Autism Speaks: I was Wrong.

[Terralthra]

Being Deaf is a pretty binary condition. Being on the extraordinarily wide range of Autism is much more multifaceted, and there is no simple fix for it.

Your analogy fails on the face of it Shep. You're talking about a physical disability vs. a wide range of different states of mind. You might as well compare blindness to ADD.

No, it really isn't. Hearing loss is not anywhere close to a binary deaf or not, and you show your ignorance by claiming it is.

They're not entirely analogous, but the points Shep makes are valid.

Look, you obviously don't get it. The points are NOT valid, because you're dealing with a very different set of conditions. The idea that you can take something like hearing loss or deafness (which is binary in that you can either hear in the normal range or you cannot), which can be MEASURED SCIENTIFICALLY by what you can or cannot hear, autism is nowhere NEAR as easy to pinpoint, identify, or "correct". There is nothing even remotely similar about the two.

Yeah, so if you can hear in part of the normal range, but not another part of it...I guess you just don't think that's possible. Jesus, are you retarded? It is just not that simple.

It is not as simple as playing a list of sounds of varying frequencies and amplitudes and checking off which ones work and which ones don't. It's not as easily fixed as splicing in technology to replace or enhance malfunctioning organic tissue. We are talking about altering the human mind, something that has only ever been successful in the most extreme cases, by people who are assuming that the children DO NOT EXIST AS PEOPLE until the work is done.

Yeah, because Deaf/HH people never undergo speech pathology or audiological therapy to treat their underlying conditions or allow them to function in normal society...oh wait.

With all physical disabilities, it is always assumed that the person themselves are whole on a mental level. A blind, deaf, or mute person is not a blank slate, ready to be created by the would-be sculptor, they are a person limited by the whim of nature.

So why the fuck don't you and Shep and everyone who thinks that a fucking pill can do for the brain what a prosthetic leg or cochlear implant can do for the body and go sit in a fucking corner while the people who know what the fuck they are talking about discuss this subject. The differences between the rest of the body and the BRAIN are quite simply massive. We can replace virtually any body part to varying degrees of utility and success, we cannot do that with the human brain. The best we can do is shove in some chemicals and hope something happens.

Do you realize how ridiculous you sound? We treat numerous things in the brain as push-button, take-this-pill solutions all the time. I don't see you ranting about aspirin for headaches or caffeine as a mild mental stimulant being offensive. Scientists don't fully understand autism, and because of that, treatment regimens are limited. A fucking pill could very well easily do for autism what a cochlear implant does for the brain: make it possible, with lots of concomitant therapy and practice, for the person with a disability to function in society. We don't have that pill right now, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to make one.

[SirNitram]

Terralithra, you have hit upon the central problem. We do not have the 'Turn autism off' pill yet. We instead have a bunch of people prescribing pills designed to treat wholly seperate problems with the brain and often proclaiming they're working to cure the problem, as opposed to contributing to the work to find the causes, mechanisms, and make a real pill.

There's the strawman that when I said 'untested', I meant 'No testing at all', but of course I expected everyone to get 'Untested for curing Autism' and to a degree 'Untested in autistics'.

This is the issue. The 'This pill will totally solve everything' panacea idea of how to deal with problems, combined with very little regard for whether the pill is even suitable. I'm not even sure why anti-depressants were considered(People with autism diagnosed with depression.. Which I'm willing to wager is 'Alot of them' is another story, but one where caution should be taken. But always take caution with mind-altering drugs, just like always take caution with any surgery.).

[Broomstick]

Actually, he's comparing brains to computers. Mind you, it's hard for me to keep up in that, so.

Just FYI it made perfect sense to me, and it wasn't even hard to follow. Then again I am in computer science.

I suspect it's a brilliant analogy for computer scientists, but for the rest of us, it's a big pile of WTF.

However, it might be used as an illustration of how the AS disorders are a communication problem.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Just FYI it made perfect sense to me, and it wasn't even hard to follow. Then again I am in computer science.

I suspect it's a brilliant analogy for computer scientists, but for the rest of us, it's a big pile of WTF.

However, it might be used as an illustration of how the AS disorders are a communication problem.

I suppose it's amusing that despite not knowing a lick about cpu architecture, I fully understood what he was getting at and think about it often myself.
(Thinking differently, on a different wavelength, and trying to emulate normal human behavior, like a French mime trying to speak japanese by reading lips and trying to speak, or a sociopath trying to be a good nurse for the elderly). Hey, I didn't say that I could explain it much better myself...

[Hotfoot]

Yeah, so if you can hear in part of the normal range, but not another part of it...I guess you just don't think that's possible. Jesus, are you retarded? It is just not that simple.

You are a fucking retard because you can't read a post. First off, I DO recognize that people have differing levels of hearing. However, it IS as as simple as "Can you hear this range, y/n?" The fact that you take not being able to hear different frequencies and amplitudes as analogous to the various forms of autism shows just how ignorant you are of autism, you pathetic inbred fool.

Yeah, because Deaf/HH people never undergo speech pathology or audiological therapy to treat their underlying conditions or allow them to function in normal society...oh wait.

Wow, and that's TOTALLY analogous to an autistic child, right? Shut the FUCK up, right now. You clearly have no idea what you are talking about. You're talking about learning a language versus an entire way of thinking, interacting, and understanding. Moreover, it's more than just simple communication and understanding the intricacies of speech, it's about entire thought processes and behaviors. Meanwhile, someone with a hearing issue has, at the very least, sign language and interpreters available to them.

Fuck, deaf people can talk verbally, they just don't "sound right" to the rest of us. Oooh, it's embarrassing. Big. Fucking. Deal. Children who are seriously autistic cannot communicate at all, or in any significant way. There are no translators, no programs, no closed-captioning for them. That you would even think to compare it shows just how disconnected with reality you are.

Do you realize how ridiculous you sound? We treat numerous things in the brain as push-button, take-this-pill solutions all the time. I don't see you ranting about aspirin for headaches or caffeine as a mild mental stimulant being offensive. Scientists don't fully understand autism, and because of that, treatment regimens are limited. A fucking pill could very well easily do for autism what a cochlear implant does for the brain: make it possible, with lots of concomitant therapy and practice, for the person with a disability to function in society. We don't have that pill right now, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to make one.

You are a moron. You're seriously comparing a stimulant and a mild analgesic to something that is designed to alter behavior and thought processes? How fucking retarded are you? Scientists don't fully understand the brain, full stop. Problems with balances in brain chemistry or the setup of the brain are equally problematic. The process is entirely consistent of "develop a drug, throw it at the problem, see what happens." It is all trial and error, because they are guessing at how the imbalance in the brain works, they are guessing how their drug will work, and none of it is sure. With the implant, we KNOW how the ear works, and we know how to replicate something similar. The only real variable is if the body will accept the implant or not, and even that we have pretty well figured out.

Moreover, we're not talking about a magic fucking pill that might exist one day that fixes autism forever with few side effects, if any, we're talking about the half-assed shit that exists today that does little if anything to really help. Moreover, we're talking about shit that gets thrown at ANY perceived "problem", without any consideration of if it is really needed or not. Autism can breed functional geniuses. Medicate them, and they lose the ability to think properly. Think of the last half of Flowers for Algernon, and you've got a pretty good idea of why there are people legitimately afraid of this shit.

Tell you what, why don't you READ about the things that are done to these children? Pills, brainwashing, beatings, all just to make the child "Normal". This is not even done by adults to themselves, as is the case often with cochlear implants, but by parents to their children. There is no choice by the afflicted here.

[Rogue 9]

Just FYI it made perfect sense to me, and it wasn't even hard to follow. Then again I am in computer science.

I suspect it's a brilliant analogy for computer scientists, but for the rest of us, it's a big pile of WTF.

However, it might be used as an illustration of how the AS disorders are a communication problem.

I understood him just fine. But then, I have Asperger's syndrome myself, so I may not be the best test case.

[Broomstick]

At the risk of pissing everyone off (but hey, that's happened before) I'm going to have a stab at explaining my view of things (which, I hasten to add, is that of a neurotypical hearing person attempting to understand something she has no direct experience of) because, under the obvious animosity between Nitram and Shep, both of them have something to add here (besides bile and profanity). I'm also going to abbreviate "Austism, Asperger's and related disorders" to "Autism" and "Deafness, hard of hearing, and other auditory problems" to "Deafness" and ya'll just remember that both of the DO have a spectrum of impairment.

Autism and deafness do have something in common - they fuck with communications. There are also some fundamental differences. With deafness you have a problem with an input device. With Autism the problem is with processing information. To continue to the computer analogy, deafness is like have a malfunctioning mouse or keyboard or modem, whereas autism is more like having a problem with the CPU. If your modem isn't working you won't be able to connect to a network to transfer files, but here are alternative means to get the information into the machine, such as putting the files on disk or flash memory and transferring them that way. You can use alternate means to input data and once the data's in the machine the CPU will process it in a normal manner. With autism, your input devices are working just fine, it's just that no matter how information is put in the machine the machine doesn't make use of it in the normal manner.

So, with deafness we use alternate means to get information to the brain - sign language, writing, whatever. We also try to wring as much utility out of the defective sensory equipment as possible. This can be quite successful but takes intensive effort. It would be nice if we could simply replace the "defective keyboard" because that would be a cure.... but we can't quite do that yet, and certainly not for everyone (those deaf due to brain damage, for example, have a processing problem, not an input problem) even if cochlear implants are a great advance. I should also add that you shouldn't trivialize the implant process - at least for early models there was a notably increased risk of meningitis in people with cochlear implants and that's nothing to sneeze at. They think they have solved that problem, or at least greatly mitigated it, but the implants do carry real risks even if most of the time there are no adverse effects.

I will also add that a century ago deaf "education" featured restraints (tying the hands up to prevent use of sign language, which was viewed as a crutch at best, as an example), beatings, and other horrors. Although we have moved beyond that (mostly) the deaf community does have some experience with some of the shit the autistic folks here find so terrifying, so please do not completely disregard their historical experience. Deaf people are better off than autistic people by many measures, but that doesn't mean their lives are wonderful and without effort and trouble.

Autism is different because, again, there is a processing problem. Doesn't matter how you get the information into brain, what happens with it isn't normal. In some cases the process and result may be better than normal, but this is not the case all across the board and even the most high-functioning and talented autistic person will have significant impairments in areas normal people take for granted, such as casual social interaction. At the moment, we have no way to pop out the defective chips, so to speak, to restore the motherboard to normal function. And, indeed, in some areas it would be nice to keep the better-than-normal processing if we could only bring the rest of the processing up to at least average speed/accuracy. I suspect some of the resistance to "cure" stems from a fear of losing their greatest assets and talents - rather as if someone said "I can cure your deafness, but at the cost of your eyesight".

A lot of the pharmaceuticals used in autistic people really do function more to make the kids more "manageable" (usually, more passive and less active) and easier for the adults around them to handle rather than really benefiting them. Basically, tranquilize the kids. Of course, we also see this trend with neurotypical children whose parents will drug them for a car or plane trip rather than deal with normal child behavior, it's just that it's more likely to happen to an autistic child, and may happen not only on car trips, but every single day.

There are times it is appropriate to medicate a child with autism, but I suspect they're uncommon. A lot of what I see regarding drugs, diet, and other such things with autism strikes me as kicking the side of a computer screen in order to "fix" it - percussive maintenance occasionally works by chance, but it's not a real way to deal with a real problem.

[FOG3]

Just FYI it made perfect sense to me, and it wasn't even hard to follow. Then again I am in computer science.

I suspect it's a brilliant analogy for computer scientists, but for the rest of us, it's a big pile of WTF.

However, it might be used as an illustration of how the AS disorders are a communication problem.

If one is going to discuss the difference arising in a large part from differences in brain architechture deriving from the base unit circuit level of neurons and minicolumns which are analogous to logic gates and microprograms there's exactly one analogy, CPU architecture. Luckily it just happens that the CISC concept of the 1970s and RISC concepts of 1980s makes a good enough analogy to simplify explanation.

If you think it magically get simpler if you cut it loose from the analogy, you are quite frankly insane. What I gave you is as simple and clear as it gets, and believe me I can make it an order of magnitude more complicated without half trying by bringing in the general brain system characteristics which are both chaotic and operating on multiple layers simultaneously. If you dumb it down any more, you will lose too much information for it to be really meaningful. As such I can't make meaningfully simpler for you, just like I can't explain relativity at the level of Dora the Explorer.

You can either step up, ask questions to help you step up, or your just going to be stuck. Everything I talk about is well verified by the relveant professions. The neuron and minicolumn difference by neurologists. The pulling in more information thing being such I cannot see how anyone that knows anything about people on the spectrum could even think of denying it.

Seems as how you want something less cerebral then comprehension of what the difference is I suppose I'll simplify it as this, to keep things as civil as possible:


Hopefully that it not too cerebral a concept for you.

Autism and deafness do have something in common - they fuck with communications.

Utter nonsense. If there was any validity to that there would not have been the surge in those with Autistic brains having issues. In many regards the issue is from your end, as you show quite clearly in this very thread.

When presented with something you didn't understand what did you do? You immediately went into self justification mode, and failed to communicate anything in regards to what was giving you problems. In short you effectively just assumed someone else would read your mind. Now if I hadn't been hardened by various interactions with Neurotypicals I might credit this to a childish swing at my little statement of being able to practically read your mind to mean I can effectively pick any random number you think of. Being hardened to interactions with Neurotypicals however I know you're just using a small bracket of simple tactics you probably don't even understand, in order to avoid having to basically think or otherwise.

What has changed in the past few decades is this attitude you espouse here has raised more to the fore, and combined with other factors has made you less able to bridge build and tends to spoof those with autistic brains that are trying to figure out with simple approaches such as a reasonable man approach. Disrupting accurate analysis of relative position and otherwise being a primary purpose of little tricks like you have favored using.

I can understand you Neurotypical perfectly well, but you can't get a read off me so who's the disabled one in this communication hmm? You think burying your head in the sand and grandstanding really gives you power?

Furthermore the rest of your post simply clearly shows you do not know anything about Autism and its treatment, as it's not something you medicate for.

[Adrian Laguna]

I will also add that a century ago deaf "education" featured restraints (tying the hands up to prevent use of sign language, which was viewed as a crutch at best, as an example), beatings, and other horrors. Although we have moved beyond that (mostly) the deaf community does have some experience with some of the shit the autistic folks here find so terrifying, so please do not completely disregard their historical experience.

It's a bit of an irony that starting in about the 19th century being mentally ill was considerably more unpleasant than it was during the previous centuries. It used to be that every village had its idiot, and it did suck to be the idiot, if anyone saw Beowulf they may remember the priest beating the crap out of his mentally challenged servant, but at least they weren't confined, restrained, and had all sorts of weird pharmaceutical and surgical procedures tested on them.

The ironic part is that this happened because the medical establishment wanted to help these people. Instead they made their lives hell by going about it in an entirely incorrect manner. Unfortunately the scientific method took a long time to be adopted in the fields of mental health, disability treatment, and behavioural psychology, and to this day its adoption remains incomplete and pseudo-science still holds sway over many, many people.

You know, actually, the Victorian Age kind of sucked in the Western world for anyone not an upper class white male. If you were gay, black, female, poor, or mentally ill, you would be better off in the Roman Empire.

[Terralthra]

Yeah, so if you can hear in part of the normal range, but not another part of it...I guess you just don't think that's possible. Jesus, are you retarded? It is just not that simple.

You are a fucking retard because you can't read a post. First off, I DO recognize that people have differing levels of hearing. However, it IS as as simple as "Can you hear this range, y/n?" The fact that you take not being able to hear different frequencies and amplitudes as analogous to the various forms of autism shows just how ignorant you are of autism, you pathetic inbred fool.

"It is as simple as "Can you hear this range, y/n?" "

No, it is not. Please do not assert falsehoods.

Yeah, because Deaf/HH people never undergo speech pathology or audiological therapy to treat their underlying conditions or allow them to function in normal society...oh wait.

Wow, and that's TOTALLY analogous to an autistic child, right? Shut the FUCK up, right now. You clearly have no idea what you are talking about. You're talking about learning a language versus an entire way of thinking, interacting, and understanding. Moreover, it's more than just simple communication and understanding the intricacies of speech, it's about entire thought processes and behaviors. Meanwhile, someone with a hearing issue has, at the very least, sign language and interpreters available to them.

Fuck, deaf people can talk verbally, they just don't "sound right" to the rest of us. Oooh, it's embarrassing. Big. Fucking. Deal. Children who are seriously autistic cannot communicate at all, or in any significant way. There are no translators, no programs, no closed-captioning for them. That you would even think to compare it shows just how disconnected with reality you are.

Do you ever get tired of talking out of your ass? Have you ever done any research into what being Deaf involves, and what kind of work is done to even begin to function in a hearing world? I mean, I ask this rhetorically, because it is fairly obvious you haven't. Until and unless you stop basically trying to bullshit your way through this conversation, I'm done responding to you.

P.S. I'm both a trained interpreter and I've worked as a student aide at the Pacific Autism Center for Education, so please stop calling me ignorant when you're the one who can't seem to get through a simple message without retarded and misinformed polemics.

Do you realize how ridiculous you sound? We treat numerous things in the brain as push-button, take-this-pill solutions all the time. I don't see you ranting about aspirin for headaches or caffeine as a mild mental stimulant being offensive. Scientists don't fully understand autism, and because of that, treatment regimens are limited. A fucking pill could very well easily do for autism what a cochlear implant does for the brain: make it possible, with lots of concomitant therapy and practice, for the person with a disability to function in society. We don't have that pill right now, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to make one.

You are a moron. You're seriously comparing a stimulant and a mild analgesic to something that is designed to alter behavior and thought processes? How fucking retarded are you? Scientists don't fully understand the brain, full stop. Problems with balances in brain chemistry or the setup of the brain are equally problematic. The process is entirely consistent of "develop a drug, throw it at the problem, see what happens." It is all trial and error, because they are guessing at how the imbalance in the brain works, they are guessing how their drug will work, and none of it is sure. With the implant, we KNOW how the ear works, and we know how to replicate something similar. The only real variable is if the body will accept the implant or not, and even that we have pretty well figured out.

Moreover, we're not talking about a magic fucking pill that might exist one day that fixes autism forever with few side effects, if any, we're talking about the half-assed shit that exists today that does little if anything to really help. Moreover, we're talking about shit that gets thrown at ANY perceived "problem", without any consideration of if it is really needed or not. Autism can breed functional geniuses. Medicate them, and they lose the ability to think properly. Think of the last half of Flowers for Algernon, and you've got a pretty good idea of why there are people legitimately afraid of this shit.

Tell you what, why don't you READ about the things that are done to these children? Pills, brainwashing, beatings, all just to make the child "Normal". This is not even done by adults to themselves, as is the case often with cochlear implants, but by parents to their children. There is no choice by the afflicted here.

Wow, you really are completely ignorant. Ever read about the things Deaf people have had done to them? Deaf children were considered retarded. Using gestures or manual signs was punished, corporeally or otherwise. Repeat offenders had their hands tied together behind their back. Deaf adults were frequently sterilized so that they wouldn't pass their "defect" on.

But none of that matters, because Deafness is such a simple and easy to treat condition.

P.S. Cochlear implants are almost never given to adults, because by the time they reach the age of majority, their hearing centers have atrophied enough, and their brains are no longer plastic enough, that the cochlear implant would do no good at all. Current audiology doctrine states that an implant must be put in by age 12 to be at all effective, and for best prognosis, it should be put in by 18 months. So yes, this is frequently done by parents to their children. Oh, look, another falsehood you asserted baselessly. Additionally, cochlear implants only work for a small percentage of Deaf people, those with physical defects to the outer or middle ear. Those whose deafness is caused by problems in the inner ear, the aural nerves, or the hearing center in the brain are shit out of luck. So again, until you stop talking out of your ass, I'm done talking to you.

[Rogue 9]

I suspect it's a brilliant analogy for computer scientists, but for the rest of us, it's a big pile of WTF.

However, it might be used as an illustration of how the AS disorders are a communication problem.

<snip condescending bullshit>

Look, empathy problems or not, being intentionally condescending (that was no accident of communication, and don't pretend it was) doesn't help get your point across.

Further, there's a point where autism is a disease. I don't believe my condition could be described as a true disability, but when someone is at the point where he is unable to communicate and is distressed by sensory stimuli, then it is quite clearly an objective disadvantage. To claim that all autistics are "just different" when many are unable to function is disingenuous at best. As you may recall from the opening post of this thread, Nitram used to support Autism Speaks before learning what it is they actually do; this implies that finding an actual cure (as opposed to, essentially, attempting to beat the disorder out of someone) isn't something he finds objectionable, so I'd tread more carefully were I you.

As for your last claim, that you understand her... Let's just say that I doubt that very, very much.

[Gullible Jones]

Take a look at some of the worst cases of autism, people who are incapable of talking or taking care of themselves, and tell me that it's not a disease. Seriously.

FYI: I was labeled as having Asperger's Syndrome (not diagnosed; no medical professionals were involved) when I was in middle school, and transferred to a school oriented towards the education of autistic children. I was in one of two classes containing kids with Asperger's; everyone outside those classes had more severe forms of autism. Many of these children went far, far beyond the Asperger's stereotype. There were ones who would have violent outbursts with no provocation, who were unable to dress themselves, and who would show their annoyance by making themselves vomit in the middle of the cafeteria. That's not just "different".

As for myself... I'm actually not sure. I've always been socially clumsy, and fit several of the criteria for Asperger's Syndrome; on the other hand, I could just be a nerdy, bookish type. However, my innate ability to understand facial expressions, body language, and intonations has never been that good, and my tendency has always been to overrespond in compensation; and frankly, that's quite annoying to me. Not so annoying that I'd take an unproven medication to change it, mind, but not something I'm happy with. If I do have Asperger's Syndrome, I honestly don't see any reason to enjoy it, or to be proud of it; as far as I can tell there aren't any benefits, other than perhaps a dislike of social manipulation (which an innate ethical sense should provide anyway).

Re medications: sometimes those are used to treat problems that crop up along with autism spectrum disorders - stuff like OCD, for instance, which SSRIs are rather useful against (and which I have some very ugly experience with). I won't make the case that they're always used wisely, because they aren't, but they're not useless.

[Coyote]

Take a look at some of the worst cases of autism, people who are incapable of talking or taking care of themselves, and tell me that it's not a disease. Seriously.

I have to agree, here, and I understand Shep's pov on this if perhaps not his means of conveying it... although he has a personal stake in such arguments, considering his past collisions with the "Deaf Reich" movements.

High-function autistics may not ever feel a need for a "cure", and they may indeed be "perfectly happy being a cat, and not a defective dog", but just today while having lunch at Panda Express I saw a 40-year-old man who was affected with something... I don't know if it was autism, necessarily, but he was just... not there, and being physically led around by his elderly mother. And I thought, WTF is going to happen to him when his elderly mother dies, and he faces an institutionalized existence for the rest of his life?

Being "different" is being Black, or White, or Asian, or Male or Female, or Gay. You're still functioning. You're still fully capable. You're still "a fully capable cat, compared to the fully capable dog".

Being a high-functioning autistic and feeling insulted at the idea that you need a "cure" may undermine one's sense of pride, but it's also kind of like "I'm okay, I got mine, the rest of you are out of luck... trying to cure you insults me, see, and I won't have it". There are lower-functioning autistics who'd probably like a shot at a life more ordinary. These are the three-legged dogs who don't feel like fully capable cats.

Perhaps the Autism Speaks organization is, indeed, a organization more interested in finding "relief" for an autistic's craegivers, than they are for the life of the autistic himself. But either way, a normal life is a normal life, isn't it?

[SirNitram]

Take a look at some of the worst cases of autism, people who are incapable of talking or taking care of themselves, and tell me that it's not a disease. Seriously.

You are aware some of the worst cases are completely able to communicate, up to and including writing books? I mean, I did bring attention to this earlier. You'd think people would get it by now.

[SirNitram]

But either way, a normal life is a normal life, isn't it?

Yes. A truly normal life is still a truly normal life. Forcing normal behavior via near sedation or the insanity of behavioral modification.. Is not having a normal life. It is hammering behaviors onto someone who is still not having a normal life.

[Buddha]

Yes. A truly normal life is still a truly normal life. Forcing normal behavior via near sedation or the insanity of behavioral modification.. Is not having a normal life. It is hammering behaviors onto someone who is still not having a normal life.

Sometimes parents do things like medicate the kid, this is usually from desperation and to avoid hair loss and headaches. The cure movement is to Autism what Dr. Kevorkian was to the elderly. The wolf in sheep's clothing thing fits.

[SirNitram]

Yes. A truly normal life is still a truly normal life. Forcing normal behavior via near sedation or the insanity of behavioral modification.. Is not having a normal life. It is hammering behaviors onto someone who is still not having a normal life.

Sometimes parents do things like medicate the kid, this is usually from desperation and to avoid hair loss and headaches. The cure movement is to Autism what Dr. Kevorkian was to the elderly. The wolf in sheep's clothing thing fits.

Pretty much. The quotes from the parents in the Auton case pretty much nail it:

"There is something about autism that to me gave meaning to the phrase ‘death in life’. Autism is an impossible condition of being there and not being there; a person without a self; a life without a soul. […] She will not sit in the corner. She will not play with strings. She will not not look at me. She will not be mute. She may want it. I will not have it. She will be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the human condition."—Catherine Maurice, ABA parent, 1993

And of course, two of the doctor's promoting ABA(Applied Behavioral Analysis):

"You see, you start pretty much from scratch when you work with an autistic child. You have a person in the physical sense—they have hair, a nose and a mouth—but they are not people in the psychological sense. One way to look at the job of helping autistic kids is to see it as a matter of constructing a person. You have the raw materials, but you have to build the person."—Ivar Lovaas, 1974

"[T]hey need to be taught virtually everything, and the teaching needs to proceed in minute increments instead of major steps. Thus, at the beginning of treatment, the individuals may be regarded as being close to a tabula rasa. In this sense, they can be considered very young or recently born, as persons with little or no experience."—Ivar Lovaas, 2002

"It doesn't matter if a kid can read and write and do algebra if he can't go out to dinner with his family."—Bridget Taylor, PhD, BCBA, referring to treatment goals for autistic children in ABA/IBI, in the New York Times, October 22, 2004

I think it's all very clear: It's not about functioning or coping. It's about 'Make my life less hard'. As if parenthood had an Easy difficulty level setting.

[Hotfoot]

"It is as simple as "Can you hear this range, y/n?" "

No, it is not. Please do not assert falsehoods.

Really? Because last I checked, we can measure what ranges someone can hear, and either they can hear in that range, or they cannot. But go on, keep claiming that it's exactly comparable to Autism. Go right the fuck ahead.

Do you ever get tired of talking out of your ass? Have you ever done any research into what being Deaf involves, and what kind of work is done to even begin to function in a hearing world? I mean, I ask this rhetorically, because it is fairly obvious you haven't. Until and unless you stop basically trying to bullshit your way through this conversation, I'm done responding to you.

P.S. I'm both a trained interpreter and I've worked as a student aide at the Pacific Autism Center for Education, so please stop calling me ignorant when you're the one who can't seem to get through a simple message without retarded and misinformed polemics.

And yet that assertion doesn't make your logic any less faulty. You can choose to stop spewing bullshit into this thread whenever you want, by all means, STOP responding. In the modern world, a deaf person can easily get by compared to an Autistic person, and the reasons as for why are far more complex than you seem to understand. But hey, an elective implant and years of drugs that addle the mind are totally comparable, right?

Wow, you really are completely ignorant. Ever read about the things Deaf people have had done to them? Deaf children were considered retarded. Using gestures or manual signs was punished, corporeally or otherwise. Repeat offenders had their hands tied together behind their back. Deaf adults were frequently sterilized so that they wouldn't pass their "defect" on.

And how is that fucking relevant here? We are talking about the differences between a fucking cochlear implant and throwing drugs at a problem, not how people treated deaf people in the fucking dark ages of medicine. So what, because people were treated like shit, then anything that resulted in that treatment must be exactly the same? Well guess what? By that measure, left-handed people are just like deaf people and autistics! They were beaten, their left hands restrained, forcibly "taught" how to write right-handed, and this isn't even in the far past. People as young as 50 now have had this shit done to them.

But hey, I guess that's a "problem" that needs a "solution" too in your book, right? Maybe we should fucking throw pills at southpaws and make them conform as well.

But none of that matters, because Deafness is such a simple and easy to treat condition.

P.S. Cochlear implants are almost never given to adults, because by the time they reach the age of majority, their hearing centers have atrophied enough, and their brains are no longer plastic enough, that the cochlear implant would do no good at all. Current audiology doctrine states that an implant must be put in by age 12 to be at all effective, and for best prognosis, it should be put in by 18 months. So yes, this is frequently done by parents to their children. Oh, look, another falsehood you asserted baselessly. Additionally, cochlear implants only work for a small percentage of Deaf people, those with physical defects to the outer or middle ear. Those whose deafness is caused by problems in the inner ear, the aural nerves, or the hearing center in the brain are shit out of luck. So again, until you stop talking out of your ass, I'm done talking to you.

Deafness is UNDERSTOOD, you fucking troglodyte. We have a SOLUTION, at least for some cases. This solution, meanwhile, is not necessary for the child to grow up and have a happy life. Autism treatments commonly are treated as such, for any point along the spectrum, and like it or not, growing up drugged to your eyeballs has consequences. But hey, you don't need to think about that. You're an "expert" in the field, because you maybe spent a few months working with kids with autism. Guess what? I've worked as a one on one aide with kids in elementary and middle school with Autism spectrum disorders, among other things. Whoops, looks like your expertise is matched by mine, so why don't we stick to the points at hand, which is that you're a fucking idiot for wanting to compare Autism and Deafness, given how little they have in common.

Fucking hell, you're so strapped for legitimate points, you fell back to "anyone with disabilities of any sort were treated like crap at some point" as a link between the two.

At least Broomstick is acknowledging that the two are vastly different at their core, maybe you should take a lesson from her.

[Zablorg]

Ugh...

I take a tablet each morning called cypramil. It's a slight anti-depressant, and it doesn't urge me or force me to conform to anything in any way. Instead, it stops me from making a mental "plan" of my day and go sullen and moody when this plan does not go smoothly. Understandably, I do not feel violated by this in any fashion. It's for my sake as much as anyone elses.

I assume that these are not the "instant cure" pills that is under discussion. And I would be wary of such pills. There is a huge variety in the various quirks of the autism spectrum,and whether they come from one area of the brain that can be targeted I don't know. But it wouldn't suprise me one single bit if it were found that it would be impossible to really insta-cure anything about it, because it's such a huge fucking issue with so many possible "symptoms" that there would have to be thousands of specially designed medication mixes. The idea that there can be one single fuckyeah pill avaliable seems fucking ludicrous to me.

[SirNitram]

Pills that have, in the past, been used by folks trying to cure Autistics. Who wrote up this list? Autistics.

Neuroleptic, or anti-psychotics. Known to produce catatonia in a small percentage of autistics. These dull cognitive processes, and the best way to prevent an initially low-functioning child from remaining low function is to help their cognitive functions, not hinder them. Frighteningly enough, this is used anyway.

Antidepressants, most over-prescribed pill in the modern world. Their dangers are well-documented even in normal brains.

Stimulants.

Sedatives.

Anti-convulsants(See, our stimms are really just convulsions, we don't move around so oddly because it's calming..).

The last is more 'Diagnosis error' than 'This'll cure 'em!', and that's potent anti-fungals. This is because some signs of autism present as systemic candida infection instead.

Now. Would anyone like to show me where these have been proven to cure Autism, so the Cochlear Implant comparison is even vaguely applicable, or will we continue the sad farce?

[Rogue 9]

Before I was diagnosed, I went to the psychiatric center at IUPUI for evaluation, and they stuck me in a room with some intern rather than a doctor. He went with "The kid's fifteen; must be depressed," and wrote me a prescription for fucking Zoloft. Now, to anyone who knows me (and anyone who paid fucking attention to my answers to his questions, which he apparently did not) the idea that I'm depressed is ludicrous; my disposition is notoriously sunny to the point where my father remarked to me last week that I don't understand why people turn to alcohol because I don't understand despair. Which is perfectly true, when I think about it, but that's neither here nor there; the point is that doctors do, or did at that time, anyway, pass out antidepressants like candy.

When I deciphered his handwriting, I laughed and walked out, throwing the prescription in the nearest trash bin (after tearing it up, of course).

[Vendetta]

Really? Because last I checked, we can measure what ranges someone can hear, and either they can hear in that range, or they cannot. But go on, keep claiming that it's exactly comparable to Autism. Go right the fuck ahead.

The problem is the implication that simply measuring a person's auditory response range is somehow enough. It's a first step on a long road of figuring out exactly what is going to be required for an individual deaf person to be able to reasonably operate in a society where everyone else isn't deaf and which has been constructed on the assumption that people in that society can hear.

Deaf people can get along in modern society because there are a great number of living aids developed to allow them to do so. Cochlear Implants, textphones, talktype services, doorbells wired up to lights or vibration packs, vibration adapters for alarm clocks. And that's without having to deal with face to face interaction with other people. Deaf people, especially profoundly deaf people, can be very hard to understand, even if they have made particular effort to learn spoken language, because they simply don't get the formative stage of spoken language learning as a baby, hearing and imitating language just can't happen. And each individual case is going to require a different set of accessability devices and special communication skills.

Even with the adaptations developed, deaf people can have a hard time sometimes. Cochlear Implants are far from perfect, especially for people profoundly deaf to start with, and it can be frustrating for a deaf person to not only be unable to fully understand the person they are talking to, but also to be unable to communicate effectively.

Autism may well be less well understood and much harder to do anything about at the moment, and the current implementations might not be working very well and might be doing more harm than good, but the strategy for helping autistic people function in the rest of society is eventually going to be similar to that for helping deaf people or any other set of people who for some reason have difficulty functioning in society at large, finding a set of aids and learnable skills which bridge the gap between autistics and everyone else.

[Hotfoot]

The problem is the implication that simply measuring a person's auditory response range is somehow enough. It's a first step on a long road of figuring out exactly what is going to be required for an individual deaf person to be able to reasonably operate in a society where everyone else isn't deaf and which has been constructed on the assumption that people in that society can hear.

Deaf people can get along in modern society because there are a great number of living aids developed to allow them to do so. Cochlear Implants, textphones, talktype services, doorbells wired up to lights or vibration packs, vibration adapters for alarm clocks. And that's without having to deal with face to face interaction with other people. Deaf people, especially profoundly deaf people, can be very hard to understand, even if they have made particular effort to learn spoken language, because they simply don't get the formative stage of spoken language learning as a baby, hearing and imitating language just can't happen. And each individual case is going to require a different set of accessability devices and special communication skills.

Even with the adaptations developed, deaf people can have a hard time sometimes. Cochlear Implants are far from perfect, especially for people profoundly deaf to start with, and it can be frustrating for a deaf person to not only be unable to fully understand the person they are talking to, but also to be unable to communicate effectively.

Autism may well be less well understood and much harder to do anything about at the moment, and the current implementations might not be working very well and might be doing more harm than good, but the strategy for helping autistic people function in the rest of society is eventually going to be similar to that for helping deaf people or any other set of people who for some reason have difficulty functioning in society at large, finding a set of aids and learnable skills which bridge the gap between autistics and everyone else.

The implication that methods for dealing with Autism are anywhere near comparable to the methods for dealing with deafness is grievously offensive. The idea that the hurdles are so similar as to be virtually identical is laughable.

Eventually, Autistics will be able to function in society, with effort, and contribute while living something as close to a normal life as they can, regardless of where they are on the spectrum. That day is not today, and comparing the damn near medieval methods used today on Autistics to the fairly refined methods used to help those without hearing is callous to a level I have trouble understanding.

But again, I go back to left-handers. They were once treated (and still are, in some places) like Autistics and the Deaf and any other that were considered to have a malady of the mind or body. Would you say that left-handers are just as troubled as the deaf? The world expects you to be right handed, and there's no end of products that reflect that. Guns, scissors, mice, it goes on. However, today, with some effort, left-handed people can live full and worthwhile lives.

I, meanwhile, wouldn't think of comparing left-handed people to the deaf or autistics, because they are fundamentally different conditions with fundamentally different "solutions". That some people here have trouble understanding that infuriates me.

[Broomstick]

If one is going to discuss the difference arising in a large part from differences in brain architechture deriving from the base unit circuit level of neurons and minicolumns which are analogous to logic gates and microprograms there's exactly one analogy, CPU architecture. Luckily it just happens that the CISC concept of the 1970s and RISC concepts of 1980s makes a good enough analogy to simplify explanation.

I realize you are laboring under the notion that the above is a "clear" and "simple" explanation but it is not - it is incomprehensible to the majority of the human race. That makes you abnormal at least in a statistical sense. Whether that abnormalness is a positive or a negative is a different question.

If you think it magically get simpler if you cut it loose from the analogy, you are quite frankly insane. What I gave you is as simple and clear as it gets, and believe me I can make it an order of magnitude more complicated without half trying by bringing in the general brain system characteristics which are both chaotic and operating on multiple layers simultaneously.

In other words, you are using polysyllabic words to spew unintelligible analogies, then calling other people stupid for not having insight into your private world. No doubt considering yourself superior compensates for the face that you ARE abnormal.

Seems as how you want something less cerebral then comprehension of what the difference is I suppose I'll simplify it as this, to keep things as civil as possible:


Hopefully that it not too cerebral a concept for you.

As much as you fancy yourself a cat, you're actually a dog who thinks he's a cat, and you are living among other dogs. You may, as this delusional dog, be more adept than your packmates at climbing trees or generating hairballs, but you're not a cat.

If that's too confusing - no matter how well-adjusted and functional an autistic person is, they still are NOT a normal person. The most fortunate have talents and skills that can compensate somewhat, but that does not change the fact that something went awry in development. You can force a left handed person to write with their right hand, but that doesn't change the underlying brain architecture that makes them lefthanded.

Autism and deafness do have something in common - they fuck with communications.

Utter nonsense. If there was any validity to that there would not have been the surge in those with Autistic brains having issues.

I think your posts are evidence that you have trouble communicating.

What is this "surge in those with Autistic brains having issues." What issues? Would you care to explain what the fuck you are referring to, since the majority of us do NOT live in your world and won't automatically know your "Darmok and Jalad" references.

When presented with something you didn't understand what did you do? You immediately went into self justification mode

Where did I "self justify"?

Now if I hadn't been hardened by various interactions with Neurotypicals

Ooo! Poor baby - you have to deal with neurotypicals!

You do realize that dealing with neurotypicals IS the norm and your inability to do so without being "hardened" in some unspecified fashion is yet more evidence that you are not normal and are suffering from a real disadvantage in this world?

I can understand you Neurotypical perfectly well

And yet, you can't compose a post comprehensible to the majority of us - which casts a long shadow of doubt on your claim.

Furthermore the rest of your post simply clearly shows you do not know anything about Autism and its treatment, as it's not something you medicate for.

Uh, right, because it's totally impossible for an autistic person to suffer from something in addition to autism, right? This also contradicts Temple Grandin's statements (you know, a high-functioning autistic person) that she has found certain medications to be helpful to her, personally. Granted, Dr. Grandin was an adult and in control of her own self when trying medication and takes it voluntarily - a vast difference from a mute child being force-fed pills.

I agree that the current medicating practices are all too often fucked up, but because I am NOT an authority on AS disorders I don't claim to know either way - I don't have enough information to determine if medication is ever or never useful, I leave that to people much more knowledgeable in this area than I am.

[Illuminatus Primus]

What a whiny bitch. I hate people who're completely dependent on the luxury and pity - yes PITY - of modern advanced society in order to survive and persist, and in the same voice the ingrate pronounces their superiority and transcendence over it. In a primitive society like the Middle Ages, you'd be damned as a demoniac or abandoned in infancy. You'd be fucking dead. That's the reality. Your condition should not be an excuse to mistreat you or deny you human dignity, however, to confuse that with acceptance as equal or equivalent to baseline function is absurd. Humans are SOCIAL ANIMALS, and your condition is MALADAPTIVE to functioning successfully in a human community, and requires dedicated investment of time and resources to even partially habilitate (and is still often unsuccessful). You do not perform an unalienable unique role in the advancement of human civilization, very few of you relative to healthy people, transcend your condition and contribute strongly. Somehow, I think us unenlightened "neurotypicals" will get by with our Einsteins, Feynmans, and Dawkinses. What a condescending douchebag.