Edited by author 05-09-2008 10:06 PM
Media reports about actions taken by the Ontario gov't when an 11yr old boy's father decided not to have his son continue in chemotherapy, here http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2008/05/09/cas-chemotherapy.html and here http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national...b-b941-425295ee1e9b

Going by the media stories, this is a situation where the boy would have died without further treatment, and has at least a chance of living if he continues treatment. But it does show the power governments have to impose "medically necessary" treatments on children, including when neither the parent nor the child involved wishes to continue.

A Children's Aid Society official is quoted in the CBC story:

"The fact of the matter is there is provincial legislation in place that states that children must receive the care and treatment they require."

So what happens in the current era of "autism advocacy"--where Canadian jurisprudence (never mind Canada's political leaders) equates autism with cancer and AIDS, and writes off (as less than human and totally doomed) autistics who do not receive unlimited ABA-based interventions starting early in life?

Right now, ABA-based interventions are not necessarily regarded as medically necessary treatment. But it is the goal of Canada's "autism advocates" to change this, such that parents who do not want their autistic children to be in ABA programs may have no choice.

I've written about this problem on TMoB before, and it was part of my Auton intervention.

I've never gotten a genuine answer from "autism advocates." As I've written here before, the only answer at all came from Sabrina Freeman (back in 2003). So far as I could tell, she had never even considered this problem--regardless that she has promoted Lovaas ABA as the only life-saving autism treatment.

Dr Freeman stated that governments would never require autistic children to be in ABA programs, because ABA is so expensive. But so of course can be chemotherapy in hospitals, and bone marrow transplants, etc. And for FEAT and Dr Freeman and Canada's "autism advocates," autism is at least as bad as cancer (and AIDS), if not worse. ABA is without question (to them) a totally effective medically necessary treatment for the devastating disease of autism, and a treatment that (according to them) saves a huge amount of public money.

Edited by author 05-09-2008 12:25 PM
In case anyone wants to know who's in charge of the DSM-V, the work group members (or at least, many or most of them) have been named. See http://www.psych.org/MainMenu/Newsroom/New...Releases/dsmwg.aspx

You can find the "Neurodvelopmental Disorders Work Group," headed by Susan Swedo of the NIMH (who I associate with a serious proposal to chelate healthy--non-heavy-metal-poisoned--autistic children, see the end of this post http://mikestanton.wordpress.com/2006/09/1...es-autism-research/), on page 7.

The DSM-V is supposed to debut in 2012.

from Kathleen - http://neurodiversity.com/weblog/article/156/

Bizarre development in the effort to justify the abusive (quashed) subpoena issued to Kathleen Seidel. This post http://www.newyorkpersonalinjuryattorneybl...-seidel-v-shoemaker has a very clear explanation, asks some very pertinent questions, and includes a link to the motion at issue http://www.newyorkpersonalinjuryattorneyblog.com//SykesMotion.pdf See also http://www.overlawyered.com/2008/05/seidel...oena-aftermath.html

Further to /m7740, see more detailed story http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news...isticboysdeath.html in which Dr Roy Kerry's lawyer denies that the treatment prescribed by Dr Kerry had anything to do with the death of Tariq Nadama. As in:

----------------------------------------------------------- ---------------

Kerry's attorney, Al Lindsay, denied that the drug caused the boy's death. He said Tuesday that the drug given was not the wrong drug, as prosecutors contended, though he said it was not the "preferred" drug. He also said it was not administered incorrectly.

"The administration by an IV push is the preferred method to do it," Lindsay said.

Lindsay said the boy died of lack of oxygen to brain, which was caused by a heart problem not associated with the drug.

----------------------------------------------------------- ---------------

So according to Dr Kerry's lawyer, Dr Kerry can and maybe should go right on administering the same chelating agent in the same way (an IV push) to autistic children (see a bit about what was done to Tariq Nadama here http://mikestanton.wordpress.com/2006/11/2...-quackery-revealed/ ). Unreal. [speechless]

Associated Press story about the death-by-chelation of Tariq Nadama, "Charges dropped in Pa. case of autistic boy given wrong drug" http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5isbJVIP...5A_xWHYx9wD90GBF3O0

No reason is given for the charges being dropped.

Edited by author 05-06-2008 02:00 PM
Summary of 'A Comparison of the Language of Psychotic and Non-Psychotic Children Who Are Mentally Retarded', Morris A. Cunningham, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 9, 229-244 (1968).

In this study 13 British children diagnosed as psychotic were matched with 13 non-psychotic children according to age and mental age. "Children who showed gross neurological signs of brain damage (e.g. spastics)and [Down Syndrome children] were excluded from both groups. The age range was from 5 to 13 years. The psychotic children had a mean age of 9 years 6.4months, and a mean mental age of 5 years 2.8 months. The non-psychotic children had a mean age of 9 years 9.5 months, and a mean mental age of 5 years 5.4 months.

The 13 psychotic children had received the following psychiatric diagnoses: Autistic=3; autistic with severe subnormality=1; psychotic (not autistic)=5; psychotic features=1; schizophrenic=3. They were all regarded as having "schizophrenic syndrome in childhood" as described by Creak et al. (1961). 'Schizophrenic syndrome in childhood. Progress report of a working party.' "Psychotic children whose scores on an intelligence test were average or above average were not included in the sample. Thus, the intention was to compare the language of retarded psychotic children with that of retarded non-psychotic children." All the psychotic children could speak.

Of the psychotic children, 9 were boys and 4 were girls. 12 were living in institutions and one girl was living at home. Of the non-psychotic children, 7 were boys and 6 were girls. 3 were living in an institution and 10 in their own homes.

Method of observation: "A play session was used in which the adult sat with the child for a quarter of an hour, or until the child had made 50 remarks. Standard play material was used[...] The adult responded to the child's speech in a natural way. [...] Four play sessions were held with each child, these sessions being at weekly, or in some cases at rather shorter, intervals."

"An utterance was considered as a separate remark if it was marked off from preceding and succeeding utterances by pauses. However, if two or more sentences, which would be separated by full stops if written, were uttered without a pause, they were counted as separate remarks."

Tne median number of remarks of each type were classified into 14 categories, and expressed as summed scores across the 4 play sessions as follows:

1. Incomprehensible and semi-comprehensible: psychotic=30.25, non-psychotic=8.75

2. Speech not used for ordinary communication: psychotic=54.00, non-psychotic=12.00

2a. Repetition of interviewer: psychotic=7.67, non-psychotic=0.43

2b. Repetition of self: psychotic=16.00, non-psychotic=2.75
 
2c. Action accompaniments: psychotic=2.33, non-psychotic=0.80

2d. Thinking aloud: psychotic=9.00, non-psychotic=3.00

2e. Inappropriate or purposeless: psychotic=7.00, non-psychotic=0.09

3. Emotionally toned remarks (demands and requests): psychotic=29.00, non-pyschotic=4.00

4. Answers: psychotic=28.00, non-psychotic=44.00

5. Questions: psychotic=13.75, non-psychotic=3.67. "Three of the psychotics and five of the non-psychotics asked no questions [..] Two of the psychotics asked a great many questions, but so did one of the non-psychotics." The questions asked by one psychotic child were mostly connected with their "obsessional interest in coins and money." It seems that "children at a higher level of language development tended to ask more questions, whether they were psychotic or not."

6. Volunteering information: psyschotic=34.00, non-psychotic=100.00

7. Complete grammatical sentences used: psychotic=62.00, non-psychotic=76.00

8. Incorrect omissions: psychotic=44.75, non-psychotic=24.00

9. Incomplete, but correct sentences: psychotic=62.00, non-psychotic=98.00.

The mean sentence length used by the psychotic children was 3.10 words, and by the non-psyschotic children was 3.03 words.

"The psychotics used a significantly greater proportion of verbs than the non-psychotics. No significant differences were found for any of the other parts of speech".

"In view of the reported difficulty of psychotic or autistic children with personal pronouns [..] special attention was paid to these. The first 100 words of each of the four interviews were studied in this connection." The results, expressed as the number of children, are as follows:

First person: psychotic children: any use=12, correct use=9, incorrect use=1, doubtful use=10. Non-psychotic: any use=12, correct use=12, incorrect use=0, doubful use=1.

Second person: psychotic children: any use=10, correct use=7, incorrect use=2, doubtful use=4. Non-psychotic: any use=10, correct use=10, incorrect use=0, doubtful use=2.

Tnird person: pyschotic children: any use=10, correct use=10, incorrect use=1, doubtful use=6. Non-psychotic: any use=13, correct use=13, incorrect use=0, doubtful use=1.

"Only three of the psychotics clearly reversed personal pronouns. Of these one used the first and third personal pronouns incorrectly at times, while the other two used the second person incorrectly ('You' meaning 'I'). But although they sometimes used these pronouns incorrectly, they were capable of using them correctly at other times."

"Among the psychotics there was a dearth of speech giving information, and a more frequent use of non-communicative speech. Speech was often incomprehensible, either because of muttering, poor articulation or neologisms. Thinking aloud and snatches of speech not directed at the hearer were common, as were also inappropriate or purposeless remarks. The pyschotics who were at a low language level often echoed the adult or repeated themselves. The psychotics made a greater number of demands and requests than the non-psychotics."

"The main findings are that there is a dearth of informative speech in psychotic children, an excess of non-communicative speech, and also an excess of demanding or emotionally toned speech."

Some of the psychotic children "appeared to have a serious language handicap, while others did not. It is suggested thst the excess of non-communicative and demanding speech may be due to lack of empathy or poor discrimination of social reinforcers."

If anyone's interested, you can find a pdf of Daniels et al. (2008), the study Philip refers to ( /m7737 ) free here http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/121/5/e1357

News story in the Guardian today - Autism's link to mental illness in parents: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may...alresearch.genetics.

"A child's risk of autism was 70% greater if one parent was diagnosed with a mental illness, and twice as high as average if both parents had psychiatric disorders, according to a report in the Pediatrics journal."

Researchers at the University of North Carolina "examined the medical records of 1,237 children in Sweden born between 1977 and 2003 who were diagnosed with autism before the age of 10. The records were linked to their parents' medical histories, which included details of any mental disorders they had been treated for. The team then compared these to the medical records of a further 30,925 healthy children."

The research shows that "mothers and fathers diagnosed with schizophrenia were about twice as likely to have a child diagnosed with autism." There was also "higher rates of depression and personality disorders among mothers, but not fathers."

The Autreat 2008 presentations have been posted, see http://ani.autistics.org/aut08presentations.html

Where was Joel Smith--who is presenting about "Planning for Disaster"--when my apartment flooded? [grin]

Scott Michael Robertson's presentation will, among other things, "discuss the roles of autistic individuals as active members of research teams in the U.S., Canada, and England." His autobiographical blurb mentions AASPIRE, which you can read about here http://aaspireproject.org

Hi Dinah,

My email address is philaashton@hotmail.com.

I will meet you at the Novotel in Hammersmith on May 14th. I have not yet decided what time train to London I'll travel on.

I think Ms Cucek would be better making her presence felt somewhere else

on another matter, I seem to have lost Philip's email address so am posting to him here. Philip, if you are in London on May 14th we could rendezvous at the Novotel where Michelle will be staying. I will be going there on my way to the airport to check it out, figure where it is in relation to the rest of Hammersmith, etc. So if you want to greet Michelle at Heathrow, we can travel out there together in good time and find out where exactly we should be to do so.

Edited by author 05-04-2008 08:28 AM
Quirks and Quarks (CBC Radio One) had a mostly predictable segment about intelligence yesterday. I heard about two-thirds of it. You can find it at the bottom of the page here http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/archives/07-08/may03.html

I'm familiar with the work and views of Drs Gottfredson, Flynn, and Haier, who were all interviewed.

Interesting that at the end of this discussion about the science of human intelligence, the program's host, Bob McDonald, put forward the position (which was not really stated by any of the interviewees, at least not while I was listening) that decisions about how human beings should be regarded and treated, in a world where there are various measures of human intelligence, should primarily be guided by ethics.

This was in the same direction as what I suggested about autistics on the same program, back when. Whereupon I was promptly personally attacked by a large number of "autism advocates" (including at least one autism society official), who were furious and disgusted that anyone would even mention that autistics deserve ethical consideration.

I'm sure the same "autism advocates" won't be writing to Q & Q in fury and disgust at the suggestion that the general population, themselves included, deserves ethical consideration. "Autism advocates" reserve those low/no standards (of ethics, and of science too) for autistics only.

Hi Philip,

Every IMFAR I've been to so far provided all attendees with a program book.

I don't think there'll be champagne in the poster sessions (great idea though, maybe next year?). But it's just occurred to me that provided I don't get lost or detained on the way there, IMFAR 2008 is going to be a major test of my newly-acquired coffee-drinking skills.

Edited by author 05-03-2008 10:17 AM
Over the past 2 weeks, I've spent some time communicating with two members of Autism (Society) Ontario's "Ontario Partnership for adults with Asperger's and autism" (see /m7687 ). I pointed out that autistic adults were excluded from this "Partnership," and what kind of example this sets, and what kind of consequences this has for all autistics.

I also found out that this "Partnership" has existed for quite a while (possibly, a year or more), and has already produced one or more documents. That's all without any input whatsoever from actual autistic adults.

Both the "Partnership" members I spoke with stated that my concerns were entirely reasonable and justified. One of them stated that he would take action; the other stated that he would bring up my concerns to the "Partnership" if the opportunity presented itself.

It's not much, but at the end of the long list of members of the "Partnership," many of whom are nonautistic parents of autistic offspring, one solitary "self-advocate" has now been tacked on http://www.autismontario.com/client/aso/ao...we+are?OpenDocument

You can read about the "self-advocate" Kerry Flynn here http://www.autismontario.com/client/aso/ao...t/AA6/$file/AA6.pdf