Hi Dave123,

If you want to post on a busier board (this one only gets a few posts a month), try http://www.quicktopic.com/27/H/vJvhV4fDnBgw7

Maybe you can show me all the peer-reviewed adult follow-up studies of autistics who had early ABA/IBI. I still haven't found one. There isn't even one follow-up into school years of an early ABA/IBI program that isn't aversive-dependent.

So I wonder where the assumption comes from, that if only an autistic learns the "right" skills in the "right" way at the "right" time, then all will be well. In this case "right" means "right" for a non-autistic.

I don't know very much at all about ABA/IBI for non-autistics, by the way, except for ABA/IBI for Rett's girls, and for children "at risk" of non-heterosexual development.

I haven't been in an ABA/IBI program, though some of the behaviour analysts and ABA promoters I spoke with attempted to use their skills to alter my behaviour (I wondered sometimes if they were taking data). And clearly, some behaviour analysts and ABA promoters have deployed their beliefs about human behaviour in trying to make it very aversive for anyone to criticize ABA in any way. That is sort of the opposite of science (science requires and welcomes criticism). I believe this is called "irony".

Edited by author 06-06-2006 09:27 AM
In the hypothetical situation that Dave123 and Michelle were to meet halfway for coffee, then Winnipeg is the city nearest to halfway in a straight line between Montreal and Vancouver(I don't know if Dave123 lives in Vancouver, but I chose that city beacause it's the biggest in BC). The actual halfway point is somewhere between Winnipeg and Lake Manitoba.

I wouldn't ask anyone to meet me for coffee, because I don't drink coffee, and I wouldn't assume that the person I want to meet drinks coffee.

Thankyou Phillip.... In general and in my experience the term "meeting for coffee" is used very loosely and implies a "casual" meeting in the community at a local cafe. It has been my expereience that one can drink green tea, H20 or whatever else your "Jones" is about at such a meeting.

I hope to be out in Montreal in the fall (yuck). I suspect that Michelle and I won't be "meeting for coffee" (or beverage of choice) though.

d123

Edited by author 07-04-2006 09:56 AM
Message on the FEATBC Discussion Group: http://www.featbc.org/cgi-local/forum/discus.cgi - Discussions on Government Topics dated June 28 2006 - that in the previous week the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal ruled that autistic children - whose provincially funded therapy stops at age six - are now free to proceed with the argument that the Ontario Provincial government is discriminating against them on the basis of age.

Hi everyone :)

I very much enjoyed reading Michelle's writings regarding the Auton case. Though I work with an autistic teenage girl, I have very much still to learn about autism. I certainly will think about things differently after having gotten a taste of the world from your perspective. I'm sure there are many more things here I ought to read before asking any questions (to keep from asking questions that have already been answered...), but there is one thing I read that I want to ask you all about...please forgive me if you've addressed this 10 million times already...perhaps you could point me to a URL if you don't have time/desire to reply...

So, Lucas wrote this: "You're making assumptions about us, you don't know when any of us started talking. A consistent scenario though is that Autistic children DO communicate what is the matter and what they want but are ignored because they are doing it 'wrong'." (in a message a while back). So here's where I'm at... To a certain degree, I get what you all (Michelle, Lucas, etc.) are saying about liking being who you are, the way you are, but in the vein of what Liz was trying to communicate (and I thought autistic people were supposed to be the ones with communication difficulties and a lack of social skills--sheesh!!), what *are* parents supposed to do? If they love their children dearly and want only the best for them but cannot understand their children, cannot communicate effectively, cannot get across the most basic ideas, which is resulting in tons of frustration on both sides, what are they supposed to do if not try to get their children to be able to communicate in a way that the other 99% of the world can understand?

The girl I work with, Trami, maybe sometimes I'm overly picky with trying to get her to use proper grammar, because even neurotypical people butcher the English language on a daily basis (actually I mostly want for her to do simple things like use verbs in her sentences, but sometimes I'm pickier than others), but what about the fact that she clearly has so much she wants to express but CANNOT express it, because we can't understand her and she can't use language well enough to express even simple ideas sometimes, much less complex ones? *She* is frustrated at her inability to express her ideas, desires, thoughts etc. Sometimes she's more frustrated than others (sometimes she's blithely content in her own little world, laughing for no apparent reason, thinking about Grover and the lamppost (Grover said "I hate lamppost") or Tigger chasing Rabbit or some thing that I don't even know what it is and she can't tell me, or asking me if she may "say hi to babies" or if "tomorrow is a Kumon and before workout fitness", or telling me thank you for no reason and how she wants to kiss me on the cheek), but sometimes she cries for hours, and she can't even tell us why... Sometimes she's so frustrated, so sad, so angry... it just breaks your heart.

Unlike you, she cannot tell us very much at all of what she really wants, thinks, feels, believes; she can't tell us what it's like to be her, what the world looks like through her eyes; heck, she can't even tell me what she did at school or whether she's done something or not or where something is! I can only glean little bits here and there, guess that "May I grow up and be an adult" is an expression of her frustration at being told what to do, at not getting what she wants, even at being autistic in so far as it means that she can't communicate or understand, even though she does not actually know that she's autistic, but she knows that she's frustrated and that many things are hard for her... I can have these little epiphanies about how "Don't kill me anymore!" perhaps actually means that she is afraid of dying and needs to be reassured that she's healthy and safe, but those are relatively few and far between...

Of course I certainly wouldn't want to see her hurt or scared or electric shocked (how barbaric--that man ought to be shocked himself until he repents of all the suffering he's caused!), and her parents would never allow anything like that, but if any of us--and I cannot know but I can reasonably assume Trami herself included--could magically make her "not autistic", how could we hesitate for an instant? It does seem to me that a person with so much to contribute to the world is "trapped" behind a "wall" of autism... And that's not a wall caused just by unreasonable societal expectations (though it is a part, because we would all prefer that she not be stigmatized, left out, seen as "weird", etc.), but it's a wall largely caused by her inability to communicate with the rest of the world... When we're trying desperately to understand what she's saying, what's upsetting her, what she really wants, we're certainly not intentionally ignoring her or something because she's "doing it wrong", but we are only human, we can only do our best, and if we cannot understand, we cannot understand.

It is hard for me to imagine how someone as articulate and functional as Michelle can represent even Trami, who's in the middle, much less the mute child smearing poo on the walls who won't even look at people and screams at the sight of vacuum cleaners.

My sister is severely disabled. She has cerebral palsy and is also developmentally disabled, has severe learning disabilities, and is legally blind. I have thought quite a bit about the whole issue of whether disabilities are positive/diversity/actually desirable in some sense or negative/a hardship/something to be hopefully eliminated by medical science... What I can say is that my sister has SO MUCH frustration, disappointment, sadness, anger, confusion, etc., and even though she's been working on it with my mom and this great therapist, there's still so much... all the things she can't do... the feelings and desires and needs and ideas she has that she can't even fully understand much less express to others... If SHE could choose to be magically "cured" tomorrow, there is no question whatsoever that she would embrace the chance wholeheartedly. She would choose to walk, to feed herself, to read, to speak clearly, to be able to make sense of her own feelings and fears, to be able to do things by herself, to be able to have a job, have a family, make her own decisions, live on her own. She would choose not to be disabled, to be "normal", to be able to do what "everyone else" can do.

I've thought that perhaps the whole idea that disabilities make our world a richer, more diverse place, and how sad it would be if there were no longer these wonderful "special" people with their unique contributions and perspectives is really just a happy little delusional idea non-disabled people promote to make ourselves feel better... Because what wheelchair-bound person does not want to walk? What blind person does not want to see? What dyslexic person does not want to be able to read and learn with ease? What person with Asperger's does not want to be able to understand other people and interact with ease?

Are there perhaps certain things--like the very (very) high-functioning autism Michelle represents that is accompanied by augmented abilities to understand objects or systems or patterns or details others miss, and perhaps other things like maybe ADD (which I have, and which some people say is just a "different way of being" that can be positive, but which has so far caused immeasurable distress, suffering, loneliness and lost potential in my life), or maybe some forms of mental illness that are part of some brilliant peoples' creativity, maybe certain "learning differences" that co-exist with great potential in a certain area--certain conditions that we can reasonably call "differences" and see as somehow desirable...? Perhaps... But the paralyzed person, the person with MS, the paranoid, delusional person trapped in a world of disturbing unreality, the person losing her sight and entering into a world of darkness, the person who cannot use the toilet, read a book, watch a movie, take a walk, hug her family, hear his grandchildren, understand the rules of the game so he can play with the other kids, understand why people don't want to play with her, feed her own self, be what she wants to be (or really anything at ALL) when she grows up... Do these people have a desirable "difference" or in fact a difficult, challenging limitation(s)?

Are those parents whose children don't speak, don't interact, don't use the toilet, don't pay attention to the world around them, don't read or write, don't keep themselves clean, can't tolerate sounds or lights or touches, who have tantrums in public, who hit people, pull out their own hair, hug strangers, ask their classmates to marry them, won't eat anything that's not white, take off their clothes in public, talk to total strangers about their favorite video game, smear feces on walls, flush objects down toilets, sit and yell and pound on the floor, run out into the street, become hysterical if something changes, repeat the same things over and over and over, and/or sit in the corner and play with strings... those parents whose kids will clearly *not* ever be able to live on their own, have a career, have a family, have anything remotely related to a "normal" life, who will have to be cared for by either family or others for the rest of their lives, who will not be able to go anywhere without supervision, are these parents wrong to want to do something, anything to help their kids be more "normal", more functional, more competent, more able...? Of course no one should try to make you into something you're not, Michelle, and people should try to respect your particular needs as much as possible, but you obviously have many basic functioning and living skills; you can communicate brilliantly; I'm guessing you're employed; I'm guessing you don't run naked into the street uttering unintelligible nonsense, don't sit in the corner all day staring at your feet, don't ask your neighbors to marry you. You're obviously highly, highly intelligent. The "mad" genius, the eccentric artistic virtuoso, the Einstein who can't learn to read in elementary school, the Jack Nicholson character in "As Good As It Gets" who writes novels, the Steven Hawkings, Ray Charleses, Walt Disneys and Ernest Hemmingways, these folks are brilliant enough, talented enough to be sucessful despite their disabilities. Temple Grandin's autism may help her be who and what she is, give her a rare perspective on the world, of animals, and that's great, terrific, awesome, but most of those "ABA parents'" kids are *not* going to be Temple Grandin. They are of low or low average or average intelligence, they don't have some genius special talent, and if they can't fit in at all or operate in the world or communicate or keep from getting hurt or taken advantage of or swindled or raped, what kind of life are they going to have? If a person is not very smart or very talented but at least has good social skills, he or she can probably get by in the world, but if you lack even the most rudimentary social skills, what is realistically going to happen to you? Many autistic and/or developmentally disabled adults *do* live in group homes, and some of those are not great places to be, and who wants that to be their baby when he or she grows up?

OK, so I've babbled and ranted and I've been up most of the night, so I'll close this now, and please forgive me for any lack of coherence. I'm very interested to know your perspective on these things, you being Michelle and any of the rest of you who are autistic. Oh, but I did want to say, don't get me wrong, I'm all for being positive, focusing on people's strengths and what they *can* do, learning from life's challenges, encouraging people to embrace diversity and different ways of being/doing/communicating/etc., loving people for who they are, seeing the good qualities in people, but all of this doesn't change the fact that by and large disabilities are limitations, and sometimes they're very big limitations, and what parent doesn't want their child to get everything possible out of life, and what person doesn't want to have fewer limitations and more abilities? My sister sure does, I know that. And Trami, she wants to have a boyfriend, drive a car, do things by herself, not have to struggle to learn and communicate, hang out with kids her age, go to college, have a career, be independent...I've come to believe that her oft-repeated plea of "May I grow up and be an adult" is ultimately an expression of an idea that when she becomes an adult the difficulties, restrictions, limitations, and frustrations will somehow disappear, that she will then finally be able to have all the things she wants, and it breaks my heart to know that becoming an adult will not magically make her not autistic (although she doesn't even know she is autistic, but I have this feeling that in her mind she associates the limitations of her disability with childhood, with being a child), and I'm not even her parent, just her caregiver. Her mom and dad would sell their souls, pay all the money they have, give the shirts off their backs if they could make her "normal", and it's not because they don't want her to be the unique, special, wonderful, sweet girl she is; it's because they want her not to have to be disabled. And I certainly can't fault them for that.

On Friday 14 July 2006 09:57, QT - Madeline wrote:

> I've thought that perhaps the whole idea that disabilities make
> our world a richer, more diverse place, and how sad it would be
> if there were no longer these wonderful "special" people with
> their unique contributions and perspectives is really just a
> happy little delusional idea non-disabled people promote to make
> ourselves feel better... Because what wheelchair-bound person
> does not want to walk? What blind person does not want to see?
> What dyslexic person does not want to be able to read and learn
> with ease? What person with Asperger's does not want to be able
> to understand other people and interact with ease?

That you honestly think all people with any of those things just "obviously" want to do them shows a lack of understanding of the experience of being disabled.

> Are those parents whose children don't speak, don't interact,
> don't use the toilet, don't pay attention to the world around
> them, don't read or write, don't keep themselves clean, can't
> tolerate sounds or lights or touches, who have tantrums in
> public, who hit people, pull out their own hair, hug strangers,
> ask their classmates to marry them, won't eat anything that's
> not white, take off their clothes in public, talk to total
> strangers about their favorite video game, smear feces on walls,
> flush objects down toilets, sit and yell and pound on the floor,
> run out into the street, become hysterical if something changes,
> repeat the same things over and over and over, and/or sit in the
> corner and play with strings... those parents whose kids will
> clearly *not* ever be able to live on their own, have a career,
> have a family, have anything remotely related to a "normal"
> life, who will have to be cared for by either family or others
> for the rest of their lives, who will not be able to go anywhere
> without supervision, are these parents wrong to want to do
> something, anything to help their kids be more "normal", more
> functional, more competent, more able...?

My brother was many of those things (including apparently feces-smearing -- which by the way non-disabled kids often do too) as a child, and is now employed in the computer industry, lives in his own apartment, and identifies as Asperger's. How on earth can you (or anyone else) say this "will never" crap when you're so ignorant of the ways in which autistic development does not show the same patterns as non-autistic development?

> Of course no one
> should try to make you into something you're not, Michelle, and
> people should try to respect your particular needs as much as
> possible, but you obviously have many basic functioning and
> living skills; you can communicate brilliantly; I'm guessing
> you're employed; I'm guessing you don't run naked into the
> street uttering unintelligible nonsense, don't sit in the corner
> all day staring at your feet, don't ask your neighbors to marry
> you.

Maybe you ought not to guess about these things but ought instead to learn about the uneven skills involved in autistic people. I've done all of the above except ask my neighbors to marry me.

> Many autistic and/or developmentally disabled adults
> *do* live in group homes, and some of those are not great places
> to be, and who wants that to be their baby when he or she grows
> up?

Then fight to replace them with something better. Stop blaming people's disabilities for a broken system.

I'm sorry, but your entire post is a testament to lack of some very basic knowledge in several areas (from autism to the experience of most disabled people to the political realities of things like institutionalization and unemployment), which you utter as if it's the unquestionable "obvious" truth and then expect everyone else to somehow be persuaded by.

By the way, please read http://www.gettingthetruthout.org/ from beginning to end and then get back to us.

Edited by author 07-18-2006 09:52 AM
Well, I'm still waiting for Madeline to finish reading http://www.gettingthetruthout.org and get back to us.

I don't have much to add to what Amanda wrote. In case anyone is wondering, I've never met Madeline. I don't know who she is. Her assumptions about me are based on her own personal prejudices, or for all I know, on other people's, and not on any factual knowledge. Little does she know (except I stare at my hands, not my feet). She reminds me of those many people who have publicly said I have no clue about "real" autism because (according to them) I don't self-injure.

She also reminds me of the extent to which community prejudices about autistics, and about how to help autistics, prevail. I hope she knows that her assumptions about autistic people are a series of now-common prejudices. It is as hard for an autistic person (child or adult) to deal with prejudices, ignorance, intolerance, etc, as it is for any other kind of person.

I wonder what Gregor Wolbring would make of Madeline's assumption that no one would want to be like him.

On Tuesday 18 July 2006 09:50, QT - Michelle Dawson wrote:

> She also reminds me of the extent to which community prejudices
> about autistics, and about how to help autistics, prevail. I
> hope she knows that her assumptions about autistic people are a
> series of now-common prejudices. It is as hard for an autistic
> person (child or adult) to deal with prejudices, ignorance,
> intolerance, etc, as it is for any other kind of person.

It can also be very difficult to explain that the value we see in being autistic is not because of the ideas that non-disabled people use to give *themselves* various stupid warm fuzzy feelings (which are generally very ableist ideas in themselves, just modified to give some of us a little more value), but because of ideas that autistic and other disabled people have come up with that are based on a totally different foundation.

And that being related to a disabled person doesn't mean "understanding all about it".

Hi all,

Just an update.... my son continues to thrive. He has quickly (smart boy) developed a real proficiency with his PEC system and, as a result, seems less stressed. I think this is related to his ability to express his "wants" in a way that I can understand more easily. We have quickly progressed from single cards to small "sentences"... "I want..." is his favorite card this week. Fantastic!

His self care routine (toileting) also progresses well with many more "voids" in the toilet and LOTS of self intiatied requests to use the toilet via his PECs cards! This also seems to have led him to be less stressed.

He still "stims" like any autisitic... he still plays with his stuff his way... and our ABA program will never target these behaviors.... but ABA has served to provide a more effective communication program and supports the development of other skills (self care, imitation, play)... we have a much less stressed and frantic son who seems happier and more at ease then prior to starting our ABA program. I know this is not "science" or "objective" but it is "our story".

dave.

It is universal that ABA parents are sure that their autistic child would never have learned anything or communicated or progressed or developed or experienced happiness (or fill in any other positive thing) at all if they were not in an ABA/IBI program. Dave123 is not letting me down in this respect.

Hi Folks,

I sure don't want to be "letting down" Michelle on this issue but...actually... I did not say that he would not learn without an ABA program. He learns many things without the formal explicit sequential instruction present in an ABA progam. "Life" is a natural "teacher". He learns from "living" life just like many others. He learns from his Montessori program... he learns from his swiming lessons... he learns from trial and error... he learns from checking things out (implicitly?)... However, prior to the ABA approach it is pretty evidient that he had NOT developed an effective functional mode of communication on his own or thru a less strucutured approach (ie "Hanen", Natural Language or just hanging out in the mileau of family). He may have done so eventually without the formal explicit instruction inherent to ABA... or not. Regardless, from my perspective he had things to say and no way of saying them so that others could understand them. This was a problem for him and seemed to be stressing him out. The introduction of the PEC program was the catalyst and he has taken off... destination unknown. Exciting times! The explicit instruction has given him a mode of expressing HIS needs, wants, desires and ideas in a manner that others can understand and, he is less frantic and stressed no as a result. I happen to think this is pretty darn cool and exciting and it CONTINUES to develop very quickly... his initial success with PECs a few months ago has really progressed.

Anyway... Aron continues to amaze us both in and out of ABA. Fantastic little fellow. With a bit of luck you might get to talk with him one day and check in with him about how ABA is from his perspctive.


dave.

Edited by author 07-19-2006 04:56 AM
The premise and justification of ABA/IBI in autism is that autistics, unlike non-autistics, are totally unable to learn from the environment, and are only able to learn in ABA programs. There are too many references to list.

This is also the premise and justification of Canada's ABA legal cases, though some of them, like Auton and the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal cases, have the added autism = cancer (or autism = AIDS) dimension. What very different cases like Auton and Wynberg have in common is that massive funding for ABA/IBI for autistic children (but not for other children) is justified on the grounds that autistics can't in any way learn (or communicate, interact, develop, progress, etc) except in ABA/IBI programs.

People who disagree with this have been vilified by Canada's ABA parents. Canada's ABA parents are also now stating loudly that "eclectic" programs like Dave123's are ineffective and wrong and should not be funded.

And an essential aspect of ABA programs, as stated in the published science, is that the Program has to be extended to cover all waking hours of an autistic child. This was one of the differences between the failed ABA program described in Lovaas et al (1973), and the "success" (by the usual standards) of Lovaas (1987).

Canada's Mr ABA himself, Andrew Kavchak, who claims to represent all parents of autistic children in Canada as well as all autistic people, was recently furious that in Quebec, they offer PECS to some autistic kids. His view is that this is appalling. Maybe no one told him that PECS is ABA-based, but Mr Kavchak is considered an expert, so I assume he is fully aware of this and considers PECS to be an unacceptable form of ABA (just like he considers PBS to be an unacceptable form of ABA).

We do have accounts from autistic kids who "succeeded" in ABA programs, e.g., the no-longer-autistic boy who testified in Wynberg. I've written about this elsewhere.

Hello again. :)

My sincere apologies for apparently posting a "hit-and-run" and disappearing. I have many personal difficulties which often keep me from doing things I mean to do... (And speaking of those, I want to say, in reference to what I talk about below, in so far as *I* have any disability/disorder of my own (I have ADD and also struggle with depression and anxiety, which I have done now for many years), I'd be very glad for all of my difficulties to disappear tomorrow (how about yesterday!) and to be quite "normal" with regard to them--I've had just about enough of the whole idea of learning and growing from struggles and challenges--I'd chuck all of my inabilities to cope with the simple tasks of everyday life right out the window in a second given the opportunity.)

I have not managed to return to this page until today, so I have not read the page you recommended, but I will and then reply further.

But I would like to respond to a couple of things now.

First, AM Baggs' response to my series of rhetorical questions ("Because what wheelchair-bound person does not want to walk? What blind person does not want to see? What dyslexic person does not want to be able to read and learn with ease? What person with Asperger's does not want to be able to understand other people and interact with ease?") indicates I'm wrong to believe that disabled people would prefer not to deal with the challenges posed by their disabilities. I'm sorry, but that's something I find very hard to believe.

Are you going to seriously attempt to argue that most blind people would not prefer to see, most people who cannot walk would not prefer to do so, etc.? Because that just flies in the face of common sense and certainly my own experience of life on this planet and I daresay most people's! Am I to believe that the dozens and hundreds of organizations dedicated to finding cures and treatments for diseases and disabling conditions are all some kind of grand conspiracy by the non-disabled to force "normality" on everyone? (And just who is non-disabled anyway? At least by the ends of their lives, the vast, vast majority of people are affected by some sort of disabling problem, condition, disease, etc., and I'm sorry but I just haven't noticed a whole lot of them advocating to maintain their disabilities/diseases and have them not be cured or treated!)

In addition to what I said above about myself, I can speak about people I know... The mother of the girl I work with (Trami) is legally blind due of a degenerative condition, retinitis pigmentosa, and would she hesitate for a minute to have her full sight back? No. As I know I talked about in my first post, my sister is a severely learning disabled, developmentally disabled, legally-blind quadraplegic. Would she hesitate a moment to walk, to see, to read, to learn, to scratch her own ear or head or foot--to do any of the thousands of things she can't do? I can assure you she would not. She laments her limitations daily, sometimes hourly. It's not someone else doing the complaining, and it's not for any lack of being supported, cared for, encouraged, loved, etc., it's because she HATES, and I mean seriously HATES not being able to do what others can do. And who in the world could blame her?

Let's see who else... My mother is increasingly losing her hearing... Would she like to have it back? Yes. My best friend has a congenital problem with her legs/hips/feet that has made it very difficult and painful for her to walk long distances and to exercise. Would she like to see this problem disappear? Yes. And then there's Trami of course... She can't really tell us what she wants, but do I have any doubt that she would prefer not to be autistic? No, I don't. She very clearly wants to have what she sees everyone else having (who doesn't?). She wants to have a boyfriend, drive a car, have friends and go out and do things, have independence, be able to understand things she doesn't understand, learn things she presently is unable to learn, go to college, have a career... Her parents have done everything they can to give her the richest life possible, and certainly compared to what it could be, her life is very full, but it nevertheless remains very limited, both in ways she is aware of and in ways she can't even understand. Would she like us to do whatever we can to help her be able to do more than she can at present? I'd certainly have to say yes!

Well, you've noticed my tendancy to be long-winded... Anyway, I also wanted to ask about what Michelle said:

"She also reminds me of the extent to which community prejudices about autistics, and about how to help autistics, prevail. I hope she knows that her assumptions about autistic people are a series of now-common prejudices."

To which prejudices exactly are you referring? And how do you think autistic people ought to be helped? And most importantly to me personally, how should we help Trami--who is, as far as I can see, so far from you as to be virtually incomparable? How should we help Trami, who can't compose a gramatical sentence to save her life, who hasn't the first clue about most of what is going on around her, who can't have ordinary interactions with strangers because half of what she says is incomprehensible, who can't go out alone because she can't be relied on to look before crossing the street or not to yell and scream in a library or not to pester unwitting strangers with incomprehensible ramblings or worse yet not to get led off to the slaughter by some predator? Should I just let her do all of the "abnormal" things she does without comment or correction? Should I let her go about in some fantasy world in her own head, blithely unaware of the reality around her? Is that in her best interest? I'd like to know, how can I and others who care about her possibly help her without trying to make her be "more normal"? How should we help Trami who--unlike you--could not begin to participate in this very conversation about herself?

OK, well, enough for now. I will read the page you've recommended and get back to you.

Thank you, and I really am interested to know what you have to say about these things, and while my questions may seem to be rhetorical, they're really not.

--Madeline