(Untitled)

[gallian]

People with autism are still people, damn it!

I almost felt betrayed, like I didn't know this child standing in front of me. Everything I thought was cute was a sign of autism and I felt tricked. I guess the doctor sensed this from me because he turned my head back toward him and said, "He is still the same boy you came in here with

Comments

[q10]

i've only been following this story from a distance, but i've also found it pretty disgusting. from they way they talk, you'd think that everybody expects her to be knighted for not stuffing him in a sack and drowning him. gods forbid we should be expected to keep loving our children when they don't turn out exactly as we'd planned.

autism

[mcewen]

Sounds like a pretty good combination to me! [ spec ed teacher and idealist, that is to say]
Cheers
http://whittereronautism.com

[flammifera]

That's a really bizarre column! She starts out with the paragraphs you quote, then she ends with ...simply loving your child for being the perfect little spirit he or she is.

Bzuh?!

[gallian]

see my response to seishonagon below.

[flammifera]

Right. She definitely seems to be urging other parents to get to the same point of communication in order to accept the child as she's accepted hers.

[nightengalesknd]

My rotation director for development (a developmental psychologist) has me reading Catherine Maurice and other pro-ABA stuff. The book I've nearly finished (no, my rotation doesn't start until NEXT Monday, why do you ask?) is all about "recovering" children from autism.

If I ever actually make it to developmental clinic and see the team in action(another long story), it seems you and I are a-gonna have a lot to talk about.

I think the basic problem here is that you and I feel that children have autism, and this mom things autism has her otherwise non-autistic child.

And I would argue you aren't an idealist. You just care about children as they are, not as the neurotypical police feel they should be. Which is precicely the trait I'd look for in a special ed teacher. . .

[gallian]

Is that Lovaas stuff? And yeah, sounds like fodder for a lot of conversation.

I'm beginning to wonder if there *is* a difference between being an idealist an caring for children with disabilities as they are. In this culture I'm not sure there is. Maybe that says more than I ever could.

[nightengalesknd]

It is and isn't Lovaas stuff. Did you know you can't call what you are doing the Lovaas method unless you are trained by Lovaas, or someone who was trained by Lovaas, or someone who was trained by someone who was trained by. . . ?

It's all rather Freudian, no?

So Catherine Maurice, who has apparently (not done with book yet) "recovered" her two youngest children from autism using ABA, but I don't know if I can strictly call it by Lovaas. But the Lovaas people did send out consultants a couple of times, so I'd say Lovaas-flavoured?

I think the idealism isn't from caring for children with disabilities as they are, but in thinking some day other professionals and the establishment may join us in so believing.

[gallian]

I think the idealism isn't from caring for children with disabilities as they are, but in thinking some day other professionals and the establishment may join us in so believing.

I think you've hit the nail quite squarely on the head there.

[seishonagon]

I hate parents sometimes. I've dealt with parents who are like this, some more toxically so than others

[gallian]

I'm fully aware of and understand the grieving process involved in having a child diagnosed with a severe developmental (or any kind of) disability.

However, the fact that she has allied herself so strongly with the DAN (Defeat Autism Now!) movement tells me something about her current views on autism and how it affects her child.

She can write that end of that paragraph because she's reached the acceptance stage of the grieving process, not because she's reached the acceptance stage of autism/her child (I would argue the same thing.) I'm not sure, from her tone/other things I've read that she'd be able to say the same if her child hadn't made the progress he had; if he hadn't become "fully communicative" and able to "explain" why he flaps etc.

[seishonagon]

That's exactly what I was trying to say, only you said it better. :)
I was posting mostly for the benefit of the non-special-ed-fluent.

[gallian]

occasionally my psych major background actually proves useful :) (Stages of Grief)

And the day that you and I have an argument/discussion/conversation that *isn't* restating each others points in drastically different language/terminologies, I shall likely fall down from the shock of it all. :P