Aspies For Freedom

This is an article from last september and shows a basic misconception on how autism develops-

When Billy's mother sees her 12-year-old son's popularity with team mates on his baseball team, she thinks back to predictions made when he was a pre-schooler that he would have so much trouble making friends that, among other things, he would probably never be able to get married and have children.

It is a little early for Billy to be getting married, but the predictions have been off by miles so far. Why were such dire predictions made in the first place?

Billy was late in beginning to talk and was supposed to have been autistic. Once that label had been put on him, nothing could change the minds of those who saw him that way.

Contrary evidence from his emotional attachment to a little girl in his pre-school was dismissed, even though the two of them were inseparable on the playground -- and even though an inability to form emotional attachments is at the heart of autism.

There is another kind of dogmatism from people who are not going to give up on the "autism" label. That is redefining the word to include a wide range of children who are said to be on the autism "spectrum." Billy's mother raised a fundamental question that seems to have eluded many professionals: Would you say that someone who is near-sighted is on the "blindness spectrum"?

What would we gain by such manipulations of words? And what would we lose?

Blindness, like autism, is a major tragedy. When some little toddler doesn't see quite as well as other kids, and may need glasses, what would be the point of alarming his parents by saying that he is on the blindness spectrum?
http://capmag.com/article.asp?ID=3096

He misses the fundamental point that autism IS a spectrum condition, its not just an easy phrase, its a fact. Most children with autism do develop more skills as they grow older, it doesnt mean that they never had it at all.
An adult can develop language skills yet still have sensory issues that make life difficult and that is "hidden".

Found this humorous item-


04. Thomas Sowell (Quacky, crackpot author of “Slow Talking Einstein Syndrome”) - Welcome to “Enablers R Us.” So, your five year old isn’t talking yet? And what’s that you say? He is still wearing a diaper too? And what’s that funny flapping thing he does with his hands? And why the heck does he watch that one kiddie movie obsessively? Some folks might think that child is autistic, but not Thomas Sowell! He has a book to sell to egotistical mommies and daddies whose egos won’t allow them to have a “flawed” child with autism. No indeed! Instead, he tells these parents that their child is a “slow talking Einstein,” informing them that if only they’ll be patient, their little junior will turn out to be the world’s next mega-genius. Of course this doesn’t happen and by the time that it does, a great deal of valuable time has been lost. Let’s get Mr. Sowell out of circulation. Anyone who can bring this guy to me will get a free lifetime supply of Satan’s Special Troll Repellant.
http://www.netherworldnews.com/topten0627.html

To the extent that Sowell is pointing out how much harm is being done to children by autism stereotypes and gloomy predictions, I agree with him.  Granted, he doesn't seem to understand how autistic children grow and develop, but he is quite correct that professionals shouldn't be telling parents what a tragic life their child will supposedly have.

I haven't read his book, but based on this short article, it seems unfair to describe him as an enabler of egotistical parents who refuse to admit they have a flawed child.  In my experience, parents who avoid the diagnosis are seeking to protect their child from discrimination and ugly self-fulfilling prophecies, not to improve their own social status.  Such parents, rather than gaining any ego boost, often end up as targets of nasty comments from the neighbors (who assume that the child hasn't been disciplined properly) if they don't disclose that the child is autistic.

Yes, my mother protected me from a dx because I would have been placed in a special school with Down's Syndrome children. Which would have made no sense.

But there is a "blindness spectrum" -- look at any website with information on visual impairments and this is obvious.  From http://www.nichcy.org/pubs/factshe/fs13txt.htm (which is an educational site I found more or less randomly):

Why wouldn't we tell a parent of a nearsighted kid that their child is "on the blindness spectrum"? For one thing, I think it's because nearsightedness is common, and easily corrected. It's not seen as a significant impairment. (Unless you want to be a pilot for the US Air Force.)

Amazing. I think I've managed to be both on-topic and off-topic with this. It just caught my eye.

</relurk>

Very true. Even for a person "mildly" affected by autism, it can cause a myriad of problems in certain individuals - sensory issues that are seldom understood or even acknowledged by the rest of society, feelings of loneliness and alienation, and the list goes on.

Greetings.
Just thought I would set myself up for target practice here.

I am one of those undiagnosed adult Aspies who discovered my status via my daughter.  She didn't talk "on time" and I was not concerned in the slightest because we could communicate fine with each other, and she clearly understood what was said to her, and could respond behaviorally if not verbally.  I happened to come upon Sowell's book Late Talking Children and was glad to have someone agree with me that it was no big deal, and that it was in fact pretty common in families that include engineers and mathematicians.  I laughed out loud when I read that part, since I have an engineering degree and my husband has a mathematics degree.  I thought, OK, no problem.

Then my husband called in the experts and they eventually declared my daughter autistic.  Amy, this is a culturally loaded term, extremely misunderstood, and very frightening to a parent.  The popular view of autism is institutionalized RainMan.  But I immediately set about researching, and learned the truth rather than the myth, and I was almost immediately fine with it, personally, as I could readily identify the signs in my daughter and myself (and my husband).  The trouble is, of course, that the public still lacks this truth, and goes on myth.  What parent would want their child discriminated against?  

I have just recently come out of a school meeting where I argued that, due to the (unfair, wrong, but nevertheless present) STIGMA of autism, and I mean stigma on the child, not the parents, that I wanted her reclassed as having NVLD, which seems to overlap about 95% with Asperger's, but without ANY stigma.  And given that the experts really haven't sorted this all out anyway, why should I open my daughter to this risk with no benefit?  The interventions for NVLD are the same, so she will get the benefit of help, without the harm of stigma.  We live in the USA, an extremely intolerant culture.  If you aren't rich, white, thin, and beautiful, you are considered less.  Add a diagnosis of autism to that and you are handicapping your child for life.

OK.  Begin firing, I've got my bullet proof vest on.

P.S.  Among those who understand, I am proud to be the way I am.  Among those who think I'm disabled, I am defensive and cautious.

By the way, I am classified as legally blind.  My vision is about 20/800.  I wear glasses and it's no problem.

I have had a similar problem with a diagnosis of a mental illness a year ago. The doctors still don't believe that the thoughts in my head are actually my thoughts, and not "voices". I tell them that I am afraid of something (that I have been afraid of since I was a toddler) and they think its clinical paranoia. I am ill with a cold for several days, and my school (who is heavily influenced by my doctors) thinks that I'm going through some sort of "episode"... Very irritating.

Also just wanted to add that, after my daughter's diagnosis, I went back and reread Sowell's Late Talking Children and it was obvious to me that most of them were probably Aspie or HFA.  Given that Sowell is the father of such a person, I feel for him.  He wrote that he passed his grown son on a university campus, and his son didn't even see him, so absorbed in his own thoughts in typical Aspie fashion.

HE knows that his son is OK, perfectly fine, a perfectly valuable human being, and he can't reconcile that with the autism diagnosis, given the myth and stigma.  No one would want to believe something bad about their own child if they felt they had a choice, or an alternative explanation.

I do think you have a point, Amy, but so does he, though it may be poorly stated and have negative consequences for some.  For me, he kind of helped open a line of inquiry, and made it less scary.  That has value.

That's not necessarily true. Many of the *social* interventions for NVLD and autism (AS in particular) are similar. But NVLD involves a specific pattern of  cognitive weaknesses and strengths that not all autistic people have.

The NVLD profile includes relative strengths in verbal skills and auditory processing. It also includes poor math skills, motor problems, and poor visual and/or spatial skills. (Visual skills and spatial skills are not as interconnected as they are often made out to be).

As with anything, most NLDers don't fit classic textbook definitions exactly. (Some are good at math; some have auditory processing problems or language problems in addition to NLD, etc). But all NLDers will fit the pattern well enough for the diagnosis to be helpful.

Some autistic people fit this pattern, too. Others don't. So somebody with auditory processing or language problems who learns much better spatially or kinesthetically or visually (or whatever) is probably not going to be helped by an NVLD diagnosis--especially not if they fit enough criteria for an autism spectrum diagnosis.

Tera