are eager to look into each case specifically, instead of throwing a blanket over any kid that falls behind or shows some sign of disability. Therefore, we're all freaking out about how there are so many sudden cases of autism--to me, it's always been here. I myself am in the spectrum, but back when I was little, I was brought to 'retardation' tests to examine my issues (where they discovered that my IQ was actually strangely high). I consider myself an undiagnosed case until I learn otherwise. If you look around yourself, think back to all the kids you went to school with, the more you might realize that autism's always been there... we just haven't met it with the same speculation, sensitivity and care until now. Are there environmental factors? Perhaps. But I think that only delays our understanding of autism itself: we're looking for outside reasons, when it's inborn, 'just the way you are'.
My son is almost nine, doesn't use the toilet exclusively, speaks almost exclusively in echolalia (and in my exact tone and inflection, as I was his main caregiver growing up), has odd, brain-numbing routines (he'll sing the same three words of a song for an hour straight while hitting the floor over and over again in specific patterns)... but he is damned smart, scarily so. I work on meeting him halfway; he does, deep down, have great understanding, and as long as I accommodate the things he can't help, it works out. To be honest, he's one of the easiest kids I've ever had to deal with, and I was a preschool teacher for over ten years.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
None.
Here is the actual study and is annoyingly light on details to help answer that question. The total number includes people diagnosed with Autistic Disorder, Aspergers, or Pervasive Developmental Disorder–Not Otherwise Specified. They have tables that slice and dice the data between gender, ethnicity, locality, IQ, and other factors, but nowhere in the paper do the say what the split between these categories is. The closest is a table that shows how many people were diagnosed before the age of 8.
If the increase is largely in Aspergers, the I would expect that it is mostly due to increased diagnosis, since it didn't didn't even have an official diagnosis standard until the early 90's and didn't enter into mainstream awareness till about a decade later.
Without this information I have no idea how to react. If we are seeing a huge increase in the number of people with low functioning Autism, that is a cause for alarm. If we are mostly seeing an increase in the number of people with Aspergers, then that's a good thing, because it means that more people with Aspergers are receiving information that can help them live their lives better, and there isn't much to be concerned about.
First of all it's not increasing any more than A.D.D. is increasing, they're just broadening the diagnosis. By their definition, I have autism. Most of us IT people do (apparently). Who knew? lol. But also, why would we call it a gigantic super panic emergency mega health meltdown-fest 2012 when there's absolutely NOTHING anyone can do about it to prevent it or treat it? That would be the most pointless course of action ever. This isn't bird flu where people can actually do something if awareness is raised.
The figure is now much closer to the 1 in 75 that the UK is reporting, which means that it's much more likely to be honestly reported. The less than half figure that the US previously claimed never rang true - it's genetic, not magic, so the incidence rate aught to reflect the gene pool you have to work with. The US and UK are genetically very similar, so the incidence rate aught to be very similar.
I would be far more interested in knowing why it has been dishonestly reported in the past and whether the now-caught willfully inaccurate reporting will lead to the various US medical boards asking serious questions. I doubt it. That kind of discrepancy can't be the result of a few bad eggs, and there's absolutely bugger all chance that they'd discipline the sheer number of pdocs that would have been required to create an error on that scale.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Was over at a friends house recently. He had on some kind of Mickey mouse adventure DVD for the baby. It was essentially demented. Mickey mouse traping around on an undefined saccharine adventure with shapeshifting companions, reaching into a sack of some kind to use tools on CG doors that lead to the next microplot with no connection to what came before or after.
It was the closest I have ever seen film come to capturing the hazy stream of consciousness of a dream. I think it was over an hour long.
If Disney and others have been mass producing DVDs like that for children for the last 15 years, I'd fully expect incidences of all kinds of mental pathology to be skyrocketing right about now.
May the Maths Be with you!
You'll never get an honest answer, because it's mainly due to poor parenting. Here's the quick recipe for building your own sperg:
- helicopter parenting
- overly-structured playtime
- lack of socialization
- prerecorded video content that is watched 100s of times over
- overly-immersive video games with programmatic rewards
- lack of reading/play opportunities that aren't videos or video games
- junk food diet / lack of exercise
- exposure to cartoon pornography/4chan at a young age
It's a combination of more aggressive measurement, and broadening of the definition (Autism used to be a peer of Asperger's for example, but is now the container diagnosis for both).
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
If plastic milk jugs are the cause of the increase in average breast size, I'm willing to live with the consequences.
I don't disagree. The rate of increase in diagnoses is much higher than what we would expect from a better understanding of the symptoms. There is definitely something else going on here that warrants further exploration. But at least we know it's NOT caused by mercury in vaccines :)
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Define "normal".
Like me.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
None, seconded.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
Or are we changing how we mesure it? How we define "autism"?
Add to the list of questions: who define "autism"?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Interesting reading the responses to this. There is a lot of doubt about the validity of these claims. I quickly counted at least six responses that attribute the results to over-diagnosis or changing definitions, with affirming replies and no down-mods, with the exception of one profane post.
Are these all 'conservatives' rejecting 'science'?
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Was over at a friends house recently. He had on some kind of Mickey mouse adventure DVD for the baby. It was essentially demented. Mickey mouse traping around on an undefined saccharine adventure with shapeshifting companions, reaching into a sack of some kind to use tools on CG doors that lead to the next microplot with no connection to what came before or after.
It was the closest I have ever seen film come to capturing the hazy stream of consciousness of a dream. I think it was over an hour long.
If Disney and others have been mass producing DVDs like that for children for the last 15 years, I'd fully expect incidences of all kinds of mental pathology to be skyrocketing right about now.
The entire baby-boomer generation was raised by televisions showing hours of insane cartoons. I think we need to look elsewhere for an explanation.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Autistic people are _extremely_ bright -- their brain just doesn't spend much of its processing power on the "Social Customs" of society.
No, they're little shitheads whose parents never disciplined them in their life for their misbehavior and never taught them how to consider other people's feelings.
Bright or not, autism is just another bullshit buzzword excuse in 99% of the children "diagnosed" with it. Just like ADHD in the 90's. You fucking people just keep pumping your kids full of drugs and other bullshit because you don't want to be "the bad guy" and crack the fucking whip once in a while like you're supposed to.
Grow a fucking pair and discipline your kids and most of all teach them how to be fucking considerate. Even if they don't understand why they're being considerate, that's no excuse for them not to be. Pavlov taught a fucking dog to salivate when he rang a bell. You can teach your kid not to constantly fucking interrupt people and throw hissy fits in public and be selfish little twats all the time, too. Even if they don't know why they're behaving, at least they'll fucking be behaving, right?
It's affected by autism, not affected with autism. And it's not an infection either. There.
Fixed your subject line for you.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
But... but... then the parents will have to actually *gasp* parent? Rubbish. There has to be a magic pill that little Bobby can take and not annoy them.
FFS, if people with proclivities to these kind of genetic disorders, and people in-general stopped pumping out babies because it'll 'complete' them, we'd all be better off.
Your comment is probably spot on. I read something awhile back, where psychiatrists have a manual that describes mental disorders, and their proper diagnosis. This is important for them to be able to agree on the definition and symptoms of a particular mental disorder. Every time it is revised, the definitions of disorders are effectively being revised, so any diagnosis is shooting at a constantly moving target.
Part of the reason I think that psychiatrists are quacks, is that there is so little consensus on the problems they are treating.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Fuckin-A right. Just like how all of a sudden everyone had fucking ADHD in the 90's, now everyone has Autism. In ten years it'll be some other bullshit excuse for why their kids are antisocial little fuckwits and there will be a doctor standing right there, ready to smile and nod and write a bunch of prescriptions and set up a bunch of testing that will bill insurance companies for thousands of dollars for another great big circle jerk...
Meanwhile having an autistic kid is the new "in" thing so now all the suburban housewives are rushing their kids off to the doctor and can't ever fucking shut up about it, and if that's not enough here's a goddamn magazine and a pamphlet and a group and a mailing list and a ribbon and a wristband and a bumper sticker...
Give me a break.
You're ignorant.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
...from my 37 years on this rock, I've seen the descriptor of ASD go from savant to a whole swathe of "abnormality", from minor zoneouts (such as I have frequently) to total withdrawal (which I have in times of extreme stress). All have been applied to me in passing although I've never had anything like an official diagnosis. I used to act out at school, not because I was ADHD (as false a diagnosis as MSbP), but because I was bored: I had already learned what the teachers were trying to teach me. Problem was, as is common today, the school teaches at the rate of the slowest kid in class. I could think faster than all those kids, even the teachers, combined. So according to them I was the one with the problem - in a way they were right. They were holding me back.
It's not mental illness, it's a defence mechanism.
Back to the topic: ASD/ADHD/AS descriptors have become so diluted over the years, the terms could be applied to anybody. Have you checked out the standard mental health questionnaires? So full of leading questions, you couldn't say no to more than half of them - which is pretty much a guarantee that in any given situation, you could be assessed as having traits of some debilitating mental illness or other that would disqualify you from mixing in public. It's used in the UK on a regular basis to remove children from parents where in fact there is absolutely nothing wrong with the parents, yet one simple questionnaire that takes five minutes to answer ticks the boxes of psychotic, MSbP, NPD, ASPD, any number of "diagnoses" that immediately justifies the forced separation of families.
What we have now is those diagnoses being publicly scrutinised as it's now emerged that the assessments have been carried out by persons unqualified to do so, while claiming that they are qualified. Roy Meadow, Andrew Kawalek, Bruno Bettelheim, David Southall (just some names off the top of my head and I have extensive files on those and more) - all frauds, and provably so. Dangerous ones at that. All have had their hand in removal of many thousands of children from their families on the basis of fabricated mental illness. Southall does not even have a degree, yet he is on the GMC roll as a practising psychologist with license to carry out drug experiments on children. Gentlemen and ladies, I bullshit ye not.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
The funny thing about this is that those of us who weren't normal couldn't really tell what normal was. I laugh now about how I thought I was getting away with fitting in.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
All those Facebook personality tests could have told you that.
Also, my Bleach character personality is Kon.
Of course, even in NA where polio has been 'eradicated', there are still thousands of us recovering and dealing with nerve damage from the vaccine. In a way I still think it's a good thing. I'm pretty sure that those of us sensitive to the vaccine would probably have died from the actual disease.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
I am extremely skeptical of the artificial compounds created in the last 40-50 years that get put in everything from clothing (fire retardants, colorants, softeners, plastics) to foods (too many artificially modified natural foods) to cleansers & cosmetics of all types with God only knows what chemicals in them.
Homo Sapiens evolved over 5 million years of primate evolution and NONE of those ancestors until modern times almost no one came into contact with isolated elements or chemical compounds and only in the last century did people start to ingest artificially modified and created compounds in any volume.
I believe there is reason to suspect numbers of these chemicals (a lot of which are already outlawed once they found problems) but know that complete broad testing of all these chemicals is impossible in humans because we can't feed lots of the chemicals to people and see if they and their children develop "problems" as that is unethical. Hence, chemical firms just test using animal studies and extrapolate what they think they will do to humans.
Heck, processed soy beans have estrogenic compounds in them, so why are we eating this stuff?
"Modern" foods may not be the best dinner choice.
You should see the Princess syndrome in Mexico!
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Back to vaccines for a moment, in the Muslim world the questioning of vaccines has turned them into a "Western plot" to the extent that many have stopped the practice. As a result, there are places where polio is making a comeback.
What you call the `Muslim World`, consist of 1+ billion people with vastly different cultures in around 50 countries.
Where exactly did you mean? In some of those countries, vaccines are both free (payed for by the government) and obligatory.
So links or it didn't happen.
I want to see it.
And I object to the other guy who said Baby Boomers watched insane cartoons. Tom & Jerry. Rocky & Bullwinkle. Mighty Mouse. Flintstones. The Jetsons. They made perfect sense storywise.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Every teen and young adult who has self-diagnosed themselves with "asperger's syndrome"?
My son is autistic. Didn't talk until 6 and still has lots of problems. The one thing that we did at 6 years old was to remove all diary from his diet. After this he calmed right down (used to take 2 strong men to handle a 5 year old), started talking, going to the bathroom on his own and various other improvements. The days he come home acting like his old self always turned out to be days when someone fed him diary.
Diary is one food that the vast majority of people can not digest properly. Especially certain races (my wife is Native American) and I've never felt good when drinking milk. This raises the question, does diet make things such as autism worse? I'm not aware of any studies done on it but there are quite a few people who have reported good results from changing diet.
The problem is the diary farmers have very good marketing and most people are convinced that milk is a vital part of the diet. They also have a powerful lobby.
Wheat is another one that may be worth some studying.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
No, there was a hour or so of children's programming per day, and then when the soap operas came on you got bored and did something else. Past generations certainly weren't watching baby DVDs every day.
Or are we changing how we measure it?
Most probably, as the criteria for diagnostics have indeed changed over the years, but this is not the only problem. One issue is that the risk for autism increases the more a mother waits to have a kid. This is at least one of the reasons that kids with autism are appearing more and more frequently all over the country.
Medicine/contraception has been getting better. Education is getting longer. And families are waiting longer and longer to procreate. This is in stark contrast with the opposite problem of mothers who are still giving birth way too young, or giving birth to babies with the alcohol-syndrome...
Our society is now suffering from both types of problems, parents who wait too long and parents who do not wait at all, and an entrenched political system that seems to discourage and penalize middle-of-the-ground discussions over these topics.
This might be a stupid thing to do, but at this very moment, do something for me: read this entire comment I'm making to you with deep thought. I'll try not to be preachy and over-wordy.
In some ways, you are absolutely right. In some cases, there's over-diagnosing, and some people use it as an excuse instead of working with the diagnosis. You'll have parents who get their child diagnosed with autism and think "well, nothing I can do", whine about it then expect everyone to understand why their kid just knocked down an end-cap full of cereal boxes.
But that doesn't mean that the child isn't autistic. I myself believe I'm an undiagnosed autist, or at the very least AS, so when my son was diagnosed as autistic, I already had a grasp on what that meant. My world wasn't over, my son wasn't dying and there was plenty I could do about it. He was diagnosed early, so he was able to be enrolled in special programs that popped up in our public school system (free services, with the quality of ones you'd pay thousands for--we're never moving from this town). I'm a parent of an autist who easily and readily recognizes what is an autistic-meltdown and my son just being obstinate. When he IS being ridiculous which is connected to his natural, "I'm a nine-year old who WANTS SOMETHING!" self, I get right down at his level and say, "You know exactly what I'm telling you to do. You're smart and you know better. Now come on," then lead him away. Does it work every time? No, because he's autistic, and his threshold level is MUCH lower. But when my mom's tried justifying something he's done in public as "well, he's autistic," I've sat her right down and said, "He's not stupid. He knows. If it was an 'autistic thing', I'd tell them myself it was, but don't say that when it's not warranted."
Any parent needs to figure it out and know what their child can and can't handle, depending on where they are in the spectrum. My son is almost nine now, and we have worked extremely hard on getting him acclimated, while meeting him halfway. He will never "fit in" or be "normal", and there are times when he can't control his autistic-impulses. Those times, yes, you have to excuse. It exists. No rods or paddles will do anything for my son, and those like him. In loads of cases, it's not an excuse; the sooner you see that, the better.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
If Disney and others have been mass producing DVDs like that for children for the last 15 years, I'd fully expect incidences of all kinds of mental pathology to be skyrocketing right about now.
My boys are both diagnosed (mostly non-verbal) Autistic - they feed on Pixar DVDs like they were crack, same super strong dopamine push high when they get it, same withdrawal symptoms when they don't, same "will do anything to get it" motivation.
The only thing worse are Disney "Sneak Peek" trailers.
Perhaps the cause of "rejection" of science is that the so-called scientific culture tolerates stuff like over-diagnosis, or changing definitions as part of the cost of communicating scientific information. I don't think it has to be that way, but unfortunatly, it is a cancer that pervades the sciences and the policy wonks that distribute scientific information...
I refer you to this historical piece of wisdom...
In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another...
If more people communicating science would practice this, I'll bet there would be more trust in the sciences (by all folks)...
strangely...while the number of people with autism is increasing....then number of engineers in America is on the decline.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Nope. Its due to more previously undiagnosed conditions being categorized as autism.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
My mother has runs a special needs unit of about 3 classes in a normal government primary school in Western Sydney for about 5 years and has been a teacher of "normal" kids for about 30 years before that. She is convinced that the percentage of special needs kids (autism, downs etc) as compared to "normal" primary school kids is rising due to advances in medical technology. She feels that 30, 40 or 50 years ago a lot of the kids she teaches would have died due to complications at childbirth related to their conditions whereas with better medical technology today more survive. This judgement is just based on her experience only. Whether its true or not I don't know but she has been teaching kids for over 35 years.
Funny and Interesting things from all around the net
I agree, I do wonder myself. There is such big money involved that sometimes what is in the best interest of the public may be changed for political or business reasons. Examples I can think of would be how long it took for big tobacco to be deemed a danger after years of conclusive proof. Or the 0 calorie sweetner aspartame being banned until Rumsfeld was brought on board to be the political cheerleader. Or even an outside testing of the new TSA scanners to know just how much radiation you're getting. I know the chemicals used for new carpeting at an office made my mother have a rash for months, just the fumes in the air.
I know I make sure my Orange Juice is now only made with American oranges because the FDA allows pesticides from other countries to be detected in the imported orange juice, pesticides banned in the US for being harmful.
I would like some large study done for various rates of cancer, autism, other diseases, for population centers that do live a more organic lifestyle. Do the Amish have the same problems with autism? They're the biggest non-modern food eaters I can think of, there are probably many more. Maybe those who stick to a strick Halal diet, etc. What about cancer rates? I assume there are such studies but the studies must not be anything overwhelming conclusive because the headlines would be shouting out the news.
give an increase in the incidence of autism over time if there is a genetic component to the disorder?
I was actually overdisciplined to the point I actually have PTSD as a diagnosis. Don't lump every one of us in the same category.
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
If that is true, it is too bad smallpox has been eradicated.
if the problem is solved with a pill all the parenting in the world won't fix it. If you try beating the child and it doesn't work because you don't know any better you aren't likely to get a productive response either.
Research advances knowledge, that includes techniques and chemistry. If it really is genetic and chemical well, then we'll have a solution.
Also, if it is genetic then it becomes something that can be tested for. Otherwise you're just finding someone quirky, and lets face it, there are a lot of quirky people.
NotMilk
It's not just an interesting read.. it's downright scary.
Guy I work with is borderline Aspergers.. can't ever tell if you are being funny or serious from your words and facial expression alone.. but is otherwise Normal.. but if he gets coconut (it's the oil, apparently, more than the rest of the coconut) or chocolate in him.. wow.. he goes sideways fast: Mental speedup, tripping speach, mental jumping, anger.. and it all fades after an hour or so.
Of course not. The Autism Lobby will lower the scale till everyone but them have it. Their farcical job will be set for life.
As a parent of an autistic child, let me tell you:
You are ignorant and have no idea what you are talking about.
Just like all those wonderful "parents" with all the answers who don't actually have children.
Boy though- I do wish you were right. I wish it was just a simple failing of myself as a parent that caused this. I wish I could lift this burden from my daughter through simplistic things like like being more servere in disciplining her. Lord knows my wife and I tried that route unsuccessfully for over a year and a half before she was diagnosed.
Anyways- keep on trucking in your ignorance and comically naive view of complex problems. My family and I in the meantime have to live in the real world.
Maybe he's autistic?
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Maybe this is what happens when your society is too safety-conscious and nobody gets weeded out of the gene pool?
Man, I expect you neither need or want any kind of sympathy from anyone... but I can't f'ing believe the arrogance of some people to say dumb shit like that about your child. Specifically from people that obviously don't know anything about it.
Good for you, trying to explain things... but you're way too polite to people like that.
This reminds me of a family my parents are friends with.
Their son was diagnosed with moderate autism at about age 10. Everyone that knew the kid wasn't surprised, he always had just a general lack of social grace. So he was enrolled in classes to teach him social skills. And for the year that he was in the classes his behaviour was vastly improved. You could just tell he was observing the situation and formulating a response.
The problem was as soon as he stopped going to the classes he went right back to being a little asshole. Except, when my mother was around. When she was around he was a pleasant young man, the moment she was out of earshot he transformed into a little prick.
Then there was an incident where my father played a practical joke on him. The boy was red faced and emotionally laid bare in front of everyone he held dear. Then my father puts his arm around and says, "See what happens when you don't listen."
Then it clicked for me. That's what dad did to my sister and I when we were being a little shits. He was the master of public humiliation as discipline device ("You need to listen to the advice I'm giving you, or else.").
Which meant that mom had a "We need to talk" moment with him (My mother has this way of being so calm she's scary during those conversations).
So fast forward to a couple of years ago. We're all at a 4th of July party. He's being a more of an ass than any 15 year old has a right to be. When we were away from the party for a moment, I used a couple of joint locks on him and got him pinned face down on the lawn. Then I told him point blank, "You're being a little shit. Stop it or I will get very angry." After I let him up, he behaved. Never had a problem with him since.
"You can see I know very little about pimp policy." George McGovern.
I can tell you've not been out of the basement in while.
I grew up on worse.
Surely you've seen YoGabbaGabba or even Spongebob Squarepants (8+ years old now) or WowWow Wubbzy?
Back in the day it was ScoobyDoo and and let's not forget the venerable Winnie the Pooh and the Hephalumps...
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
My kids are all perfectly typical and have the same response. That's just kids.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
After the zombie outbreak CDC is still struggling to come to terms with statistical abnormalities in their datasets including changes in reporting practices, expanded awareness and definition creep.
Have you seen parents with their little kids lately like parrot robots repeating "look at me" in an endless loop..cause if they don't look their parents square in the eye all the time and pay attention to them well then there must be something wrong with them.
Patience and politeness are skills that have tremendous value when raising children, autistic or not. (Cazekiel, thanks for the comment: it was very informative.)
Pay attention to your young children, make lots of eye contact with them every day. The younger they are the more important it is to focus your undivided attention on them. Stop playing video games. Stop starting at your computer or your phone or whatever you use to distract yourself. Stop shoveling convenience food down their throats because you can't be fucked to plan and prepare a healthy meal for them. Your children are starving for your attention. If you have a genetically normal child, i.e., one not predisposed to autism, then they will probably be OK, even if you suck. But if your child is genetically predisposed to autism, and if you suck, then your child is doomed. The thing is, you cannot know their genetic predisposition until it's too late. So pay attention. Now.
"Crude and slow, clansman. Your attack was no better than that of a clumsy child."
It's more probable, I think, as time has gone on, that we have developed more sophisticated means of actually identifying it, making it easier to distinguish from what may have formerly simply been dismissed without official diagnosis as simply "weird" or "odd".
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
My kids are all perfectly typical and have the same response. That's just kids.
This is true of almost everything my kids do, it's mostly "special" with my kids due to the restricted communication aspect, plus the intensity, frequency, and difficulty of terminating total meltdowns is quite a bit higher. Restricted communication also entails a lack of motivational reasoning capacity - we can say something like: "stop rolling on the floor and we can watch Toy Story again," or the opposite tack of "stop rolling on the floor or Toy Story is gone", and it just won't get through a lot of the time. It helps to try to communicate before getting to the meltdown state, but even that can be hit and miss.
Fuckin-A right. Just like how all of a sudden everyone had fucking ADHD in the 90's, now everyone has Autism.
And how about fucking cancer. Like that shit is real. Am I right? or am I right? Fuckin-A.
Reading your insightful and articulate post about your own 'autism-spectrum' disorder really underscores to me how much of this issue boils down to a problem with semantics.
I've met someone with autism. Requires constant care. Blank face. Mute and illiterate. Likes to bang head repeatedly against solid objects for comfort.
I've met someone with Asperger's syndrome (my informal diagnosis, but not in dispute). Worked for the same company as me. Independent to a fault. Blank face. Slow but precise and articulate communicator. Calm, personable and helpful. Admirable intellect.
Clearly we are conflating things that do not deserve to be conflated.
started eating raw food. did a 180. so....w/e
the universe as i see it is now in order.
Mercury is still present in multi-dose flu vaccines and flu vaccines are increasingly promoted for children and infants. So while the mercury load has been removed the mandatory vaccine schedule, many children could still get thimerosal if they get vaccinated for the flu at clinics that use multi-dose vials.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
its all about the intrinsic defence mech of most seeds. they contain opiate fragments that will haywire our natural endo systems. so don't crush em up and eat em. I wasn't in pain due to dairy(and other opiates), but I did have adhd and various phobias--and this caused anger. now that im clean(food wise), if I even drink coffee I will have bowel movements similar to those of a hydro-codone junkie, rock solid lil pebbles. I was pretty far into AS, but now following the Palaeolithic era way of foodstuffs, the universe now works for me. http://drclark.typepad.com/dr_david_clark/2011/09/coffee-and-gluten-sensitivity-surprising-news.html
ADHD is overdiagnosed for children raised without structure or boundaries. And socially underdeveloped and sometimes just slow children now have the disease Autism. BAAAM, a few pills, a few doctors visits and notes to the principal and parents can resume their lives with minimal interuptions.
Just like I don't over drink and masturbate too much, I suffer from a genetic disposition toward addictive behavior.
I'm still trying to write off pron and beer as medical expenses.
While Thimerosal was removed from vaccine production in North America in the last decade (and earlier in much of Western Europe), it was until very recently still commonly used in vaccines sent to most other second and third world nations. Only recently has awareness of the possible risk and the political will to demand change from suppliers surfaced in those nations. So people in those countries may have some justification in looking askance of being supplied a product created through a process which is deprecated and viewed with strong suspicion in the 1st world nations.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
its all about the intrinsic defence mech of most seeds. they contain opiate fragments that will haywire our natural endo systems. so don't crush em up and eat em. I wasn't in pain due to dairy(and other opiates), but I did have adhd and various phobias--and this caused anger. now that im clean(food wise), if I even drink coffee I will have bowel movements similar to those of a hydro-codone junkie, rock solid lil pebbles. I was pretty far into AS, but now following the Palaeolithic era way of foodstuffs, the universe now works for me. http://drclark.typepad.com/dr_david_clark/2011/09/coffee-and-gluten-sensitivity-surprising-news.html
Like me.
Why should I?
You can't handle the truth.
My son is ASD. He is high functioning and has a far easier lot in life than many kids with Autism. Due to my experience with my son, I can tell you that you are totally wrong when you say that it can be fixed by discipline. I have tried that before, and the only thing that happens is that is escalates the issue. This is something that you never want to do with my son, as you WILL NOT win. The only way to deal with an autistic episode (at least with my child) is to defuse and remove from the situation.
Now , I understand that you won't believe me, but it is in fact the truth. My son (and other autistic kids), is different from normal children, and needs to be treated differently.
I think that's normal too. Once they are angry, and you start saying something that starts some standard "stop rolling or...," thing they heard many times without much long lasting consequence, why should they really listen? They pre-process the answer just like a cache would. And they have not much reason to think it's a miss. They'd need to parse everytime you repeat an order that they have learned not to obey. They want to roll and know you'll put Toy Story, sooner or later, and much much if they beg a bit or "behave as you wish".
Here's an experiment you could try once...just for the sake of seeing what happens (I am not giving profesional advise, so don't follow this, only think of what it means). Next time you see your kid (when they are NOT rolling the way you don't want, or whatever the behavior that needs to stop), tell them that the first time you see them rolling (or doing what needs to stop), that you'll put the Toy Story movie in the trash can, and that they will never be able to see it again for years to come. Tell them that you are going to remind them only once, and that if they don't listen, you'll assume that they like doing that more than watching Toy Story, and that even though they and you like Toy Story a lot, since they like that behavior much more, that you'd be sad to see Toy Story go away to the trash and not be able to see it anymore.
Now, catch them rolling some other time, and do the command to stop. They likely won't listen..if they do, awesome. Do the warning every time you catch them. if they don't listen to the warning, then say ou loud and clear "Bye bye Toy story, I am going to through it to the trash and we'll never again see you for who know how much time. We will all miss you so much". Now, take the movie, and drop it in the trash can. Regardless of what happens, the movie must remain in the trash and go away. Wait (if necessary) for your kids to calm down (0 seconds? 1 minute? 1day?), and then explain why you had to through it away, that it it had to go since that was the agreement, and that obviously the movie wasn't very important for them, and that rolling was more important, and that you value and respect their choice, but that they knew exactly what was the rule and thus made the choice. If they get a bit mad, don't worry. let them know that the next time, you'll through our Toy Story 2. And then Toy Story 3. And do so.
If Toy Story is truly they favorite series, and they keep rolling after you've through the 3 Movies, you can stop TV altogether. If they keep rolling (I doubt it) they either don't care much about the TV vs doing what they want, or they truly have the condition.
I think that you kids are probably VERY smart. Most are. Today, kids are extremely smart. And that also causes problems. The kind of problems when they know how to get what they want, but not knowing what's best for them (yet).
I'll give you a break. My son has just turned 6 and is still in diapers at night or otherwise he smears the whole room. Now go ahead and tell me that's normal.
What an unnecessarily long way of saying "statistically frequent."
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Our food habits have changed. Significantly. We eat a lot less saturated fat products and a lot more vegetable oils. Anybody who has studied this will know just how bad an idea that is.
Media has changed; others have pointed out the influence of TV and microwave technology. Industry has changed, the plastic jugs you mention being just a tiny fraction of the total number of new chemicals which we are exposed to today.
And I wouldn't be so quick to give vaccines high approval. Not all vaccines are created equal, some truly toxic shit has passed the bar under the name 'vaccine', but people have been programmed to respond with something nearing fight or flight urgency when cued with the word, so we rarely get clear debate on the subject.
The problem is that we live in toxic times. How many nuclear bombs have been set off in the last fifty years? Lots. Our world is poisonous, and our species is showing the results. It's no one thing.
Exactly. Hell, I've got "mild Asperger Syndrome and Inattentive ADHD" according to the brain wranglers and you couldn't even discipline me as a child. It's like trying to discipline a cat, the cat doesn't think in terms of punishment like a fully social animal would, it just thinks "fuck you, you bastard". I've hit my parents when I was in my early teens and they "intruded upon me", if they had tried something like physical discipline I'd probably have poured boiling water on them in their sleep or something. It sounds far-fetched but I had no understanding of social roles as a child, or rather, it didn't occur to me that such things existed. What would you have done if some random stranger came up and started slapping you?
As an adult I still have a weak understanding of these things, but since I'm also intelligent and want to get along with people (I do care about other people, I'm not a psychopath) I've found alternative explanation models that doesn't really take anything social into account while allowing me to try to avoid being the kind of narcissistic parasitic asshole you probably think about when hearing the word "aspie".
Now, outright and inescapable THREATS on the other hand might work... but threatening someone with the emotional-sensory sensitivities associated with autism spectrum disorders isn't just cruel, it presumes that (a) the individual can understand them and (b) that it won't just result in an uncontrollable meltdown and lots of ruined furniture.
In the US, anybody who is not constantly cheerful and consumerist has a mental disorder and needs to take some pills. That's just part of the new definitions.
Autism is the new ADD.
Exactly. You didn't assault him, you just established limits. He probably couldn't judge how polite it was appropriate for him to be and your message told him where to put the bar. "If you behave like this you hurt me, behave more like a normal person".
Even if there is an antisocial factor and the parents are to blame, it's not the kids fault and there are ways to help them without drugs.
It just so happens that I'm aware of a case of autism. My friend's kid was kept at home for the first 5 years with essentially no contact to any kids or any people outside the closer family circle. Sure enough she was diagnosed with a kind of autistic disorder in the kindergarten. They sought professional help and got it. If you look at the methods involved you will find there are surprisingly many things that you need to do counterintuitively with these children. Even if you know something about psychology you will be surprised at what works (talking to the animals...). Anyways, there were no drugs involved, the parents got instructed how to handle the kid in certain situations, the school teachers got a few instructions (and had to do some special handling during the first day of school) and in a few years the kid got to normal.
Ah, see, you've got it all wrong. "Autistic" these days means a child who is either shy or sometimes misbehaves. It also simultaneously means Rain Man, so that they can paint their child as a gifted indigo child on a higher plane of reality.
I feel an overwhelming urge to scream at anyone who says "I think I/my child might have a bit of autism/asperger's" because they clearly have no clue what it's actually like to have either one.
I think the reason so many people love the term "spectrum" now is that when they're called on their bullshit, they can still claim that they do have asperger's, just on the high-functioning end of the spectrum.
Aspartame artificial sweetener. It releases methanol, a known neurotoxin, as it is broken down in the body. Developing infants would be exposed when pregnant women drank diet pop, chewed chewing gum, or consumed other artificially-sweetened foods.
Both you and the GP are huge ignorant assholes. Seeya.
It's not just ADHD/Autism in some places(hrmm scandiavia) everybody diverging just a little from some percived norm is suffing some mental disability. I have seeen figures of 60-80% in some cases.
The root cause is probably that the "just a bit short of avrenge" category is being eradicated, and there have gone two much prestige in paranting that it becomes nesserery for the soccer moms who's kids arent sports start to get some diagnosis to explain why it's not their personal failure. in a world where avrenge is barely good enough anymore.
My wife is a public school teacher (6th grade), and we're parents of two preschoolers (ages 2 and 3) with cognitive delays (dyspraxia). As a result, we've come in contact over the past few years with a *lot* of people who have children all over the developmental spectrum.
We've seen many cases where a parent sees a developmental delay in their child and takes them for testing. The doctor agrees that they may have a slight delay, but doesn't really have a name for it. This gets you no services from the school system. Often, the doctor will offer to diagnose with an "autism spectrum disorder" (usually PPD/NOS) so that the child can get services.
Why? Autism is *huge* right now. Funding is there. Services are there. A doctor attaching a finding of autism means your kid is guaranteed to get an IEP (individual instruction plan) which can be an incredible boost to a kid like mine. Believe me, I know - my daughter has made amazing strides since she started our county's developmental preschool program in September.
Other times I've seen cases where the first doctor refuses to diagnose autism. The parents then shop around doctors until they find someone who is willing to diagnose autism so they can get services for their kid. There's a university program near me that seems to basically be writing blank checks for whatever diagnosis you think your kid has.
Autism is real, and it's a terrible, terrible disease. But over the years they've expanded the definition to the point where it has become meaningless, and well-meaning doctors and parents who are just trying to get help for the kids in their care have been behind a lot of it.
If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
I certainly hope the CDC didn't rely on data from just the parents, as some of the truly awful will insist the reason their precious snowflake didn't make the preschool deans list is obviously autism.
I don't know how much experience you have with Autism, but I can assure you, as the parent of TWO ASD children, it goes well beyond "quirky".
"Quirky" is when a kid likes to wear silly hats, or insists on wearing tights with everything, or like to dance and sing at not always appropriate times. That's quirky.
"Quirky" is NOT being unable to dress yourself properly or being unable to BATHE yourself, or sitting on your bed making moaning and grunting noises while rocking back and forth and flipping through toy magazines and then stripping your clothes off and shredding your underwear into teeny tiny bits before having a poop accident and then smearing it all over yourself and your walls. At 11 years old. THAT is Autism. Not "Quirky".
I think far too many /.ers have a really inaccurate idea of what Autism actually is. Many here seem to think that it's all Aspies. Trust me, it's not. Aspies are the tiny minority of ASD sufferers. MOST ASD sufferers are so social and learning disabled that even doing basic day-to-day living activities such as toileting or bathing or even feeding themselves is a challenge. So this isn't the kind of thing taken lightly by researchers. If there has been a substantive increase in diagnosis, then I am wont to believe it.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Hey can you give some specific examples of how he was being an ass?
From the way you describe it he must have had a 'smart mouth'. Was he extroverted and had a very sarcastic sense of humor?
Everyone in America will be autistic by 2026.
Secondly, it is in the interests of the Powers That Be to discount any degradation of conditions as merely "better diagnosis". If societal disasters really are increasing under their rule, they can turn that to their benefit by claiming that without them, we never would have become aware of of the problems created by their predecessors.
So get off this "its just better diagnosis" bromide.
We are facing a disaster -- whether new in the making or not.
Seastead this.
Clearly you have never interacted with an Autistic child
now everyone has Autism. In ten years it'll be some other bullshit excuse for why their kids are antisocial little fuckwits and there will be a doctor standing right there
I agree with you 100%. In fact, I'll push it further: it is not diseases that are affecting the kids. It's the lack of parental education and training, discipline and interaction. So they blame it on external sources (naturally, there are real cases of autism, but that's not what I'm talking about here).
I have a 2 year-old son and a 6-month-old daughter at home and let me tell you that my 2 year-old perfectly understand that we don't tolerate antisocial behaviour. Are we hard, unloving parents? Not at all.
I spent virtually all my free time with my kids when I'm done work until they go to bed. We play, laugh, learn, watch TV, draw pictures, read books, go out to the park, wrestle (all in good fun). But my 2 year-old knows there are limits and what and where they are:
A tantrum gets an automatic "no", period.
Mild misbehaviour gets him a stern warning. Repeated mild misbehaviour gets him to wait in the corner or a spanking (depending on the situation), with a requirement to apologize when it's over.
Strong misbehaviour (like when he decided it would be fun to pull apart the leaves of a potted plant my wife loves) gets a sit down discussion asking why it happened, addressing why it mustn't happen again and explaining the consequences of his acts on my wife, me and ultimately him.
He is allowed however to play in the mud and experiment with nature and toys, so that he can keep a strong sense of curiosity and I try not to intervene when playing with other kids so he can learn to assert and depend on himself.
And you know what? Every person who knows him are enthused by his social graces (polite, happy, interactive). We take our role of parents seriously and it pays off.
My daughter is still a little young, but we'll follow the same principles with her.
JigJag
"The hallmark of humanity is the ability to move beyond sensory inputs" - Mary Helen Immordino-Yang
"Normal" is defined by the majority. People who believe in little grey men are nuts because there is no compelling evidence and very few people share their delusion. People who believe in God are not nuts because despite their being a similar lack of evidence a lot of people who believe in him.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I didn't know 1 in 88 people constituted everyone. Maybe if you round really hard?
Fuckin-A right. Just like how all of a sudden everyone had fucking ADHD in the 90's, now everyone has Autism. In ten years it'll be some other bullshit excuse for why their kids are antisocial little fuckwits and there will be a doctor standing right there, ready to smile and nod and write a bunch of prescriptions and set up a bunch of testing that will bill insurance companies for thousands of dollars for another great big circle jerk...
Meanwhile having an autistic kid is the new "in" thing so now all the suburban housewives are rushing their kids off to the doctor and can't ever fucking shut up about it, and if that's not enough here's a goddamn magazine and a pamphlet and a group and a mailing list and a ribbon and a wristband and a bumper sticker...
Give me a break.
Well now that you have your little hillbilly rant modded up, tell me: do you really think kids enjoy not having social skills? Do you think they choose to be locked-in, not being able to effectively express their emotions or parse that of other people? Do you think this is a choice?
And do you think parents really enjoy having to spend many more hours a week than parents of NT kids, teaching their autistic kids to talk and to be at least a little comfortable in social situations, and then in addition to this pay lots of money to speech therapists and other special need therapists. Read one of Temple Grandin's books to see what her parents had to go through toe get her to be a thriving member of the human community. It's a herculean effort, and you should count your lucky stars that you don't have to do any of it, just spout your deeply ignorant platitudes and insults.
I know your type: always in love with their ignorance, and so proud of it. There is not one chance in a trillion that you could feel the least sympathy with the lesser fortunate than you.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
So fast forward to a couple of years ago. We're all at a 4th of July party. He's being a more of an ass than any 15 year old has a right to be. When we were away from the party for a moment, I used a couple of joint locks on him and got him pinned face down on the lawn. Then I told him point blank, "You're being a little shit. Stop it or I will get very angry." After I let him up, he behaved. Never had a problem with him since.
The problem, of course, is that 99% of the time someone tries to discipline one of these kids themselves, the parents swoop in and literally undo any headway or progress you may have made with one of these kids. The kids know their parents are pushovers, they're not stupid. When the kids are separated away from their parents and actually disciplined, they fucking behave. When their parents are around, though, forget it. They act like little terrors because they know that the most that will happen is a soothing talking to.
Most of the parents of "autistic" kids I've been around would have had the police called on you if you so much as dared to touch their beautiful little angel. I've literally been chastised for telling one kid that it's rude to interrupt people, "oh, you see he's autistic so he doesn't understand social graces..." Really? Have you fucking tried? Or did you get the diagnoses of "Autism" and immediately throw your hands up and say "Oh well, guess there's no point in teaching him not to be an inconsiderate little fucktard, he's got autism"?
It's funny how this ADHD, and now Autism, nonsense started once the new-agey "be your kid's friends" bullshit really started gaining traction. You're not their friend. You're they're parent. That means being the bad guy and punishing your children when they display anti-social behavior. That's the only way they learn not to do it anymore. A talking to isn't going to accomplish shit. I mean, half the parents of autistic children themselves will tell you "Oh, they don't understand...", yet they try to reason with them when it comes to inappropriate behavior? Give me a fucking break...
Want to stop antisocial behavior? Lock them in their room for a while. If they'll break all their shit, take it away from them. That's called parenting. My mother did it; when I threw a tantrum, I got grounded. If I started throwing shit around she took my possessions from me. She told me herself she would have literally moved all of my furniture out into the garage and locked me in an empty room with a mattress and a pillow if that's what it took for me to get the fucking hint that it's not okay to throw tantrums in public and pull hair and scratch other kids and shit. Some of you may think that's cruel, and that's exactly why your kids are little shitheads all the time, because all they ever get is a talking to and a few minutes away from the TV.
I know there are some kids out there that have genuine mental issues to deal with, but this "everyone has autism" crap is such bullshit. You do more damage to these kids by treating them with kid gloves than you would if you treated them like a normal goddamn kid. I mean, there's a whole generation of kids out there being taught that the magic words "I'm autistic" will get them out of any consequences for their actions, from shoplifting to bullying other kids to every other antisocial bullshit behavior they manifest.
I'm curious as to why so many people seem to be jumping out of the woodwork and complaining about this. It's not even remotely a novel claim.
Because people are not saying "It is a plausible hypothesis that autism is due to environmental factors." They are saying "Autism is due to environmental factors."
That is very plausible, even likely. But it is not demonstrated.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Autistic people are _extremely_ bright -- their brain just doesn't spend much of its processing power on the "Social Customs" of society.
Some autistic people are extremely bright.
Not all autistic people are Rain Man.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Flintstones. The Jetsons. They made perfect sense storywise.
Those two I understand. Apart from the physics of a foot-powered or flying vehicle, these two series don't use a lot of "cartoon physics". They're really just sitcoms, The Simpsons of their day, and they're animated because animation was cheaper than the animatronics that would have been needed to shoot their settings in live action.
Mod me down all you want, but everyone knows it's fucking true.
We can't mod you down, because you were too scared to make these comments under an accountable ID. I'll take your suggestions of discipline and punishment on board, but considering my son will react to stress and confusion by biting his own arm until he draws blood, I may have to take a bat to him to get your message across...
And game shows. Oh, god, those stupid game shows.
If you'd started disciplining him when he as a toddler, then you wouldn't be dealing with a little monster that bites himself whenever you assert your authority in the slightest bit.
The coddling bullshit is just as much a cause of their behavior as the "autism". It's been one common theme among all the "autistic" kids I've been around. Mind you, I mean "autistic", not autistic, I've met kids that were genuinely autistic. The little asshole terror that's never been told NO in his life is not autistic. He's just badly behaved because his parents would rather blame his attitude on a nebulous medical condition than confront the fact that they fucking fail at parenting.
If you'd started disciplining him when he as a toddler, then you wouldn't be dealing with a little monster that bites himself whenever you assert your authority in the slightest bit.
He IS a toddler. Any other useful suggestions? If not, just keep trolling anonymously.
Right. We've already punched those people in the face. I am not a McCarthyite. I am a bioinformatics student who consults for an ASD research group. I'm sorry about them, I really am.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Not particularly.
The article (might be different one, cause I read it on reddit) mentions that methodology did not change since 2009, when the rate was 1 to 108 (or 180, i forgot).
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
there are ways to help them without drugs.
Drugs are not used to treat autism. Any drugs would be to treat comorbid conditions, like anxiety disorders.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Yes and I remember when there was the Tourette' syndrome bubble, my son was "diagnosed" with tourettes because his hair was a little long, hanging in his eyes and he would twitch his face to the left and flick his hair out of his eyes: Tourette's!!!!
My sister also got sucked into the regression thing where she told her therapist about how our parents would have her have sexual relations with myself and the other two brothers. We all must have been on some kinda heavy drugs cause we didn't get nothin' out of that at all. When she confronted us one Christmas is was, well surreal comes close to it. She's pretty embarrassed about it now.
So, seriously, I'm not convinced. I do have a niece with what might have been diagnosed as autism, or possibly one or two other things. The conclusion was that it was really hard to make a solid autism diagnosis and just better to help the kid grow up however they could. Maybe all this is a way to let parents dump their kids on the government because they are broken and we don't want to have to care for broken kids? just sayin'
Fuckin-A right. Just like how all of a sudden everyone had fucking ADHD in the 90's, now everyone has Autism
I'm pretty sure I had ADHD when I was a kid, but back in the '50s and '60s nobody knew it was a disorder. Back then it was "goddamnit boy, can't you pay attention???"
Autistic kids back then were simply labeled as "mentally retarded" and treated as such.
How the hell you got modded insightful is a mystery to me. The comment is not just uninsightful, it's downright ignorant and shows no knowlege of science, medicine, or progress whatever. I'll bet you and the people who modded you up are all from Texas.
Free Martian Whores!
When I was younger, I was diagnosed with several learning disorders, including dyslexia and ADHD. I would mainly attribute these "disorders" to having a fairly crappy teacher in the early grades.
The dyslexia lasted until I got a *good* teacher (two, actually) in second grade, and was introduced to good books and the joys of reading. AFAIK I never had any issues reversing my letters/words, and the "special time out" I had to deal with my "disorder" really does't seem to be related to dyslexia.
My reading now? Let's just say I have several bookshelves, including on that's about 8" tall and will need replacing as the contents are starting to bend the slats.
ADHD. Well, I definitely found some lessons boring (I didn't have any issues doing the actual work, and was often done ahead of time) and thus was sometimes distracted. The doses of Ritalin left me falling asleep in class, however, and were thankfully short-lived. Eventually they found extra work for me to do that kept me well-occupied, happy, and somewhat less disruptive.
Given the comments received on my last review, I'd have to say that neither of the above seem to be significantly impacting on my productivity as an adult (although my tenancy to juggle multiple tasks actually be beneficial)
I'd have to say I love your sig. I've never heard of that quote before but given my experience it's quite appropriate. People these days are so intent on perfection or personal goals that they lose track of letting kids be kids.
Well good luck with that advice. Like you say, kids are smart. They know, from constant experimentation beginning in the first few months of their lives, how the world works. And how you work.
Telling them something so utterly arbitrary ("If I see you roll around I will throw Toy Story in the trash and you will never see it again.") isn't going to square with their internal models of the way things are. Maybe if a stranger did it. But not you, unless you have been making threats like that and following through on them since they were 3 months old. And if that's the case, your kids roll around on the floor because they are utterly traumatized.
But maybe he should throw Toy Story in the trash anyway, and skip the theatrics. I mean, if your kids were addicted to crack, would you keep giving them crack in order to keep them from going through withdrawals? This is just Pixar movies now, but what are they going to do when they get old enough for even better drugs?
I think I could get behind the Jugs for Jugs platform.
ah, denial, welcome to phase 1.
"But at least we know it's NOT caused by mercury in vaccines"
and how exactly you know that? a little CDC bird told you so you parroting what you BELIEVE is to be true? how religious of you. Did you familiarize yourself how CDC does their tests? Because facts on the ground tell otherwise..
"Any deviation from the state prescribed norm is a medical condition that must be treated with drug and re-education therapy to ensure the population remain within the state prescribed norm."
biting his own arm until he draws blood, I may have to take a bat to him to get your message across...
A colleague of mine's son would bang his head on the floor if he couldn't get his way.
She would have none of that. She wouldn't yell or try to stop him or punish him. She'd just ignore him when he would start acting like that.
He stopped when he saw that it's getting him nowhere.
Countering violence (self inflicted or otherwise) with more violence is not necessarily the correct solution. Particularly when dealing with kids.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
There are multiple Genetic SNP's associated with autism.
Perhaps a society more tolerant of quirky parents (read us nerds), coupled with bad luck partly explains increases in the number of beyond quirky kids.
The solution to this may be worse that the disease and wholesale application of it might eliminate the possibility of anymore Mozart's, Einstein's, etc.
My sympathies to your situation. There, but for the grace of God, go I.
The AC is correct, you had at most two hours of kid programming on weekdays, Saturday mornings was all kid fare, and iirc nothing on Sundays. And we only had three channels in the St Louis area, and no DVDs or VCRs.
Believe it or not, we were usually outside playing baseball or football or riding our bikes or exploring the woods (lots more woods back then too).
AND WE LIKED IT THAT WAY... because we didn't know any better.
Free Martian Whores!
I want to see it.
And I object to the other guy who said Baby Boomers watched insane cartoons. Tom & Jerry. Rocky & Bullwinkle. Mighty Mouse. Flintstones. The Jetsons. They made perfect sense storywise.
That's because thew new cartoons are being written by people with Autism. Bah dum bum!
BPA leaching isn't giving women larger breasts, it's causing girls to enter puberty at an earlier age. It's the plastic boobies (well, a plastic bag filled with saline solution) making breasts larger. That and the gain in weight; when a woman gains weight, her breasts get larger.
Free Martian Whores!
Dear /.ter parents, do you think autism could *also* be caused by any of the psychiatric/psychoactive drugs, including ADD/ADHD treating ones, bipolar treating ones, antidepressants that the mother was taking at the time of pregnancy/conception/post-birth? Hoping somebody answers this question. I am also trying to understand why the rates are rising in the US, and am not dismissing other natural causes/factors.
You monster!
-DwS
Many here seem to think that it's all Aspies. Trust me, it's not. Aspies are the tiny minority of ASD sufferers.
According to you. Citation please? When you lump in everyone with Aspergers and Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS), into "Autism Spectrum Diseases," as is happening now, then of course the rates of ASD are going to increase. Anyone who has mild difficulty with social situations or communication can be diagnosed with PDD-NOS. When the criteria for diagnosis are so broad as to include kids who are likely the victims of abuse (and thus have atypical social and communication development), then yes, we can all agree that ASDs are reaching epidemic proportions. Unfortunately that tells us almost nothing of value.
I *completely agree* that Autism != introversion and/or mild antisocial or asocial behavior, but that's what's happening by lumping them all under ASDs as the (always just-around-the-corner) DSM-5 does.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
No need to freak-out. Seriously. Everyone's family has problems. The issue is in what ways has autism testing changed and is this the true cause of increased diagnosis. And for the record there are varying degrees of Autism, high-functioning autism is far more prevalent than more extreme cases.
Having just been diagnosed with Aspergers at the age of 42, I have first-hand experiences of the daily issues we encounter, but if I can just correct your terminology - ASD stands for Autistic Spectrum Disorder - it's not a disease, you can't catch it (although there are thought to be links with certain immunisations, where symptoms appear overnight for some people who are later given a diagnosis of autism / ASD, and in some cases the strain of engineered bacteria used to carry the immunisation has been found in spinal fluid, where it should *never* appear). Studies of the brain are now starting to show that autism, along with several other "behavioural conditions" such as ADHD or learning disabilities like dyslexia, are closely related - the brain has developed in such a way that it functions atypically, and these changes can be seen on both a physical (post-mortem) and "MRI scan" level. People on the "spectrum" may have deficits in a varied range of abilities, senses, social skills, among others. They call it a spectrum because any of these capabilities can be anywhere in the range from normal to non-existant.
Sorry, you're right -- disorder. I would still argue that without strict guidelines for diagnosis, with practitioners who are both sympathetic to their clients (as they should be) and eager to provide a diagnosis, and especially without any actual objective and physical test (as with many mental illnesses), it's far too easy to arrive at a diagnosis of ASD, and the numbers shouldn't necessarily be taken at face value.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Fuckin-A right. Just like how all of a sudden everyone had fucking ADHD in the 90's, now everyone has Autism. In ten years it'll be some other bullshit excuse for why their kids are antisocial little fuckwits and there will be a doctor standing right there, ready to smile and nod and write a bunch of prescriptions and set up a bunch of testing that will bill insurance companies for thousands of dollars for another great big circle jerk...
Meanwhile having an autistic kid is the new "in" thing so now all the suburban housewives are rushing their kids off to the doctor and can't ever fucking shut up about it, and if that's not enough here's a goddamn magazine and a pamphlet and a group and a mailing list and a ribbon and a wristband and a bumper sticker...
Give me a break.
I wish you were right, I wish my daughter was just a brat and I was out enjoying the "attention" she gets when she can't handle the world around her. I can promise you, that it isn't "in" to be autistic. It sucks and I would give anything to know that she could ever be able to live independently. Spend one day in a classroom with a severely autistic child and if you survive, I think you will understand that this is a real epidemic and not BS.
Just wondering: anyone notice the study reported in the March 22 edition of ScienceDaily.com, that said,
"Our study clearly shows that people with autism can do better than typical adults in tasks involving rapid presentations of a lot of information," says Professor Lavie. "There are clearly careers, such as in IT, that can benefit from employing people with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders."
Here's some food for thought on the diagnostics of psychology.
http://www.arachnoid.com/psychology/index.html
http://www.arachnoid.com/psychology/myth.html
that these problems aren't an evolution of humans? That all these kids that "can't" interact "appropriately" face-to-face, but often have the ability to interact via computers, cellphones, etc. (yes even some of the "sitting moaning" kids are like that) aren't just dropping the inefficient method of interaction and evolving to be better at the more efficient method?
For starters, don be a fucking PREACH, OK. With all due respect to you personal situation, this gives you NO right to judge the whole /.-crew based on a single comment which you interpret as you wish to serve your self-pitying discharges.
And to wit: I have no fucking idea what autism is, or how it works or how it gets treated. I AM aware that Rainman is not the whole story but it ends there. So why don't you do something useful for us ignorant lot and point us to places of real information which, if so inclined we may or may not choose to look up.
As the parent of an aspie girl with severe communication problems on top of that being an aspie is not as easy as people seem to think it is. I know a lot of people think "Hey, I could be an aspie and I turned out okay with NO treatment." Well, you're probably not and those that are often suffer a lot, what makes it infuriating is not all the suffering is needed.
Oh, and also the money thing, I have insurance, I have a 6 figure income, and speech therapy alone is enough to bankrupt you. I pity the people who needs tons of treatments (legit ones, not the quack ones). So to all you "work hard and it works out" assholes, yeah, fuck you.
Gastrointestinal inflamation may spread to the brain during early development (ages 0-4), perhaps caused by desulfovibrio or clostridium, perhaps accounting for 50% of autism cases.
Every so often we hear the news that the autism rate has risen once again. How high will it be next time? How high will it be in 10 or 20 or 50 years? I wish we could do something to figure out how to stem this before it gets any higher, or at least provide appropriate resources for those who have it. Many states do not even mandate insurance coverage for autism treatment. I am a 28 year old with Asperger's, so I take a special interest in this topic. I would urge anyone reading this who wants to learn more about Asperger's and autism to go to the following site, which I have found useful. http://aspergerssociety.org/articles/toc.htm
I hope that in another 5 or 10 years, we will not have a repeat of this article with a lower number, but I fear that we will.