Autism Vox

This and Last’s Weeks Top Posts

by Kristina Chew, PhD on December 2nd, 2007

The past two weeks featured a week of autism on TV profiling Amanda Baggs and DJ Savarese. We enjoyed a very lowkey Thanksgiving and then a very interesting week, as Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton announced her autism plan and the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee met on November 30th, last Friday. Here’s the highlights:  

• Drinking During Pregnancy Linked to Autism
  Dr. Maggie Watts makes the point that some children who have Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) may be “misdiagnosed” with autism or a neurodevelopmental disorder.
• The Vaccine Wars Were Just a Start
  Autism is lifelong for Charlie and his needs are very, all too, real—and my need to take care of these and of him first and foremost is perhaps the reason I wonder if the Ritalin Wars, and the Vaccine Wars, and even the Autism Wars, are really just skirmishes that drain our energies from the real work we need to do.
• A New Autism Treatment
  When CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta about DJ about whether he felt that autism should be treated, DJ responded: ”’Yes, treated with respect!’”
• To Have, Or Not Have, Autism
  I’m a bit confused about what McCarthy’s son does or does not have?
• Puzzle of a Tattoo (2)
  Once there was the locket and then there was the photos in wallets—-and then personalized t-shirts with the kids’ faces ironed-on—–and now mothers are proclaiming their love for their pride and joy with ………..mommy tattoos.
• “Sometimes the only thing you can do is keep an eye on them”
  It’s good to go places with Charlie, but whether it’s the subway in New York or a parking lot at the store, that worry of him wandering off—of him getting lost—is omnipresent. The worry can be compounded by the fact that Charlie might not think of himself as lost.
• Just the Experience, Please
  Some grandparents noted that what they liked most about CNN special on autism, Finding Amanda was that it was was simply about “the experience.”
• The Candidates’ Autism Plans
  Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton announced her autism plan in Sioux City; what are Obama’s and Edwards’ plans?
• Teaching Strategy #13: Physical Restraints, Fear, and Why We Need to Teach
  I understand why people have their fears about autistic children getting bigger, but I think these can lead to mistaken practices like physical restraints and to the overuse of physical restraints.
• Doctor Who Falsified Vaccine Records is Disciplined
  An Upper West Side pediatrician has admitted to faking the immunization records of four children. The two families did not want to have their young children, who needed the shots to attend school, vaccinated, due to fears of a vaccine-autism link.
• Autism Families, Not “Autistic Families”
  People who are diagnosed with autism are “autistic”; families that have an autistic child or other relative can be called “autism families.”
• The Tide is High: Jenny McCarthy Riding on a Wave of Autism Awareness
  If you read what is being said about Jenny McCarthy pushing “autism into the spotlight” and “drawing attention to the developmental disorder” (as noted in today’s Orlando Sentinel), you might think that no one was, indeed, paying any attention to autism before. What, one might wonder, did anyone do before she bestowed her “star power” on autism?
• The Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee Meets on Nov. 30
  The federal and on-federal members of the IACC, which is to develop a Strategic Plan for the research funds provided by the Combating Autism Act.
• Padded or Concrete: The Quiet Room
  Whose idea was it to have a padded room—-the “padding” being gym mats that, as parent Lisa Grams notes in an interview on CBS3News.com, smelled of urine—-in Russell Knight Elementary School in Cherry Hill, New Jersey?
• Maybe Mainstreaming Isn’t Always for Every Student
  It’s generally assumed that mainstreaming and inclusion are the better, if not the best, options for special needs children—-but a November 27th article in the Wall Street Journal reports that a number of parents in New Jersey and around the nation think otherwise.
• Statement to the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee
  We need research to find out what are the best educational methods to teach autistic children to communicate, to interact with others, and simply to learn. We need to figure out what are the best types of school environments that autistic children can learn in and how best to train teachers and therapists, and also how to maintain autism programs over time.
• It’s Not Whether You Win or Lose
  David Kirby, on the other hand, persists in wanting to debate about whether or not vaccines or something in vaccines can be linked to autism.

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