oh, I forgot we were talking about the guy with the unpronounceable name...I'm going to start with your pm PM.

Camille - the what's his name the minister if I can find his photo - the Szatmari

If I send you the bumper sticker, can you put it on
his limo...or one of his limos...?

I suppose he'd give the tshirt to the limo driver to
polish the limo.

I wonder about a trucker hat? I could photoshop a
photo and put him INTO one of my t-shirts....eh? eh?

don't tell me no...cuz I'm a gonna do it.

:-)

Camille -- Peter Szatmari is next.
--- QT - Michelle Dawson
<qtopic+26-Z9ARL6ftLeGdh@quicktopic.com> wrote:

>
>
< replied-to message removed by QT >

Edited by author 08-03-2004 05:43 AM
Camille, at this point I think it would be more effective to send the Minister one of your "Autism: it's not like you think" t-shirts. Or a bumper sticker, for his limo. It could hardly be *less* effective.

Nice letter to Ujjal Dossanjh. I really hope he responds positively.

Camille

Today Ujjal Dossanjh, the former NDP Premier of British Columbia, was sworn in as Pierre Pettigrew's replacement as Health Minister.

Hello Michelle,
Maybe Pierre Pettigrew, or his replacement, will reply to your letter with the seriousness it deserves, after the Canadian general election.

I hope that the Minister of Health, Pierre Pettigrew, has responded to Mr. Dawson's excellent letter! Please let us know if, and when, he responds.

Michelle,

Your dad's a star.

David

Dear Mr W. K. Dawson,

You wonderful man, sir. You marvellous man, sir.

Many parents would be at a loss as to how to do something like that for their autistic children, but you have shown exactly how to do it. It's called accepting your child as autistic, regardless of his/her age, and accepting that s/he needs some support even as an adult, and that sometimes that support will still mean messy hands (although, in many cases, not involving nappies... although this can sometimes be needed too).

My own father, a somewhat Aspie-ish man himself, suggested that we should not make too much of my daughter's diagnosis when it comes time for her to go to school here. I don't know why he said that: he knows the problems I had in school, and how it affected my quality of life. Both my parents still seem to see it in the old-fashioned way of looking at it: that of an illness needing a cure or treatment, I think.

My wife and I pulled out all the stops for our daughter, because we do not believe that organisations and systems are as caring as they are believed to be, and because of our own very similar experiences in very different countries (I'm from the UK and she is from Finland). Recently, a special education nursery teacher and a social worker took it upon themselves to harrass us, by - ultimately - threatening to take our daughter away from us and put her in care. We hit the roof. I would have happily hit them. We did what the Finnish call "paperisota" (a paper war) with them, and buried them in papers: letters from our supervisor at university (we are both studying at the same place: I shall qualify with an MEd in Special Education: Applied Educational Psychology this year and she will qualify with a Postgraduate Diploma in Special Education: Applied Pedagogics). The story is long, but the point is ( and you reflect it well in your supportive letter to Pettigrew) that the impact of autism isn't what most people like to comfort themselves by thinking that it is: it is in fact what people do to us from their organisational ivory towers. That is what I perceive from your letter, anyway. If I am correct in that understanding, then I thank you for saying this.

And so, Mr Dawson, you excellent man, you... in supporting Michelle, you have validated the experience of the very vast majority of autistics (yes, I'm one, as is the Missus, and our daughter), and you have therefore supported us too. I thank you, then, for supporting Michelle and - can I say - the rest of us too. If only the Kit Weintraubs, Lenny Schafers, Jim Mulicks and other parents of autistic children were like you; I think we could get more things done properly if they were. And I hope that, as I support my daughter, I can do it with the grace and composure that you have done in support of your own.

Sincerely,
David N. Andrews BA-status, AEPiT
Applied Educational PSychologist
Kotka
Finland

Thanks, W. K. Dawson, for adding your views on this whole thing. I am glad when I see parents being supportive in matters like this, as my own parents have been lately.

Michelle,

How wonderful that you have a father of the sort that you do.

I was amazed to see his letter. What great support. I hope Pierre Pettigrew reads it.

oddizm

AH!!!!

AT least it's not a court action then from the ABA-salespeople then.... phew!

I got a message from the FEAT people, and I should point out that, when I asked him for some ideas on how to get in touch with Kit Weintraub, all I got was this: "Mr. Andrews, Please note the "Wisconsin". Or contact ASAT." Not very helpful. Anyway, I've done my (almost) sentence-by-sentence reply to Weintraub. I'll post it sometime.

[Vastaanottaja xxxxxxx
Lähetetty 4.4.2004 21:57:18
Lähettäjä Michael McIntire <xxxxxxxxxx>
Aihe FW: Data posted to form 1 of http://www.feat.org/contact.htm
David, I submit that you have mistaken this organization for someone else.
FEAT does not have a Kit Weintraub on it's board. You may be referring to
another organization. Please keep in mind that all FEAT organizationas are
entirely independent. FEAT is neither a membership organization, nor is it a
parent child organization such as the ASA. FEAT has no relationship with
ASAT, and does not endorse or condone it's policies or actions.

In the future, please take greater care to refrain from slandering an
organization in this manner.

Michael McIntire

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, April 04, 2004 9:06 AM
To: xxxxxxx
Subject: Data posted to form 1 of http://www.feat.org/contact.htm

****************************************************************************
***
B1: Send Email
UserTo: Board: xxxxxxxxxxx
UserEmail: xxxxxxxxx
UserSubject: well, well, well....

UserMessage:

Firstly, I looked again at the board-member's name: it is Kit Weintraub, not
Kim.

Secondly.... I checked out more of the ASAT site, and it was interesting to
see that the FEAT video is being marketed intensively there. So I got to
thinking... what to they say about other approaches to autism.


I checked out the bits on various other approaches and found that - of all
the approaches - only the behaviourism-based approaches were favoured, and
all the others were found "flawed": only the behaviouristic interventions
got through the scrutineers' grasp with anything like a totally positive
review.


And yet ALL the properly conducted reviews of the literature in this field
suggest that no one method is more effective that the others.


I have to conclude for myself that ASAT is not an Association for Science in
Autism Treatment, but maybe should be called ABAT... since it cannot see
past behaviourism as anything scientific.


I think that there is a link between the ASAT organisation and the FEAT
organisation, and that - since it came from a FEAT board-member - Kit
Weintraub's article forming a very nasty personal attack on Michelle Dawson
was "allowed through" purely because of this link.


It seems that a number of people find the ASAT and FEAT perspectives rather
"nauseating and machiavellian" but my point in this mail follows:


If FEAT and ASAT want to find anything like a good review in the journal
that _I_ work with, I shall be expecting to see Michelle Dawson's reply to
Kit Weintraub's personal attack and character defamation within the next few
weeks appearing either on the FEAT pages or on the ASAT pages, or on both.
In any case, it will find its way onto _my_ site, as will a sentence by
sentence analysis of Kit Weintraub's article, telling how it is wrong, why
it is wrong and making sure that the public are made aware of the tactics
that FEAT and ASAT between yourselves are prepared to stoop down far enough
to do in order to cause upset.


I cannot see FEAT or ASAT as anything but the most unprofessional and
unethical organisations dealing with autism. Even Lovaas didn't stoop to
your levels.

David N. Andrews BA-status, AEPiT
Applied Educational Psychologist
Kotka
Finland
http://dna1fi.tripod.com/intropage/]

It (along with, presumably, many other sites) is crashed at the server level. The company is working on fixing it. It will be back whenever they do, which will probably be sometime after it becomes a weekday again.

Amanda....

what's happened to autistics.org?????

:(

Hi Amanda,

>Years ago, I sent a letter to my senator telling her I was not in support of a pro-cure rally going on in Washington.

*I am considering doing something like this with the Finnish parliament, such as we have one here.... They are very much into the homegrwon "AKIVA" project and similar things which we have here: watered down versions of misinterpretations of the work done in other countries.

>Her response? "Thank you for your support of the rally in Washington..."

*If I should expect a shite responnse like that one, though... I don't think I'll bother: it's obvious that the vast majority of politicians don't listen.

>I knew I should expect a form letter, but a *form letter putting me on the wrong side*? I think that's what this "sympathy" stuff is too.

*That sucks, really. Just no capacity in these people to accept an idea that doesn't conform to their idea of what should be. Sad, and infuriating too, I think.

Years ago, I sent a letter to my senator telling her I was not in support of a pro-cure rally going on in Washington.

Her response? "Thank you for your support of the rally in Washington..."

I knew I should expect a form letter, but a *form letter putting me on the wrong side*? I think that's what this "sympathy" stuff is too.