For a good site on Autism, I recommend the Autism Foundation: http://www.autism-society.org/…
For the neurology of autism:
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disor…
Here is the Center for Disease Control site on Autism:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/
The “invisible disabilities” are still those most often leading to ridicule, blaming parents for causing their children’s problems, and social isolation. When your child is in a wheel chair, most people are understanding. When your child has a neurological issue such as autism, or the even less understood cousin, dyspraxia, your life is just as impacted as a parent, but, mostly, you deal with it alone.
Having raised two children with invisible disabilities, I know. One suffered from severe dyspraxia. Here is information on dyspraxia – http://www.ncld.org/index.php?… Dyspraxia is a “human hardware problem” you have probably never even heard of, right?
My husband and I were told we could not raise our dyspraxic son at home. I won’t repeat what we said, but I will admit the work needed to train a child who had to repeat actions like tying shoes or chewing and swallowing without vomiting thousands and thousands of of times to “get it right” is just not something most people understand. I am incredibly proud of our son who is now a senior at UMASS despite the professionals who thought he could not be educated. Well.
Dyspraxia is like a computer where none of the subroutines work, and every act has to be “cued” from a menu – for one analogy.
But humans don’t mind stupid – dyspraxia looks weird and the Michael Savages of the world are looking for someone to blame – not for a solution.
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p>Why?
….and the fact remains, despite your great clip art, that while Savage is the outermost poster child for stigma, this kind of ridicule does great harm to kids.
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p>”thanks” for the recommend and if people were not listening to Savage:
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p>1. He would not be on the air.
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p>2. He would not be earning more money then George Bush [say it ain’t so].
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p>Why?
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p>Kind lady, you should stick to the New York Times and National Public Radio. You’ll be much happier.
The next time one of these morons says something stupid on the radio, click here.
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Here it is: http://www.masshome.com/news.html
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p>I read papers online daily from all over the state, it would be foolish and narrow to listen to only one viewpoint. It would also bore me to hear only one view point. I am not interested in being ignorant – and in the absence of a full, multifaceted data set, evaluation of any issue is not possible.
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p>My own viewpoints, in fact, do not fit one label. Do yours?
Hopefully the public will take care of this by not listening to he show. Or maybe he will follow another outrageously vulgar ignorant misogynistic blowhard named Howard Stern to Sat radio and become a multi-millionare.
On the few occasions I’ve dialed across Savage, I’ve found him to be the meanest of the far-right hate folks and the world would be a better place without him PERIOD
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p>Last night I was driving home and came across his show (RKO) and, given the autism comments the day before, I had to listen. Of course he was on his best behavior and not filled with his usual venom. So I don’t want to sound like I’m defending him–I’m not. But his spin on his comments is that there is a Phamra-Medical Complex that is over prescribing drugs to people–particularly children, a concern I share.
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p>I’m not qualifies to even guess why autism has exploded in the last decade or so. Is it caused by vacinations…better diagnoses…or a widening for the definition of autism that may result in unnecessary care and higher medical fees. I have no idea, but a polite (ie, non-Savage) conversation is warranted.
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p>That’s about as far as I can go, here’s Savage trying to calm down the mob–but I do hope he goes…because he deserves to crash and burn.
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I tire of the “free speech” defense from his supporters. There’s a big difference between free speech and speaking on the airwaves. There’s a big difference between speaking for yourself, and being paid by others to speak for them. Savage is savage on the public airwaves, which are in limited supply and great demand, and he’s savage on air for those airwaves his company pays for. The very same company says they don’t condone what he says and that he doesn’t speak for them, yet they continue to give him a paycheck. If they don’t condone what he says, they should cease to do so.
How hard is that?
PP didn’t give me any link.
link
David Yas has a blog entry up at the Mass Lawyers Weekly blog, see: http://www.masslawyersweekly.c…
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p>Yas correctly notes that Governor Patrick has vetoed critical autism funding, and I agree with Yas that the Autism funding veto should be over ridden.
My bad. When I first started reading MLW “many moons ago” David Yas was the Editor! Sorry about that.
I’ll try to comment more later, but am pressed for time.
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p>In the meantime, I’d recommend (in addition to the resources you cite) the website of the Asperger’s Association of New England. I am on the Board of AANE, and my interest in the topic, for those of you who don’t know me, is that I am autistic. More specifially, I have Asperger’s syndrome, which is also known as high-functioning autism.
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p>Also, for those who care to learn about some of the cutting-edge research that is happening right here in the Bay State, please see my own post about my experience with a new and potentially exciting treatment.
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p>Thank you for your insights, and for sharing your own experience.
Amber – I didn’t hear the original show, as I don’t find his rants enlightening at all, but I heard the audiotape later. One thing struck me.
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p>He’s confusing autism with ADD/ADHD.
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p>The symptoms of autism are profound – clinically and socially. Nobody could mistake the public symptoms of an autistic child for a temper tantrum, whereas sometimes kids who are throwing a tantrum ARE diagnosed as ADD/ADHD cases (the medical/pharma complex alluded to above).
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p>It’s nice when somebody as rude as Savage demonstrates his ignorance of the subject on national radio.
The quote, in context, is here, along with a statement from the network with respect to his comments:
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See this post for a more reasoned analysis of his hateful comments.
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p>What’s frightening to me is that this is so not out of charachter with him, and yet he continues to have a large audience. So I take it you are in favor of encouraging him to spread ignorance, prejudice, and nastiness on the public airwaves.
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p>He whole excuse that he was really talking about people with ADHD is totally absurd. I have ADD, but it is a symptom of my autism, not some stand-alone, self-chosen way of being.
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p>Sympathy like yours I don’t need. I’ve struggled all my life to overcome a serious, dibilitating disability, and I certainly don’t appreciate being dismissed as a fraud. I wish it were so simple. Then, I could snap my fingers and make it go away. Please crawl back into your cave.
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p>He wasn’t talking about ADHD. That was someone’s presumption and it was wrong. Look at the link I posted.
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p>Presumptive clap trap. I’ve never even heard of the guy prior to this post. PP said that he mixed up ADD/ADHD with autism and I pointed out, based on the link, there was not a mix-up.
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p>You’ve obviously made up your mind that he, and perhaps me, are unsympathic monsters. Stick with that. Even though the world’s infrequently black and white, it’s easier to believe so. There’s obviously no merit to his words because he’s an idiot and therefore no reason to listen to his words because you know what he’ll say before he says it. He called you a fraud, you personally, by name. Similarly, yeah, I strongly favor the spread of prejudice, nastiness on the airwave. I am legion; I am many.
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p>Or, you can just read what I actually wrote, rather than what you thought I wrote.
I have to say — I thought it was interesting (and, I thought, a good example of rapid fire response).
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p>Anyway….I’ve never heard the show….but it seems like there are some other clips where he essentially supports your position — that the “professionals” are often misguided in their diagnoses.
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p>That doesn’t excuse his inaccuracate and inflammatory remarks, but it’s interesting.
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p>Seems like not just the story of your son (admirable, congrats!), but your line of work, which frequently, to read your comments, is questioning overzealous DSS officials.
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p>I’ve seen this concern first-hand in schools. Many of the “specialists” — who are supposedly “diagnosing” kids — with disabilities are egregiously incompetent.
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p>We get the evaluations from our kids’ former middle schools. They tend to be cut-and-paste “evaluations” from a 25 year old with a masters in psych (technically signed off by the Phd).
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p>There are a number of specialists who diagnose almost any kid who gets evaluated with issues of misbehavior as ADHD.