This is a British program about some students at a school for students with Autism.
I thought they showed too much of the stress and the tantrums. On the other hands the kids interviewed seemed to have a good grasp about their situation and seemed very smart.
We had a long thread about it, and I am glad that its reaching other countries now and others can get to view it.
It will be repeated soon on a channel called More4 in the UK I think, but I doubt if I will watch it again, as it did distress me for some days afterwards.
I think they tried to show how really horrible Autism is for nt's.
"I think they tried to show how really horrible Autism is for nt's." But NT's do not have autism.
Oh, you mean that NT's have difficulty relating to people with autism? Well, did anyone examine our point of view? Sounds like a very one sided program.
Lonermutant wrote
I thought they showed too much of the stress and the tantrums.
I'm not surprised that the documentary showed a lot of stress and tantrums, because a lot of the media coverage of autism that I have seen in Australia is similarly sensationalized.
The other night one of the current affairs TV shows that follows the evening news broadcast, I think it was "A Current Affair", had a story about kids with AS. It followed that old predictable theme of NT parents lobbying for more funding for schools specifically for autistic kids, and it showed a wholly negative picture of AS, consisting of videos of aspie boys chucking tantrums and running about in their homes. It was a gross invasion of the privacy of these children, and a misleadingly biased story. Prime time Australian current affairs TV shows such a "A Current Affair" and "Today Tonight" are such a load of manure. If they couldn't do any more stories about freaky kids or badly-behaved kids or fad diets or shonky tradesmen, these shows would be unrecognisable.
If I wanted to deliberately film a current affairs story to make my own kids look bizarre and dangerous I could do it easily, I could just video one of their fights or one of their more energetic and Tourettish moments. I'm sure they could be made to look very scary. If I wanted to film some footage to make my kids look like little intellectuals, that could easily be done too. I could video one of my kids explaining the "ins and outs" of their software development special interest, or I could film the kids discussing their school day or critiquing some show on TV.
I watched this when it was on C4 for the first time aswell. I actually couldn't believe they were saying nothing positive. All of it was about the bad side of Autism and this was really unneccessary.
Tom
I have tried to email someone who works on A Current Affair, at the insistence of a woman who works as a consultant for some Queensland high schools. Basically, I told him that if he wants to do an actual story about Asperger's Syndrome, then here is a real Aspie who is incredibly keen to talk to him. Not surprisingly, I have yet to hear back from him. I will be sending it again, as well as a complaint, to him and Channel Nine as well as the government's standards boards.
Iron Man, I think it is worthwhile that you have told us about the lack of interest in your story by ACA, because we now know that there appears to be positive discrinination against those who wish to present the autistic view rather than the NT view of autism. That means that the people at ACA cannot claim that they have not been given the opportunity to present the other side of the story, if they are later criticised for their one-sided and defamatory treatment of AS.
Iron Man, how did you get misdiagnosed with all of those psychiatric conditions? Bipolar and schizophrenia are disorders that have very serious implications with regard to medication and one's right to freedom, so it is a seriously bad thing that anyone could be misdiagnosed as having them.
I often hear of such misdiagnosis, it can be a trial to simply get that right.
Iron Man, how did you get misdiagnosed with all of those psychiatric conditions? Bipolar and schizophrenia are disorders that have very serious implications with regard to medication and one's right to freedom, so it is a seriously bad thing that anyone could be misdiagnosed as having them.
Here in the US anyways, they must rule out schizophrenia, bipolar and other causes before declaring you autistic. So somebody not famulior with autism could easly misdisagnose. Then theres the changes to the criterias thats happen in only the last 11 years or so.
If I got my way, doctors who misdiagnose people would have to pay a large fine to the individual, spend 10 years in prison and lose there liciense to practise medicine.
Not really practical as then no-one would be diagnosed.
The system does need vast improvements though.
It took well over 20 years for me to get a proper diagnosis - of Asperger's syndrome so I can understand how frustrated Iron Man is about the delay in his diagnosis. I was treated with medications for anxiety and depression that only worked to a moderate degree.
I don't agree with full integration where the child is unable to cope with the regular classroom eg. all the noise, people moving randomly about, and so on. If modifications were made, eg. a quiet place for the child to go to if they are becoming overstimulated, and some further teacher aides were employed, it might be a proposition.
However, the Queensland government is actually cutting funds to schools for teacher aides. I know of a number of parents who had to take their children out of regular schools because no concessions were being made to account for their sensory and communication issues eg. they were made to stay in areas they found intolerably noisy, and so on.
I think when talking about diagnosis bare in mind aspergers/ASD diagnosis is the responsibility of people who normally deal with mental health. There is a world of differance between the medical approach to physical health and the approaches that have been adopted towards mental health. I think one of the most fundamental problems we have with the system in the UK is it is too strongly associated with the same professionals who are dealing with people who have mental health/learning disability issues.
These professionals also cannot agree what autisum is let alone what aspergers is. You will notice throughout the world there is not one clear definition of autisum and aspergers. Ok you can say there is a cultural differance as well as the differnt health care systems, but I have noticed something i cannot put into words. A kind of differance between aspergers from differnt nationalities.
It's kinda like an apple at the moment, professionals, aspies etc all seem to be poking needles through differnt angles of the apple and none are really standing back and seeing the whole 3 dimensional apple as a whole and forming some kind of understanding. Fundamentally I don't think there is a drive to understand it. Im not sure what kind of progress we have made since Doctor Kanner and Hans Asperger carried out their research.