you know that's insulting to autistics what he said, becuase autistics can speak, and they want to hang on to old sterotypes. this is what put down the blacks for many years, until they broke the sterotypes. keep doing what you are doing and then they will realize that autistics are just diffrent than nt's not disabled.
He has an autistic son and he dosn't realize it's a spectrum?
His poor son.
Exactly my thoughts.
On the other hand, we now know why people say their children are "cured" by this or that bottle of snakeoil (meaning "at any point after, with no regard to actual causation").
These people will say " oh, my son is autistic. He will never learn to speak and he does not understand" then they stop talking to their son.
Which makes me sad 
The first suggestion made to me when I was given the tentative diagnosis of Aspergers for my son was, "learn all you can about it. The level of knowledge of the parents seems to be the biggest difference in how well these children adapt and happy they are."
I'm trying.
I am so sorry to hear you met a parent that either didn't get that piece of advice, or discarded it.
I agree, it is worse for the son.
I'm surprise the person who diagnosed your son tentatively Aspie, didn't say, "Learn all you can about it, because the people who are in the school system and Special Ed aren't going to give a damn about helping your child. So you need to learn all you can, because there will be alot of advocation and PTA meetings to get the point through to those people that your son is a human being, not a pet dog they can just say good-boy at and throw them a treat, and then ignore them when they are bullied or emotionally abused by either the faculty, other students, or both."
And that's mild. It has been established that, according to school psychologists, all parts of the education establishment are 100% perfect. All problems are due to inferior children and parents. (Alessi. 1988. Professional School Psychology 3:145-151.) In 2000 out of 2000 school systems surveyed, 100% of them had perfect administrators, perfect teachers, and perfect educational methods. These school psychologists attributed all difficulties to problems within the children and 20% of problems to additional problems within the parents (http://www.wrightslaw.com/advoc/articles/ALESSI1.html). This is what we have to deal with.
Principals are no better. They universally believe that achievement is the only indicator of ability. Children from low-income families are believed to be automatically "limited"--no choice or chance for them. There was no point in trying to push them beyond their "limits". Principals universally blamed children and parents for all educational difficulties. They and their educational systems were 100% perfect, according to them. All solutions must be cheap and easy, according to principals. Special educational methods are deemed to be for dealing with "problem children". Here's a quote from one of these principals: "if you have a problem child all you have to do to eliminate having to deal with that child is refer him to the special class. Because special class referral almost always ends up with special class placement . . . You don’t have to deal with the kid anymore." Principals universally stated that the issue was an unsatisfactory inventory shipped to the school by the manufacturers (parents). (Allington, McGill-Franzel, and Schick. 1997. Remedial and Special Education. 18:223-232.
In short, educators operate under the delusion that they are perfect and not subject to improvement. They have decided that children and parents are to be blamed for every shortcoming. In essence, they have decided that children and parents are their enemies.
Of course, society gives them all the power.
You know, Violet and Dogface, it doesn't have to be that way, and it isn't that bad everywhere. Granted, it is bad in a lot of places, and I am truly saddened by some of the difficults parents I know from the internet have ecountered, but my son's school has a fantastic special education program. We are not a top scoring school, or a blue-ribbon school, or any of those other fancy labels. We're one of those schools you have to take a deep breath, trust your instincts, walk into, and discover just how adaptive education can be. We have a family that has moved all over the country, and based on test scores bought a house in the attendance area for another school, found out the school was full, and enrolled at our school in desperation with every intent of leaving as soon as a space opened up at the other. Their son who had struggled in every school suddenly flourished. They aren't moving him anywhere now. Another family ended up with their PDD-NOS child at our school after failures and frustrations with 4 other highly recommended schools; getting to us was pure accident, since we aren't on the radar, and the family isn't in the district, but they don't ever want to leave. My son has been so happy these last few years. Perfectly so, no. Childhood has never been perfectly happy. But he feels listened to, responded to, and cared about. His behavior issues are few and far between, and that has always been a key indicator - if things aren't going well, even if he doesn't tell us, it has to come out somewhere, and we'll see an increase in tantrums, etc. I know when things aren't going well with him.
I do worry it won't always be this way, because all those horror stories I hear ... but, really, there are places that let all kids be who they are supposed to, squash teasing at the core, and can teach to 20 different levels and interests in a single class. It takes creativity, energy, flexibility, and patience, but somehow our principal, our teachers, and our parents have built that school.
So, push cynicism aside and demand the same for your kids. Move if you have to. Kids deserve better.
You know, Violet and Dogface, it doesn't have to be that way, and it isn't that bad everywhere. Granted, it is bad in a lot of places, and I am truly saddened by some of the difficults parents I know from the internet have ecountered, but my son's school has a fantastic special education program.
Swell for you--so, how do I change the public schools here? I'm not rich enough to just open a checkbook and unload the $12k+ a year to open doors at the private schools that would be happy to do things right. I'm not rich enough to just open a checkbook and unload a quarter of that a year.
We have to work with what we have, and what we have found so far are teachers who blame the students. Administrators who blame students and parents, and school psychologists who believe that the CARS is completely sufficient, on its own to diagnose and exclude Asperger's. Yeah, that's right, these morons think that CARS is appropriate for use with Asperger's.
Part of the cognitive models I have put together explain that there is a high percentage of Narcissistic parents (NPD) with Autistic children. In fact some of the earlier researchers noticed the cold mothers of many Autistic children and I myself have dealt with people like this man in forums that are "cure based".
The "refrigerator mother" hypothesis has long since been rather completely discredited. Sorry, but "cold mothers" do not "cause" autism. I would like to see the statistics to back up any claims regarding frequency of NPD among parents of autistic children. But that will still prove nothing. If anything, possible narcissism on the part of such parents can be just as validly explained as a maladaptive response to the stress of raising an autistic child.
I fear that the perception of NTs is actually often biased by our dealings with NPDers. People who are NPD are not "Neurotypical" by any means.
But does that mean that NPD "causes" autism spectrum or that those of us on the spectrum aren't as facile with noticing dangerous signs that others are able to use to stay away from such people?
I had something like that happen recently. I was telling an utter imbecile to stop standing so close to me (he was behind me and I could smell his breath), as it affects my autism. When he told me I am not autistic because I can speak, I was about to tell him something like "so you're a molester and an ignorant monkey..." when a boy of about ten years old came and corrected him very strongly. Told the prat he was autistic too, and had to get his doctor to reprimand his school because they belived that crap.
When the boy left through the checkout I told the guy to mark my face well, because I know his and I will put him in hospital if he ever comes that close to me again. The biggest problem we face today is letting bastards like this know we are not messing around. We are behind the ball by decades because of passivity, not in spite of it.
I find it's more that autistics can nonverbally communicate, it's just we have different ways of doing it. After observing others for years, we can put together a framework of how a NT face works, but it's not perfect.
I often have trouble understanding the ways others state things, and they have trouble understanding the way I state things. It goes both ways. I think in a way they wouldn't understand, and they think in a way I don't quite understand.
Also, I think the communication/emotion thing is the cause of the "emotionless" myth. TO ALL NTS: if you can't see it, it doesn't necessarily go away.
and why do they want you to stop that is really stupid....*$%$@# to him
i was very talkitive and social but then i turned 6 and i was always by my self and quiet
hmm somethings just dont take affect till you are older
litteraly i did not show any signs till age 6
besides hyper sensitivity to sound and light