Autism

[wildangel]

I didn't want to hijack the Anxiety thread, so I decided to start a new one.


I grew up with a sister who is blind and has autism, two of my kids have autism (one is far more affected by it than the other).

As autism is a spectrum disorder, there is a huge range of ability along that spectrum.

To say that all autistic people can do "damn near anything" is very misleading. My sister and my kids have extremely different ability levels. It has nothing to do with schooling, either. Matter of fact, schooling in the case of my kids made it worse.

I am glad that your brother has a lot of ability. Not all are so fortunate.

I agree with flexuality. My son can't process most things. Luckily we've found a very good preschool for him. They work with us so that my son will be as ready for school as he can be. They do Autism Walks to raise money for Autism Awareness. They actually painted their new building in colors that allow him to focus better. Before he was a very withdrawn child. He didn't communicate with other children or adults he didn't know. But at the same time he trusted everyone and everything.

It has been difficult raising him. He wasn't one of those kids who would have learned from putting his hand on a hot stove; he would have put it back a few minutes later. It's gotten better, but he still has a lot of trouble processing information. He knows rules, he'll walk around repeating them. But he has trouble processing what rules mean.

I love my child more than anything in this world. I want him to be very successful and I have no doubt that he will be. But I also don't expect things from him I know that I won't get. Sometimes he surprises me and that makes life interesting and fun. Yes, I treat him different. If I didn't he probably wouldn't have survived childhood. He's almost 5 now and never been to the doctor or hospital for anything even remotely serious.

And I do get a lot of amazement from my son because of his disorder. He can remember anything. For years. He left a train at a house we lived in three years ago. We went back last month and he asked if he could go dig it out of the sand box. He wasn't even two yet when we left.

That child offers more reward than I ever could have known. But it's difficult being a parent of a child with Autism. And Austin has a mild case of Autism. I cannot imagine being the parent of a severely autistic child. People have no idea how hard it is watching your child being stuck in a body that they have limited control of until they experience it firsthand.

Just my :2cents:

[bigirl_inwv]

I could never imagine having an autistic child. It takes a very strong person/people to be patient, understanding, and loving. My fiancee's cousin has six children and her last 3 are all autistic. Millions of kudos to you. I've witnessed just how hard it can be.

[Solomon]

wildangel,

thank you for sharing, I'm just a step-father to Jennifer (flex's daughter) but I find the nuerology side of this to be fascinating, and somewhat infuriating at the same time. I do wonder, have you heard of Ramachandra? He's the Head of Neurology at UCLA.... I think, I'd hafta look to be sure.

He has some very interesting theories regarding autism, one of his theories led to beans. I know that might sound a little off the wall, but a bowl of beans actually can help to calm not just autistic people down, but us too lol.

The amazing thing about autism at least in Jennifer's case is that she's kinda like a 19 year old child. She's loved pokemon since it's inception, dinosaurs since she was a toddler, and drawing animation (mostly.... you guessed it dino's and pokemon, some pokemon that they haven't even come up with) and I think they'd hafta do surgury (and that might not help either) to get her to put these things down lol.

All she ever wants for gifts seems to be toys, she has a definate hard time with understanding proper uses for things like hand soap, shampoo, and just about anything that would be a consumable (even food!).

She's amazing, she can actually go through an entire concentrated bottle of 455 ml of hand soap in about two days if left alone. And this stuff only requires about a 1-2 ml pump per handwashing!

Anyways, am getting off on a tangent here. Is great to meet you!

[Long Duck Dong]

I love autistic people....they are simply incredible....

over the years I am watched and studied people... and autistic people are the ones that absolutely fascinate me

I read the story of the young man that provided the inspiration for dustin hoffmans character in Rain Man, awesome story

part of the secret to understanding and relating to autistic people is that you can't apply logic or standard understanding to them..... they are wired differently
yet their levels of understand and relating, is on a scale that we just can't comprehend.....

oh I could write for days about what I have seen and found in autistic people... but a lot of what I could write, would confuse the hell outta people....lol

blessed are the autistic

[flexuality]

*sends LDD two autistic young people cuz she needs a break* lol!!

Wired differently...that's for sure!

I've had to train myself to be able to think in very concrete, literal, black and white, rule oriented, non-emotional terms. It ain't easy! lol

I feel like I'm always playing detective, especially with my daughter. She is far more affected than my son is. Jennifer is kind of like Rain Man with language. Michael tends to be more along the lines of Asperger's.

My sister is different yet again. She has some savant skills - why they call them skills is beyond me! Most savant "skills" are rather useless as such...fascinating, but not really anything you can do with them except fascinate people! lol!

She has the calendar thing where you can pick ANY date and she can tell you instantly what day of the week it was on or will be on. And she's never wrong. She doesn't know how she does it.

My sister and my kids all have language which is a big plus for them. 75% of autistic people don't have language. Jennifer actually could sing years before she could talk. She didn't talk til she was about 7. Michael had words fairly young, but couldn't answer simple questions like "what is your name" until he was about 5.

All three of them have perfect pitch. My sister gets extremely annoyed if someone tries to sing without being perfect. lol! I don't sing...lol! At school they would tune the piano according to her specifications.

Jennifer and my sister have absolutely NO concept of money or time. NONE. doesn't matter how much ya teach them about either one, (an many have tried!) they simply do not understand it at all. They can add and subtract and know that things cost money, but if they give me say $5 of theirs and I buy something for them, they think I paid for it and it's mine. Doesn't matter how you explain that to them, either.

5 minutes, 5 days, 5 weeks, 5 million years are all the same to them. They seem to only understand NOW.

Emotionally, Jennifer has not matured much past the age of three. (She's almost 20) She is EXTREMELY good at mimicking, and this can fool people into thinking she understands a lot more than she does. It's one of the more difficult aspects to try to deal with day in and day out.

It's like she "speaks" a certain language and is not capable of learning any other one, so I have to learn HER language. Too many people try to get autistic people to learn OUR language and because they can mimic sooooo well, people tend to think they have "gotten it" so to speak. It can be very damaging to the autistic person.

Rules. We LOVE rules. Rules are very black and white, very concrete. Everything Jennifer does and thinks seems to revolve around rules. Sometimes I even tell her it's a rule to not worry about "such and such" and she stops fretting over it. She tends to display certain "emotions" because she thinks it is a rule that she should do this for certain events or actions. She's not actully feeling them for the most part. Her emotions that she feels seem to consist of very basic (like when we were three) feelings, like anger or happiness. Not much else.

Sometimes I think that they are not the ones who are "handicapped" (I hate that word!) we are!

I could go on for days too!

You're right LDD...it would probably confuse the hell outta people...but then again it gets people thinking too! lol! :) :tong: :) :rolleyes:

[kitten]

Hugs and kudos to Flex and Sol.
I am an educational assistant and work with autistic children. There is such a range of abilities and conditions within the spectrum.
Yes, rules and structure is very important. Autistic people are very visual and do not process as much auditorily. One of my classes spoke of the autistic brain and showed us research where it has been found that the left and right brain usually don't have the cross connections therefore the "disconnectedness".
We use of picture cues and schedules and color-coded labels for everything. The children do memorize and get into a routine by mimicking and copying. Somedays it seems they get it and are moving forward; other days it seems they were never here to begin with and we start over.

We thrive on little victories every day!

Blessings to Jennifer and her loving parents...and to all children who deserve our love and guidance unconditionally.

[Solomon]

kitten,

thanks for the hugs. I just really want to add here, that one thing to very aware of is the lack of the autistic mind to transfer these rules that they live by from one place to the next.

that's one thing with Jennifer, that even though she's been out of high school for now almost 2 years, we still find ourselves (especially flex who for the most part I just support what she structures for Jennifer) having to re-teach her that she's not in the school environment.

i.e. she worked in the school cafeteria where the rules are much more stricter regarding bacteria control, she still has tendencies to bring those rules home. She took an art class, and still reverts back often to the rules for the art class when she draws. She tried for almost a year to FYI where they talk about mostly life issues such as drug abuse and we drink on occassion, so just to keep her from getting really upset we had to work with her for years to not worry about us over drinking the occassional beer (vex now).

it's a very concerning thing because she's impaired to the point that flex was told by the school that she'll never be able to be unsupervised. And having to unteach her these rules or to try and change her rules is probably the biggest concern by far.

Flex has done extensive research into the kinds of services available up here, and the only things here seem to be geared towards 'normalizing' autistic people. We're very apprehensive about this approach, due to the difficulties and complications that we've had to sort out with this approach by her school.

i'm not certain what influence this might have, but i'm also really looking for input as to working with this.

[wildangel]

My 4-year-old is also on the side of Asperger's. The most frustrating thing about Austin, isn't Austin. It's the way people regard him. The doctors ignored me from the time Austin was about six months old regarding how concerned I was that he didn't want to be held, never held direct eye contact, would completely freak out at loud noises. But since all of him motor functions (and everything else they check for in younger children) was on track, they ignored me-for four years. His doctors (I changed doctors six times, trying to find one who would admit there was something different about my child) still won't concede that there is anything different about him. I had to go over their heads to specialists.

In addition to that, the way other people and children treat him upsets me. At the first daycare he was at, which I worked at by the way, they treated him like he was stupid. I pulled him out of there when he was barely two years old and refused to take him back. A new friend I had a few months ago, refused to let me around her daughter because she thought I was a horrible parent because of Austin. She just could not understand what I had done wrong that would cause my child to act like 'our world' wasn't important. Needless to say, that friendship ended promptly.

He mimics well. He'll learn all the words to a song-the way he hears them. Far be it for anyone to teach him the right words. You should hear "Life is a Highway". He doesn't hear lyrics as words. They're completely different to him. He mimics the sounds.

He's has his own 'language' from birth. At first we thought he had a speech impediment. But once we heard it repeatedly, I picked up on it easily. Now I don't have trouble a lot of the time understanding him. Mostly he just talks to himself in 'his language'. And he spends a lot of time in his 'own world'. At the park yesterday, he stood on the wall for about half an hour talking to himself and playing with his hands. My friend's children kept trying to get him to play and they didn't understand why he was acting like he couldn't hear them.


I could go on forever. I am mesmerized by my child. Don't get me wrong, at times I want cry. It's like talking to a brick wall. And forget going out socially much. I can't leave him with anyone he doesn't implicitly trust and that's a very short list. I don't know if you've ever seen or read (Mercury Rising (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120749/), but the cards Simon Lynch has with the pictures of the people he trusts, Austin has one of those-but in his head. If your picture isn't in his head, don't touch him. If my parents, my sister, or my grandfather can't watch him we don't go. The black and white world has seeped into my adult life. I talk to my friends like I talk to my son, over-explaining everything.

He still doesn't answer any direct questions that he hasn't memorized the answer to (he repeats his birthday and his name as long as you ask him a specific way). He doesn't understand time (he thinks everyone's birthday is today even if that person had a birthday the day before). He has his own set of rules and routines. The preschool he is at now is the best place he could be. They have completely changed in order to accommodate him and I could never repay my gratitude to them for being so helpful and understanding.

It's nice to have people who understand the difficulty that the parents of Autistic children face. It's nice to meet you Solomon and Flexuality. It's nice to know that there are parents of Autistic children who aren't 'geared' toward normalizing them either. I love my child the way he is, unconditionally. He was born that way for a reason. Maybe our children will be NASA scientists or discover a new energy source. But I don't think Autistic children are born with a disorder. They are born to give compassion to the people who's lives they have touched. I wish you both and your entire family the most happiness and patience life can offer.

[Solomon]

it's very good to meet someone that from the sounds of it is having very similar challenges and rewards with working with autism.

I know that me trying to explain autism to the people that I work for and with is sorta like trying to explain the flavor of a banana! I just simply tell them that she's disabled (flex also had to have the official diagnosis before anyone would listen to her) and try to go from there, but even then i don't think anyone else who doesn't have familiarity with autism would have very much appreciation of it.

i do love the thought of Jennifer at NASA LOL! seeing her in my mind reacting to being told that no she can't draw pokemon on the space shuttle! hehehehehee!!!

I think the new energy source would be her explosion LOL!!!

[kitten]

I am fairly new to the field do I do not want to give advice. I do want to say that you are not alone and that parents of the children I work with share similar sentiments.
We are charged with assisting our children to achieve levels of "normalcy" for independence sake. Some can, some can't. We also work with the general ed kids to be supportive, helpful as a peer and accepting.
Yes, a big part of teaching a skill is helping the autistic child learn to apply it in many settings. Most times it has to be taught in one for a time and then retaught in another setting and then another. Oftentimes, starting over at the beginning again to reinforce the choices and structure.

Wild Angel, Flex and Solomon - trust your instincts and keep being the awesome parents that you are!

[Solomon]

what's normalcy?

[12voltman59]

Any thoughts on the fact that so many more people are diagnosed with Autism today--they have that big ad campaign running on TV here in the states--I had no idea it was such a prevalent thing.

Do you think that the diagnoses are real or perhaps an overreaction? or is it that they are now better at figuring it out? what is the reason we seem to have more autisic people now than in the past?

Better techinques at diagnosis than in the past--or is it just done more so the drug companies can sell more of their drugs to treat it?

[Solomon]

voltman, ya really don't know what kinda pandora's box you're opening here with that question lol.

If you look at the history of autism, the rates of autism jump significantly with increases in vaccinations. Here's a link that you might find interesting.

http://www.health-reports.com/RobertKennedyJrarticle.html

this article definately sums it up for us, although i hafta admit i haven't researched this NEARLY as much as flex.

If the reason for there being an increase is simply attributable to better diagnostics, then what did they call autistics before the increases?

If we were to leave Jennifer on the street, I'd give her chances of survival about a week, tops.... so what it's really astounding to me that they can chalk these increases up to being able to better spot'em!

For Jennifer, it takes maybe 30 seconds of conversation (and that's when she thinks that for some reason she's supposed to engage in conversation lol) before someone realizes that this person is a little different....

Truthfully, if the drug companies are looking to sell drugs to treat autism then where are these drugs?

As far as we know there is no medication, surgical procedure, or effective treatment available to make an impact on autism itself.

However, we are considering some of the alternatives found on the site that's associated with that link...

[wildangel]

I'm with Solomon. I have done tons and tons of research on Autism and the end result was my being more confused than I was to begin with. We've changed my son's diet, the colors he's surrounded by, and the way we interact with him and it has made a difference-for now. There is no 'Molly' cure (I don't know if anyone's seen the Aaron Eckhart, Elizabeth Shue movie). And if it was, I don't know if I would want Austin to take it. Autism is almost his personality. I don't know what kind of child he would be without the far-off stares and exclusive language.

People notice that Austin's different. It's hard not to. At almost five years old, he can't be left alone anywhere that isn't childproof. We have to keep an eye on him at all times. He has no fear of danger or pain. It's scary. I almost feel like I'm babying him sometimes, although I know it's necessary.

Most people notice that when talking about someone with Autism, a lot of time it's hard to tell the difference between child and adult. I really don't know what to think about the increased diagnoses. I was aware of what was likely different with Austin before the television ads and such. The rocking, the biting, hair-pulling, staring off into space, dislike of intimacy, showing signs of hearing loss.

I don't want to say it's become the ADHD epidemic all over again, with misdiagnosing. It can't be that or it wouldn't have taken me so long to find someone who would admit Austin was different. There are no support groups in this area. The medical care regarding Autism is extremely limited. He doesn't have medical care, as there really isn't any to give. He's just given special attention. But I've had people look at my like I had made up the disease when I explained Autism.


Has anyone else had the problem of wanting to hit people who mumble under their breath that you need to learn to control your child? I had someone do that yesterday and I turned about and said 'I hope you weren't talking about me and my child because you shouldn't comment on things you know nothing about.' I didn't know what else to say and I was firing mad. If you've encountered that problem, what do you do?

[flexuality]

Has anyone else had the problem of wanting to hit people who mumble under their breath that you need to learn to control your child? I had someone do that yesterday and I turned about and said 'I hope you weren't talking about me and my child because you shouldn't comment on things you know nothing about.' I didn't know what else to say and I was firing mad. If you've encountered that problem, what do you do?

I'm gonna post more when I have more time.....but I did want to say YES I have had that problem too!

It used to bother me...but I guess now that I've been doing this for so long now that I almost find it funny.

Looking back at some of the things that Jennifer did....or Michael for that matter, they are rather funny.

Jennifer went thru a "sniffing" stage for about a year, where she sniffed EVERYTHING. Even strangers. In malls, wherever. One time she pretended she was a dog in the mall and the next thing I knew she was on her hands and knees crawling into a store and sniffing all the stuff in the store.

Michael once was trying to talk to a rather well endowed waitress once and mid-conversation he reached up and grabbed one boob in each hand and squeezed. He was about 4 at the time. I just looked at the waitress and said "he's not mine"....she laughed tho...was good natured about it.

He also was sitting in a shopping cart one time and a woman walked by with an ice cream cone and he reached out and helped himself to the ice cream right outta the cone!

The one time I got a really angry person over my kids behaviour was when Michael grabbed a toy sword while he was sitting in the shopping cart (he was ALWAYS in the cart...couldn't let him loose!) and WAPPED the poor woman over the head with it! she was NOT impressed! lol! I just said "sorry" and carried on.

I learned to ignore the comments real fast. I had to. I just figured they had no idea and I wasn't prepared to try to explain it to them. Besides, if i would have taken the time to explain, one of my kids would have been doing who knows what who knows where! LOL!

If my kids did damage (which was seldom really) I apologized and left. I was not about to start explaining and justifying anything if they were getting their nose outta joint over it. What would it help?

I find that most people don't say anything mostly cuz they're so busy thinking about what others may think of THEM, and they're not really thinking so much about me or my kids.

[Azrael]

I went too far with saying that autistics can do damn near anything as yes it is along a spectrum of ability. But I have seen some remarkable autistic people. One of the more interesting autistics I can think of is Kassiane Poore. She's the main researcher for crazymeds.org. She's got the Rett mutation along with bipolar and epilepsy. She's seriously involved in the Autism rights movement, which I respect. She's also a nationally ranked power tumbler and teaches gymnastics to autistic children.

[kitten]

An example of "normalcy" according to what our program calls inclusion goals: opportunities for the children to be included with regular ed classes- and keep in mind these are goals set by the parents at regular meetings, not us -

assisting two of the children to be able to go to the cafeteria and eat lunch with other children their age (involves getting in line, staying in line, tell or show which lunch choice was made at the morning choice time, get the food, then take it to the table, sit down, stay sitting down and eat with the group for a 30 minute block of time. Get up at the end of the 30 minute lunch, throw trash away, get back in line and stay there til the teacher comes to get the group.) The children are about 2/3 of the way there in being able to do this process and it has taken our team nearly 2 years to get them this far. We hope that by the end of 5th grade next year, they can do this without assistance so that if they make it to middle school they can go to lunch with "normalcy". One may make it, the other I fear will not. And we may have to teach the whole process again since the middle school setting will be a different cafeteria.
But as I have continued to say - small victories!

[Solomon]

Flex used to be a great advocate for the theory of inclusion.... until Jennifer graduated with a special ed diploma.

It took about a month or so for us to realize that Jennifer was not able to understand (unless it's reinforced over and over) that what happens at school is not the way life tends to happen at home.

Jennifer while she was assisting along with other special needs kids with cafeteria duties, would be able and probably encouraged to wash her hands constantly. We kept wondering why the soap in the house would only last for days, and not weeks as would be normal.

Jennifer was also taught about bacteria to some extent, and is still today extremely confused as to why she shouldn't wash her hands everytime she touched her face, or her hair, or after each and every dish (clean or not). Her hands would get absolutely chapped from washing so much, and then it was mentioned that it could be excema, well then... we spent MONTHS trying to calm her down and to get her to wash her hands at least a little more appropriately.

Of course that's not to say that she's a clean freak, she actually doesn't understand the concept of clean. The best example would be that she would use the same washcloth over and over to clean things with no matter how filthy the cloth gets. When flex taught her to clean the floors, she had to set down a pattern that included all of the floor, otherwise Jennifer would simply mop clean the section of floor that she considered to be what she was supposed to be mopped.

She saw a commercial once for Listerine about the whitener product. Jennifer still assumes that if her teeth are not perfectly white then she's going to be attacked by an angry mob and the only reason that she wouldn't have perfectly white teeth would be if she's not using the Listerine whitening mouthwash (which thanks to dear old old fucking old battleax mom, instead of letting us try to deal with this issue appropriately mom gets her.... you guessed it a bottle of Listering mouthwash the whitening formula, never mind that Jennifer happens to have soft teeth, thanks mom... bitch)....

I'm just sharing this as way to communicate that until autism is actually affected and improved by something, maybe normalcy isn't necessarily the way to go.

[kitten]

Very good point. Interpreting matters precisely and literally is real challenge for the autistic.
We have another young man that is 10 years old and needs constant supervision, He completes tasks and processes and aims to please and loves the company. But the very next time he needs to do the process again, he cannot without guidance and prompting. This includes handwashing and going to the restroom among other "life skills" (a term used by the program).
We have documented and proven that he needs individual care - not inclusion but his parents insist that he receive age appropriate studies and time with peers. By law, we have to document the number of minutes he is "included". So, we take him to math class and we take him to music and then we leave when he starts screaming or speaking his own language and running around the room. We get him to a sensory room and assist in calming him and start the process again.
Sometimes the literal interpretations are so exasperating and other times make for the most treasured moments!

[Solomon]

i can totally relate to the exasperations, and the most treasured of moments, i remember one time Jennifer backed into a door, and exclaimed "ouch! my stupidity!" hehehehee! it was hilarious the way she said it.

i truly wish there was a way to reach particularly the parents that cling to their beliefs that somehow autism is just a social deficite kind of thinking, and that there's somehow going to be a magic moment when they just wake up or something.

it's that thinking that lead to the de-institutionalization in the first place. I wonder how the people that voted for that would feel knowing that the life expectancy average was 11 DAYS? frankly i have to agree that that's a fair assessment of Jennifer's survivability beyond our house.

and with parents like flex an me, we don't have near the resources that the institutions enjoyed. we're getting close with the money end of it, but even when we have millions of dollars, how do we find enough professionals that are willing to attend to Jennifer's needs?

then there's the environment... how do we supply that without setting up our own institution that would be done away with by the gov't anyways?

how do we make certain that Jennifer can be studied unobtrusively by people who can make a difference, and find solutions? how do we make sure that Jennifer recieves these advances asap?

mind you i am aware that these issues do extend beyond us, but i can only offer our perspectives and questions...

[Azrael]

Any thoughts on the fact that so many more people are diagnosed with Autism today--they have that big ad campaign running on TV here in the states--I had no idea it was such a prevalent thing.

Do you think that the diagnoses are real or perhaps an overreaction? or is it that they are now better at figuring it out? what is the reason we seem to have more autisic people now than in the past?

Better techinques at diagnosis than in the past--or is it just done more so the drug companies can sell more of their drugs to treat it?
I'm inclined to think more refined diagnostic criteria is what led to the explosion.
Autism does not always warrant the use of psychotropics, but for a lot of messed up parents drugging their kids into submission seems to be a feature. To this day I have no idea why my autistic brother Daniel was given a modaretely high dose dirty stimulant in the form of cylert. Of course it could have been improper initial diagnosis. He's Autistic NOS (not otherwise specified) and was something of a puzzlement to his many doctors. I also think his issues are a lot more complex due to my stepmother's warped parenting. She unabashedly calls her son "wackoboy" and can't understand why I have a problem with that. My dad's great with him but this kid's mother is just a terror. When her other son had cancer she called him "cancer boy". I mean, can you friggin believe this? I'm amazed he's come so far in spite of her. I also found a correlation between autism and celiac, which is basically gluten intolerance. Something I was diagnosed with as a child. Oddly enough, I wasn't diagnosed as Asperger's until I was an adult. Apparently that's pretty common. When I was little they thought I was ADHD but I was just mildly autistic and they never caight it til now. Whoops. Got a little off topic there. I was getting at how it disgusts me to see parents treat their kids like animals or subhumans. Also, whether you're bipolar, schizophrenic or autistic or whatever other flavor of mentally interesting, your rights as a human being cease to exist once you're in an institution. I tried to report the abuse I saw, but it was all blown off as manic ravings. Manic or not I know what the hell I saw and it was not right.

[Solomon]

Azriel,

i'm sorry, but quite frankly there are people who can't handle human rights. Flex and i do our best in regards to Jennifer but she cannot be given the same human rights as the rest of us without severe consequences to her safety.

i am sorry that it sounds like you've been exposed to some rough circumstances, but it's exactly those circumstances that could be alleviated with the proper environmental controls.

[Azrael]

It's a point well taken. I'm still resentful about the whole thing, but that's me.

[flexuality]

Any thoughts on the fact that so many more people are diagnosed with Autism today--they have that big ad campaign running on TV here in the states--I had no idea it was such a prevalent thing.

Do you think that the diagnoses are real or perhaps an overreaction? or is it that they are now better at figuring it out? what is the reason we seem to have more autisic people now than in the past?

Better techinques at diagnosis than in the past--or is it just done more so the drug companies can sell more of their drugs to treat it?

Yeah...I have a lot of thoughts on this.

Yes, I believe the diagnoses are real.

Are they better able to diagnose? To a certain extent....yes. But not nearly "better able" to account for the enormous increases in numbers.

Between the years 1982 and 1996, there was a 500% increase in the number of kids diagnosed with autism. Considering the fact that there is no test for autism, even to this day, and all diagnoses are based on behaviours only, there's no way that there has been any kind of improvement in diagnostic ability to account for such a substantial increase.

They have greatly improved diagnostics for things like cancer. Do we see a 500% increase in the amount of cancer patients over a 14 year period? Not even close!

I will relate my experiences with what I believe to be a more accurate picture to explain the increases for whatever it's worth. I don't have any fancy letters behind my name, but I do have the backing of those who do.

Heavy metals.

Aluminum in particular. I was very skeptical of this idea when I first heard of it from someone who I happened to have gone to school with, who had twins both with autism. The only reason I listened to her was because I knew her and knew she wasn't apt to just jump on any old thing coming down the road.

I'm only going to be able to hit the tip of the iceberg - it's a very long involved story.

The short version - I had Jennifer tested for heavy metals. There is a very specific way to do this, it is not just a blood test. This is low level, long term exposure and is not reflected in blood.

While I was at it, I had all my kids and myself tested as well. Jennifer's levels were off the charts compared to the rest of us. Especially with aluminum and, interestingly, copper. She also had twice as much lead in her system as her identical sister.

I have triplets, 2 identical, one not. You'd think that if it was genetic, that the 2 identical ones would both be autistc. They're not. However Jennifer was only half the weight of her identical sister when she was born.

All babies receive the same dosage when vaccinated regardless of weight. Jennifer weighed 2 pounds. Her identical sister weighed 4 pounds. They got the same dosage.

Guess what's in those vaccinations? Aluminum. Thimerosol is made up of aluminum and mercury among other things. Aluminum is a KNOWN neurotoxin and mercury is the most poisonous natural substance there is. They put thimerosol into vaccinations as an "immunity system stimulant", the theory being that if one stimulates the immune system it will be better able to fight off whatever it is the vaccination is for.

Interestingly enough, thimerosol has now been found to be harmful and as such has been removed from any newly made vaccinations. However, there has been no recall on the stockpiles of any vaccinations already made that are STILL being given. Estimates of these stockpiles is about 8-10 years, meaning that they'll continue using up the old stock for the next ten years.

Aluminum is everywhere. It's in food and water. Matter of fact it is used in water treatment plants and there are no laws against the use of aluminum in anything, despite the fact that is is a KNOWN NEUROTOXIN.

But trying at this point to remove aluminum from all the food and water is damn near impossible. It has become what we consume.

There have been studies done that show that about 20% of the world's population is far more suseptable to absorbing metals. I'm not going to get inot the details of that here.

Most people can "flush" aluminum through their bodies if they're not exposed to too much of it. Those 20% can not do this so easily.

Aluminum resides in the brain and the endocrine system, not the blood and will not show up in a blood test, making it very easily overlooked.

My kids and I were seen by a medical professional (a Doctor) who specialized in treating this very thing. He used a very specific type of chelation therapy to draw these metals out.

Short version of that is that it is the ONLY thing I have ever done with Jennifer that actually made a difference. It was astounding. She was about 7 when she started this and had NO SPEECH prior to treatment. Almost immediately following the first treatment she began to talk, almost like the speech was there but unable to get out.

I have personally known several other autistic kids and their parents who had the same treatment done and ALL of them, WITHOUT EXCEPTION were found to have extremely high levels of many metals, but aluminum in particular. And ALL of them WITHOUT EXCEPTION showed amazing improvements almost immediately after treatments began.

Unfortunately, the powers that be decided that this Doctor could no longer help these kids. The woman I went to school with and I fought this on TV, in the news and in the papers. It was fucking outrageous that some bloody "doctor" ( a pathologist, no less) had the power to stop these kids from getting something that was actually working.

Turns out that the pathologist had done a study back in 1982 on the local water supplies and found unacceptable high levels of metals (including aluminum) and even recommended that they be looked at and lowered, but ended up dropping the issue in favour of a political career.

I had access to those reports of hers at one time, but they mysteriously disappeared when we went public, fighting her and her bloody cover-up.

It is soooooooo maddening to think that this woman was more interested in "saving face" than helping these kids and that she was in a position of power to do just that.

She went so far as to publicly say that all the parents of these autistic kids who saw such amazing improvements were "all imagining it".

But I digress.......

I do not think the drug companies have a hand in this one as far as making a buck from medications for autism, seeing as there AREN'T any!

They may or may not as far as the vaccinations go....but I do not believe that it was the intention of drug companies to harm. It just kinda worked out that way. I do, however, think that they realized it too late and are caught between a rock and a hard place.

[flexuality]

"Normalcy".....I used to be a very strong advocate for inclusion and independence....until, like Sol said, Jennifer had been out of school for a while and I was with her 24/7. I realized that she learned NOTHING in the way of understanding during her years of education. All she learned were "rules" and she turned everything into rules. EVERYTHING.

The whole approach with the education system seemed to be to "make these kids fit in and be more like us so they can have an independent as possible life".

It's like trying to insist that bisexuals be and act more straight so that they can fit in better with society.

We were so busy trying to teach her to be like US, that no one taught her to be like HER.

[darkeyes]

[QUOTE=flexuality

We were so busy trying to teach her to be like US, that no one taught her to be like HER.[/QUOTE]

Flex have found this all so hugely informative and interesting, since other than a few silly films I never really knew much about autism. It must be a struggle but think its triff just how much you and Sol and every1 who has not just an autistic child but any who has any sort of dependant condition battle on for the benefit of their child.

With regard to inclusive education I remain an advocate of it espcially as I return to uni later this year to finish my degree and then go into teacher training the year after. I know that the governemnt here are keen and have done a great deal to get kids with all kinds of disabilities into normal schooling. I do agree however that sometimes a child is simply not suited for inclusion in education. In the UK so many special schools have closed in the last decade or so as more and more kids are put into the state system and while I applaud the intention am seriously concerned about the loss of specialised expertise which this creates. Sometimes children need specialised education which quite simply resources within the state sector can never hope to provide within High and Primary Schools, hence the need for state specialist education and schools.

Finally, with regard to your parting shot which I quote above... is that not what education is about anyway? Whether specialist or no? If not like us as individuals but like what society wishes us to be?

[Solomon]

personally, i don't have anything against inclusion. i feel however, that it should be a properly educated choice though.

currently i believe that many many parents are just too driven by their anger over this happening to their child sort of thing, or the bad press and rumors that circulated for a long time about institutions in general, and i do empathize with that, but what can be done better?

this is a subject that i feel alot of resentment over as well, i resent the fact that i feel as though i hafta 'rock the boat' to the way the majority of people think about this, and i resent the fact that Jennifer has to go through this for the rest of her life at all, and my heart does go out to anyone in a similar situation.

for the time being i feel extremely confined as i feel as though i have no direction to go in to change things so that perhaps there could be a choice someday and i have maybe some influence, but no current authority on the way the system is run.

even when we do become wealthy, we still would not be able to provide an ideal environment not just for Jennifer, but even through donations our hands are still tied, by governmental regulatory red tape, the same red tape that closed the institutions.

and yes, there were from my understanding some bad apples in the institutions in the large, but i believe that it would have been the exeption, not the rule. in the meantime is there indeed something better?