here's a region's map of Montreal regarding the vaccination campaign: http://vaccination.msss.gouv.qc.ca/carte_region_en.php?region=06

all the vaccination center I looked up on this map are open from 8am to 8pm 7 day of the week.

if you need more help, let me know.

Alain

Michelle, regarding vaccination, which borrough do you live in? I can look it up where you need to be vaccinated.

In my case, I can get vaccinated on the 7 of december at a local college and I don't think it will be different for you (I register as a healthy adult but if you have a chronic illness of any kind, you may be allowed to vaccinate sooner).

Alain

Thanks for the link. I think my son Henry will love it. I remember him aged just four or five at a museum with his school and the class being asked what a certain puppet was made of and he replied 'um, atoms?' which started the teacher and made me laugh a lot.
I thought this interview with Rory Hoy might be interesting to you as he never had any 'specialist treatment' or therapies (except speech therapy) and in his film he describes his parents leaving him alone to stim as much as he liked. I imagine if they had ABA'd him and he'd turned out the way he has, he'd be an ABA poster boy now. Mind you, I doubt he would be as happy or creative.

No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
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< replied-to message removed by QT >

Edited by author 11-02-2009 05:39 AM
News story in the Guardian today: 'Father in high court to stop hospital withdrawing baby son's life support' (That's the headline in the print edition). See http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/nov/01/f...-support-baby-court.

"A father whose son was born with a rare neuromuscular condition will go to the high court today in an attempt to stop a hospital withdrawing the support that keeps the child alive.

"Doctors treating the one-year-old say the boy's quality of life is so poor that it would not be in his best interests to save him. They are reportedly being supported in their action by the baby's mother, who is separated from his father.

"The child, known for legal reasons as Baby RB, was born with congenital myasthenic syndrome (CMS), a muscle condition that severely limits movement and the ability to breathe independently. He has been in hospital since birth.

"If the hospital succeeds in its application, it will be the first time a British court has gone against the wishes of a parent and ruled that life support can be discontinued or withdrawn from a child who does not have brain damage.

"Lawyers for the father say that the child's brain is not affected by the condition, arguing that he can see, hear and feel, and recognise his parents. He is also apparently able to play with toys. The father will try to convine the court that his son has a good quality of life by submitting video footage showing the boy engaging with his parents and playing with his toys."

That boy has every right to life. It would be totally wrong for his life support to be withdrawn.

"Behavior therapy---ABA, behavioral science, however you may call it---is not helping Charlie's behavior problems. In fact, it may have even made them worse. [...] Indeed, it was precisely because Charlie had so many 'behavioral challenges' that we stuck with ABA over the years."

That's more from Kristina Chew http://autism.typepad.com/autism/2009/11/the-limits-of-aba.html and again no comment.

How big is a cell (and a lot of other things)? See http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/cells/scale/ which goes right down to a carbon atom, with an amoeba, a chromosome, a measles virus, etc., on the way. Found via Ben Goldacre (him again!).

Edited by author 10-31-2009 07:18 PM
I don't know if anyone here regularly reads Kristina Chew's blog. Over the past while I've tweeted two of her posts about what her autistic son Charlie has been subject to, after spending most of his life in ABA programs.

Here is one post http://autism.typepad.com/autism/2009/09/5...ts-of-interest.html , where you should follow the links re the helmet and restraints.

My wild guess as to the the college Kristina refers to here...

"a college at which one can earn a Master's degree in ABA. One can also earn a post-baccalaureate certificate in ABA, and a Ph.D. program was recently started"

... is this one http://www.apbahome.net/news.php?nid=33 , here being touted as state-of-the-art by its directors with the help of the Association of Professional Behavior Analysts. The APBA is extremely unlikely to be even slightly concerned about the negative effects of behaviour analysts' conflicts of interest on autistics. Or about any negative effects of any highly-respected ABA programs on autistics (the APBA has an autistic-free autism task force, which does include a "parent advocate").

Here is a later post about Charlie's situation http://autism.typepad.com/autism/2009/10/t...de-the-aba-box.html I suggest, if you can, continuing to read onwards as to what Charlie is living through. The only proposed solution is more ABA programs.

I'm not going to comment on any of this, beyond pointing at the conflicts of interest (an unaddressed problem that permeates the entire area of behaviour analysis in autism), and at the grossly unethical use of restraints and a helmet (very hard to read when you identify totally with Charlie), and at the reported consequences of this to Charlie.

The other thing to point out, again, without comment, is that Charlie has been in ABA programs most of his life, according to what Kristina has written. Here she is promoting ABA on the Lovaas Institute site http://www.lovaas.com/meetingpoint-2007-06-feature-02.php

I don't think this http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nation...ase/article1346532/ is atypical of how funding for very expensive treatments for serious (that is, fatal) diseases are handled in many Canadian provinces.

The story involves a treatment for which the evidence seems to be (I'd be happy to be corrected--I've only glanced at the two papers linked to in the story, and this is hardly my area) of much better quality than the evidence for ABA-based autism interventions, which in Ontario can cost ~$100,000 per year.

In any case, this story again shows the dishonesty of autism advocacy claimes that all "medically necessary" treatments are covered in Canada. If there are 10,000 people in Canada with pulmonary arterial hypertension, a serious fatal disease, then that is in the vicinity of the total number of autistic preschool children (using a prevalence of 1 in 150).

By the way, I sure want and need to get vaccinated against H1N1. But the set-up for getting vaccinated in Quebec is totally convoluted and well beyond my abilities. It's autistic-inaccessible (at least, for this autistic). I've been vaccinated against the flu every year for as long as I can remember, but this year of all years it looks like I won't be able to.

I second Michelle's message about it being very cool that Alex is in the G & M.

Very cool, re Alex in the G & M.

And here's some pumpkins http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gall...e?picture=354902301

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nation...ine/article1344898/
TORCH TIMELINE

Shawna Richer
From Friday's Globe and Mail Published on Friday, Oct. 30, 2009

Every day of the relay will be a highlight for someone - here are just a few of the special stories.
"[...]

    Day 24

    Nov. 22

    Alex Bain will have the chance to celebrate a long-time love of running when he carries the torch along Hwy. 2 in Winsloe, PEI. The 22-year-old from nearby Oyster Bed Bridge worked tirelessly to win a spot in the torch relay. He applied to be a torchbearer through RBC and wasn't picked, but then applied through Coca-Cola and played the daily trivia game to boost his entry total to more than 100. Bain has autism and struggles to communicate verbally, but he has never let that slow him down. "I'm excited and hoping to have a great time," he wrote on his website.

[...]"

Re: /m9870

I am, of course, open to correction, but I am pretty sure that there are plenty of peer-reviewed scientific articles out there that indicate that augmentative communication (be it sign, pictures, typing, or something else I'm missing) encourages speech development. I think people who make use of alternative communication methods often acquire speech more quickly than those who don't, unless of course they have a speech disorder that makes it much less useful for them as a communication method.

Re: /m9866 also, yes, thanks jypsy. I had no idea there were so many different devices. I thought it was simply a computer voicing what someone types. I'm going to check into some of those websites. They must come in various languages, ja? I bet parents are discouraged from providing these to young children (or maybe I'm wrong, just a guess) on the basis that it would lessen the child's motivation to "speak properly" themselves, but I wonder if in some ways a VOCA could actually help someone to learn to speak. . .

re /m9866 I love this song, thank you jypsy!

Michelle, glad you're okay and I'm enjoying the image of you being "armed and ready."

Joseph, ugh, the Adams study. Everyone's been talking about it for years, but there seems to be very little interest in the result. For good reason.

Should scientists tweet? http://www.cell.com/fulltext/S0092-8674(09)01305-1 Found via... Twitter.