Aspies For Freedom

But surely some kinds of intervention can be useful? e.g. my 8 year old brother is autie, and one thing that really frustrates him sometimes is that his speech is bad. So when he's trying to tell you something, or ask for something, you can't always understand what he's saying. He can get quite upset about that - so he does speech therapy at school to try and improve his speech. Isn't that intervention? And isn't it in fact beneficial to him, if it enables him to make himself understood when he wants?

As for eary intervention... is that for AS kids with hearing difficulties?

I'm glad I grew up in the 50s when ignorance was bliss.
Whether an AS diagnosis would have made my mother more accepting or less...now there is an interesting questions.

Magnus--what you're describing sounds horrid.

This is a really interesting thread.  Thank you for starting it, MomMagnus.

We're taking what we hope is a moderate, sensible approach with our son.  Note that he wasn't diagnosed until age 7, and even then it remains solely a school diagnosis, not an official medical one (after many conversations on this board, since I can get services without a medical diagnosis, I decided it was best to let it sit as is - that will give my son a greater chance of ignoring the diagnosis if that someday becomes his desire).  ASD NEVER once occured to us, because our child is such a huge sensory seeker when it comes to people contact.

ANYWAY, we work with him on calming the behaviors that have an important basis in society, like forgetting to wash his hands and flush the toilet.

We work on the people around him regarding pretty much everything else.

Teachers and assistants now are pretty well tuned into the "hand the child a straw to chew on" solution for his habit of biting down pencils (quite noisily, I may add) - really his main stim.

Skills he will need to survive as an adult are worked on as well, but within his own pace.  Reading, writing, spelling, etc ... he will need to know how to do these.

I've been a bit conflicted about the school's insistence that he at least try to work in groups with the other kids.  I realize group work is a part of life, and trying to find his role in groups will help him a lot as he grows, but I rather think that forcing issue could wait.  Still, he's doing pretty well with it, understanding that what he should do is get himself assigned an independent task where he complete his part of the group project alone, and add it later.

Ooops, way ahead of the topic!

Speech and OT have been huge helps.  Neither of these tries to change who he is, at least not in the programs we have used, but instead to help him overcome roadblocks that he himself sees and wants to be rid of.  Speech works with him mostly on pragmatic issues, which he recognizes as important to him.  He is so full of ideas and he wants to share them - and he would much prefer that people actually listen to him share them, rather than walk away.  OT helps him with things as hand strength, which has been another frustration for him.

All in all, I think it's good to constantly ask yourself, "what is the purpose here?"  Are we working to overcome something that is actually frustrating the child?  Do it.  Are we working to give the child a child that will be essential to making in the world?  Most likely you will want to do it, but timing and method should be carefully considered.  Are we working to give the child a skill that he doesn't seem to want, that is stressful for him, and that a little understanding can work around?  Do NOT do it.

"I don't have a severely autistic child who is nonverbal. But even my son's mild issues have been a lot of hard work. Do you all believe that I should have just left my child alone and not done early intervention?"

First of all, we have Asperger's not LFA so how would we know what it is like?  

Some of the therapies done in early intervention sound alot to me just like what my family does to play with babies and toddlers anyway.  My mom constantly talked to us.  We use picture books and read to babies even as early as six months.  So when some calls it therapy and charges big bucks for it, who are they trying to fool?

Why would we resent what you do for your child in your own home as long as you are not abusing your child?  What are you trying to ask us?  If we resent that autism charities just raise money for ABA research and "cures" rather than use the money to help people and families with autism?  Because we do.  

We hate the scare tactics that these charities use to scare you poor NT parents into thinking that autism is hell.  The way people treat us is sometimes hell.  Why can't charities use some of the money to educate people into accepting people with autism and including them in the community even if they don't always remember to flush and wash their hands?  

Why don't you stick around for a while and find out why we hate the "cure".

I take a shower everyday (sometimes i miss friday night cause i'll have an early morning soccer game so what would be the point then?) I have that oiley hair that needs washing everyday or it gets chunky and stinkey.

And since I have soccer practice all the time, I ALWAYS wear deoderant. I think it smells good anyways. And like Meiloyn, I wash my face in the shower cause when i use a sink it leaves a big mess. I also have a strick policy on pimples, if they are white they are popped, then i wash the affected area. I have a perscription cream too so I have very very few pimples anyways. Im disgusted when people leave their pimples for so long they turn greenish white! I feel so tempted to pop them for them.

I shave my armpits almost everyday, and shave my legs when the'll be seen by others, and pubic hair nearly everday during summer and when i have to spend alot of time in a locker room. I pluck my eyebrows alot too.

I always try to make my self presentable in the morning, blowing my nose, brushing my teeth, applying makeup if needed, picking out eye boogers, mosturising dry areas, brushing my teeth, and brushing/straightning my hair.

I also NEVER touch public floor with my bare feet. I have a pair of socks in my backback if i wear flip flops and im instructed to take them off. Im appaled when people run around the locker room in bare feet, they are just beggin for plantar warts. Well considering I had plantar wart from hell and I never want to go through that again, io found out my little sister got one from swimming and then took a shower without flip flops on, and i went in after her. I nearly smacked her head off.

I think my problem is that I just hear mostly about the bad types of adversion ABA therapies.  When people say "early intervention" and "play therapy", I just do not have a picture in my mind of what it could be or a list of activities they do and how it could help.  I don't really have enough information about it.

But what is this therapy that I am hearing about that is making children as young as two sit for 8 hours a day and forced to look at pictures and say words or made to perform certain tasks.  The reward for doing what the therapist wants is a raisin or something and the punishment is getting yelled at "no!".  The children are not allowed to stim or play the way they want.  They are made to play a certain way.  -and then the therapists are charging up to $60,000 per year for this.  

I think that is stupid.

That's what I mean - that kind of thing is something many Aspies and Auties could do with having explained PROPERLY. That kind of thing I could as interventions worth doing.

Precisely - it's the kind of things that I would love NTs to do, too. I am sure it would do most NT kids a world (or three) of good, too!

i don't even consider can, autism speaks and the such to be charties.  they are lobbying groups represtenting eugenic research and dehumanzation of autistics, and in some cases, very dangerous treatments like cheleation.

if the goal of early intervention is to make the child indisgintlable from their peers, we have a problem, and that's usually a main goal for these things, especally when brought by these lobbying groups.

I didn't think pubic hair shaving was commonplace. I've never even heard of someone shaving their arms, except to get stitches or a tattoo.

Do most women do these things? Why have I not noticed...the arms, I mean the arms, not the pubis.  How weird.

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If you stopped chemicals, we'd all drop dead!

One on one play just is the norm in my family because we did not use daycare when we were kids.  So any kid who does not "fit" into the daycare mode is considered abnormal now.  School for children, as I discussed before, is not natural either.  So why does society insist on changing the environment and then complain that anyone who does not fit in is "abnormal"?  I suppose that the people who wanted to farm and domesticate animals were stoned by the hunters/gatherer types back when too.  So why does the kid who wants to spend time in the library and on the computer instead of "chatting idlely"  get a rock thrown at his head?

One on one used to be the "norm" in raising children but now it is considered therapy.

So instead some stranger gets paid $25/hr to play one on one with your son.  Why don't they pay you?

My ex was a very smelly person: he often had B.O. and his breath often smelt dreadful. I kept telling him but it did no good, and some people thought I was terribly rude. But if you let a person go on stinking, they won't have many friends and other people will remember them for being "that smelly person" and this will overshadow any positive traits they have.

I don't think kids are always told that when they become adolescents, they need to use a deodorant and/or wash carefully because they get hormones that cause body odour.