Aspies For Freedom

OMG!

I appear to have stepped through a time vortex and come out in 1643

I must have done. There is no WAY somebody living in 2007 could say that.
Somebody should complain.

It is apparent that this mother needs help and support.  It would have been good for her to have been given more options than she was given.  Even with children who are not special needs parents need time alone or in the company of other adults. Many organizations offer respite care or programs, etc.  It seems to me that Dr. Laura made a lot of assumptions about the child with very little information. The only thing that was clear for me from this exchange is that the mom needed a break.  And she should have one -- but there are many ways to go about it.  She's no good to any of her children when she's a wreck.

i vote on a "dear editor" campaign :evil:

That's a lot of assumptions to make in the span of a three-minute phone call. There are certainly kids who are uncontrollable and violent who need to be somewhere that they will be safe and where they can't harm anyone else, but wow. There is so much more wrong with Dr. Laura's words here than just that assumption about the child. I don't know about you, but I don't think that "putting on a dress and going out to dinner" is going to be a whole lot of fun for me if I just put my autistic child in an institution. If you can be emotionally unaffected in that kind of situation... I don't know. That scares me. But then again most of the doc's viewpoints freak me out. Does she truly believe the things she suggests, or is she always just going for that shock value? Who knows...

Right, I almost forgot that part! That was really disturbing to me.

I'd like to practice a little home-trepanning on this Dr Laura.

I hope she got hate-mail to swim in.

I wish I had your altruism.

Gah, I'm just getting riled up over some fool who doesn't know what she's talking about.

read it again. that quack knew next to nothing of the situation, and was saying instantly "*** the kid, go partay"

Fruitcake, getting a break every once-in-a-while is reasonable. But just saying "Think about institutionalization" without knowing anything about the situation is a different story.

Even if he was, that doesn't mean he's going to "hurt somebody".

I mean, didn't she compare the child with autism to someone who is drunk or did I misread that?
As a parent of a child diagnosed with severe autism, I am outraged.  I've never liked Dr. Laura's advice, and she doesn't have a degree in psychology so I really don't know why anyone listens to her for psychological help.  I am not completely against receiving help for my child with autism through an institution if that is the appropriate placement, but again, Dr. Laura didn't have enough information about the child or options to tell that mother to dump her child and go buy a dress!   That's a very serious decision to make, and many factors are involved.
Also, again, I will stress that it's society that needs to change to be more accepting.    The family probably can't take their child anywhere because of how people in society treat the child and the family because of behaviors linked to autism.  That's what hinders us the most-the way people react to our son's differences.  
Also, Dr. Laura assumes there is no benefit for the NT siblings for being raised around their sibling who has autism.  There are so many benefits that have been very well documented.  Maybe not what society as a whole cares about or Dr. Laura for that matter.  You know  benefits like having values and virtues of being non-judgmental, tolerant, unconditionally loving, patient, non-materialistic, empathetic, etc.

You don't need a degree in psychology to understand people. Personally I think that professional psychologists are incredibly overrated, they are too busy being professional to be compassionate.

But other than that, I agree with what you're saying.