Hi Michelle,

I think by "more severe manifestations" the NAS mean "low functioning autism".

Thank you for your compliment snd good wishes for Autscape. I will let you know how I get on there.

Edited by author 07-22-2005 08:22 AM
Hi Michelle-

Well UOP is a stretch but is real: Urinary Organic Profiling
http://www.autisme.net/urinary-uk.html

Michelle worte: "Maybe something only understood by administrators...? "

Ha! ha!Don't make me impose my 'sarcasm intervention' on you!

re /m2238 , I meant /m2234 (Mike's message), not /m2233. Sorry.

Hi Philip,

The AS article now looks entirely over my head (the book you mention is *definitely* over my head). The authors of the article are well into abstractions, which are fine if you have the luxury. I could maybe understand abstractions at that rarified academic level--or maybe not--but I just don't have much time for them.

From your further description, the authors are being good behaviourists: their arguments deny that cognition exists. They work entirely in the realm of observable behaviour. It is at that level that you can make social construction arguments. I think this is a false avenue, though I'm sure it's a popular one (as well as being rhetorically correct, or academically compelling, or something of the like).

I noticed the NAS position re the advertised future autism gene test: "If the genes responsible could be identified the possibility of new types of treatment and preventing the more severe manifestations of the disorder becomes stronger."

I think it's time that Those In Charge of the "autism community" define what they mean by "more severe manifestations". So we know who they believe should be around, and who shouldn't. And so we know what science they're invoking and what ethics.

I do really envy you going to Autscape. I also admire your courage in deciding to go, regardless of knowing it may be very difficult and stressful. I wish you well, and I will be very interested to know how it goes.

Mike (or anyone), re /m2233, what on earth is UOP? Is it yet another treatment/intervention/protocol...? Is it an obscure editorial remark...? Maybe something only understood by administrators...? A typo...? Or did I miss the boat (always possible...)?

Edited by author 07-22-2005 01:50 AM
Ralph wrote:

> Re the "Sex I.D." test, I scored 50 on the male side. Zoomed through the 'most difficult' part, 3D shapes, scoring 12 out of 12. <

Interesting, that was the one I thought was most difficult, and I only got 7 out of 12 on it. I got 19 of 20 on the angles test, and they said that was very male. Got 79% right on "spot the difference". When I clasped my hands, the left thumb was on top, verifying what I *always* knew, that I'm right-brained. Then I deliberately clasped them with the right thumb on top, and it just felt *so wrong*!!!

I got 15 out of 20 on empathizing, and 9 out of 10 on eyes, (judging people's emotions), and only 10 out of 20 on sytemizing. I guess that's why they gave me a 50 on the female side. On the last one, the ultimatum, I asked for exactly half, which I thought was only fair.

Edited by author 07-21-2005 09:20 AM
Here is a news story "'Gene test' for autism in sight" - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4697057.stm.

When I visited my mother yesterday I gave her the information about Autscape to read which I had downloaded from their website - http://www.autscape.org. She was very impressed with it, and thought it was a very good idea and well organised.

She doesn't think that I am really autistic, but that I have autistic behaviours. But I don't know what she means by autistic.

It is only five days until I go to Autscape - this time next week will be my second full day there - and it is becoming real to me. I am really looking forward to it, though with some apprehension and trepidation. It will be a completely new experience for me.

I was told at the Job Centre this morning that my interview with a member of the Disability Team will most likely be within a month.

On Thursday 21 July 2005 05:51, QT - Mike wrote:

> Here's something to sneeze at:
> http://home.san.rr.com/autismnet/rollcall.html

I saw a video of some of the people said to be recovered. Some of them were stimming a lot, many were recognizably autistic. But they said "If you saw this child on the street you would not think 'autistic'." And I kept thinking, "On what planet???"

Here's something to sneeze at: http://home.san.rr.com/autismnet/rollcall.html

A list of kids "recovered" from Autism.

Here's something alittle more honest:

Alienated
Underestimated
Trustworthy
Independent
Segregated
Misunderstood

_____

ABA
UOP
TEACHH
IBI
SCERTS
Mindgames

Edited by author 07-21-2005 06:48 AM
Hi Michelle,

I have read the AS article in Disability and Society again. The authors do not give any reason why they chose AS.

They state that the inclusion of AS in the DSMIV is "as if AS always existed in the world" until it was discovered and its exact characteristics defined in the DSMIV. But there have always been AS people. They contend that most professional literature on AS is unwilling "to confront the fundamental philosophical question posed by the development of the category of AS. Does AS define a condition that exists 'out there' in a reality that is beyond language and the network of social and political forces involved in the process of defining normal and behaviour."

Is there a reality beyond language? Concepts such as beauty, goodness etc cannot be completely comprehended by language; there is something about them which is beyond words. Intense transcendental religious/spiritual/mystical/emotional experiences cannot be adequately described by words. But AS is not "in a reality beyond language". This reminds me of the secret of Life, The Universe, And Everything revealed in 'The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy'. It is 42. The secret of AS and autism is 34693.( I closed my eyes and pressed the number keys on the keyboard I am now typing on.) But AS people have described their experience in their own words.

The authors contend that "AS is never simply located within the individual. No gene or discovery of different neurological 'wiring' arrangements will wholly explain AS."

They ask if there is a spectrum of socially normal behaviour, and that failure to fit into it is an impairment. They argue that a child's perseveration on a particular subject, while it may be annoying to people who have listen to him or her talking about it, is not in itself a disability if he or she becomes a world expert on that topic.

I agree that labelling of children is not a problem for them, but other people's prejudice and low expectations of them. The negative prism through which a labelled child is viewed is in the eyes of those doing the viewing.

And mine too, Ythanya. Nice 'meeting' you (in IRC). Glad to see you here. :)

Hi Ythanya,

Here is my welcome to those of Michelle and Mike.

Edited by author 07-21-2005 02:37 AM
Re the "Sex I.D." test, I scored 50 on the male side. Zoomed through the 'most difficult' part, 3D shapes, scoring 12 out of 12. I disagree with their findings/suggestion about mathematics, engineering and science (stuff that others who can do what I do are good at) because I *suck* at all of these. Or maybe this has more to do with having the wrong 'interface'? I mean, this brings back memories of 'zooming' through the "mechanical aptitude" section of the Canadian Standards Test (or whatever its proper name is). I wondered how I'd gotten all the way through high school without consciously recognizing and deliberately employing this ability.

Hi Ythanya,

Thanks for your response, and for all the links: good, bad, and ugly.

I had only vaguely noticed that the secretin meta-study was Australian. Good for Dr Williams, particularly for noticing that many available approaches to autism are “invasive, time consuming and expensive, and there is little known about their potential to do harm”. And for noticing the vice-like attachment some parents develop to treatments which don't have any benefit (by any standards) at all.

I agree that Dr Young's program--if it resembles the program described in the links you provide--merits concern. I hardly know where to start.

"Everything that occurs during a therapy session should be on the therapist's terms. In order to maintain the child's compliance, the therapist must show the child that they are in control of the sessions at all times."

Yes. It would be positively fatal for a therapist to learn from an autistic. Also:

"Position yourself with the child so that you are in control. Make sure that you are in a position where you can catch the child quickly if they try to run away. If you can catch the child before they get too far away from the chair it is fairly easy to get them back, whereas if they get all the way across the room before you get to them it can be very difficult to bring them back to the table."

This is after it is claimed that:

"These skills will be taught within an incidental framework, where the opportunities to teach the behaviours being targeted are contrived within a play situation. This approach not only facilitates the generalisation of learned behaviours, but also makes the therapy more appealing for the children."

Which explains why they are running away. Geez, who wouldn't enjoy being completely compliant to a person barking out rapid commands with a louder-than-normal authoritative voice (as recommended)?

I have *never* before seen "Boredom" as an intervention method, as in:

"If the child is engaging in subtle forms of non-compliant behaviour, particularly if it is primarily to get a reaction, boredom may be an appropriate intervention. Boredom involves remaining emotionally neutral and avoiding eye contact whilst the child is being non-compliant, to ensure that the child is not being reinforced for their inappropriate behaviour. Continue to work through the trails, using physical prompts when necessary, until compliance is regained."

It's too bad John (our resident behaviour analyst) is off in the wilderness for the summer. I think he would have a few things to say about this program.

I also noticed this group has made up their own diagnostic instrument, Flinders Observation Schedule of Pre-verbal Autistic Characteristics (FOSPAC-R), for which many claims are made. If they have actually done any science on this instrument, it has not shown up on Medline yet (perhaps it is in press somewhere?). Their description of autism unsurprisingly consists of an entirely Lovaas-inspired list of behavioural excesses and deficits.

What a lovely bunch. No wonder they're so popular <snorts>.

As for adult services, I have little access to anything because the local autism society is ... uh... not okay? Rotten to the core? Hazardous to your health? My last contact with them involved being laughed at because I was too stupid to understand my own diagnosis, etc, and generally being treated like either a disobedient child or a black person in another era sitting in the wrong part of the bus. I failed to display the proper deference to my superiors, etc.

I am entitled to services in another sense. I qualified easily once someone finally decided to stop berating me for being stupid (them, too) and realized I wasn't kidding--because of my very obvious self-care problems and my tendency to lurch from crisis to crisis. But it took me more than eight years to get services. And I'm pretty much too scared to ask for the help I need. As I've written elsewhere, I tend to get told that I don't need what I say I need. I then panic and go away.

This is a positive link i think, http://www.hbns.org/news/autism07-19-05.cfm

Apparently attempts to erase the lives of institutionalized people do not stop when they are dead. See http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Art...al/?query=graveyard

Excerpt:

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The project is not simply a case of tending to a few neglected plots, but involves recovering the history of an entire graveyard that was all but wiped from British Columbia's memory in 1977, when the province authorized the removal of 3,000 headstones.

The stones had marked the graves of former inmates of the Woodlands Institution, a notorious asylum on scenic, wooded lands that slope down to the Fraser River in New Westminster that became known as the "prison for the insane" shortly after it opened in 1878.

It was B.C.'s main facility for people with mental disabilities until it was closed in 1996. The property has been sold to private developers who are building condominiums at various locations on the site.

"What happened," explains Ms. Feindel, a spokesperson for the BC Association for Community Living, "is that when Queen's Park Hospital was built next to the graveyard [in 1976] somebody decided that the elderly patients would be disturbed by looking out at headstones. So they tried to erase the graveyard."

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