View Single Post
Old 06-12-2007, 01:55 PM   #5 (permalink)
Blaspheme
Tilted
 
Location: Oregon, USA
This kind of article really makes me cringe. Stories like this are usually published with "the best of intentions" and yet they convey a very extreme picture of Autism that doesn't accurately describe a large percentage of the children suffering from the disorder. In fact, the current terminology favored by professionals is not "Autism" but rather "Autism Spectrum Disorder" because the potential symptoms are so widely varied that they cover an entire spectrum of behaviors. People suffering from an Autism Spectrum Disorder aren't all physically dangerous poo-flinging problems that need institutional care, sadly these kind of articles tend to reinforce that picture.

You see, I have two children, boys of 6 and 8. Both of them have been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Neither of them is violent, they don't break things or fling excrement. My eldest is a video game fanatic, he was beating the "Super Mario" games on the SNES at the age of 5. Currently he's hooked on playing Black & White 2 on the PC I just built them. He just finished the school year where he spends most of his day unassisted in a "normal" classroom and he achieved high marks in the AR reading program and mathematics. My younger boy is a Lego fanatic and regularly builds entire fleets of spacecraft so he can run around the house re-enacting his favorite battles from the Star Wars movies. In his own words, he prefers "Dark Side" and I can only hope he'll agree to let old Dad help rule the universe when he takes over.

The problem both of them share is in spoken language. Neither of my boys really started speaking until around age 4, and at that point their vocabulary and usage were closer to what you'd expect of a 2 year old. Both of them are quite intelligent, even rating somewhat above average on tests that ignore the linguistic components, but for some reason their brain just isn't wired to comprehend language in the same way as most people. With education and therapy my 8 year old speaks in a manner that is nearly indistinguishable from his classmates and friends. My 6 year old's progress is somewhat behind where his big brother's was at the same age but not so severely that there's not every reason to believe he'll achieve just as highly with time. One interesting hallmark of Autism Spectrum though, is that neither of them can understand sarcasm and they will interpret what is said to them as literal with no ability to understand the cues that let the rest of us interpret the meaning correctly.

Oh my, I am getting long winded. I'd just like to make people aware that news articles like this just don't tell the whole story. It's so much harder for those of us spending our lives with Autism Spectrum when the mention of it conjures such extreme images in the mind of the average person. It's a prejudice that's hard to overcome, and kids like mine have enough strikes against them without dealing with pre-conceived bias. Perhaps someday the popular articles will convey a more balanced image, but I'm not holding my breath on that issue because "train wrecks" tend to draw more viewers than more moderate stories.
__________________
Faith: not wanting to know what is true.
~Friedrich Nietzsche
Blaspheme is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360