Your Autistic Child Hasn't a Prayer--Not! / Bad Boys, Bad Boys Whacha Gonna Do?

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" Healing Autism: No Finer a Cause on the Planet "

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Your Autistic Child Hasn't a Prayer--Not! / Bad Boys, Bad Boys Whacha Gonna

Do?

Also: *Book of Poetry Offers Insights Into Autism

Wednesday, February 02, 2000

[Thanks to on the 1autvaxonelist list ]

A new email list has been started to help promote a massive prayer

campaign for children with autism and their families. The

Aut2prayegroups group was inspired by the efforts of the mother of an

autistic child, Meyer, to put together a list of the names of autistic

children so that they might be lifted up in prayer by anyone willing to do

so. The purpose of this list is to help further facilitate this effort by

maintaining a master list of names of autistic children to pray for, as well

as to offer prayer for those families that might need additional

encouragement while living with the stresses of raising an autistic child.

Other subjects in need of prayer are: legislation that will increase

funding for autism research, the most brilliant scientists to take an

interest in autism research, unity in the autism community, insurance reform

that will allow autistic children to receive the therapies they need. This

list is also intended to distribute messages of praise for answered prayers.

This is NOT a chat list, nor is it intended to provide any information with

regard to autism. Messages should be kept to requests for prayer, and

notification of prayers answered, and praise for answered prayers.

This moderated list is not associated with any specific religious

affiliation. If you would like your child's name added to the list of

children to be prayed for, please send your request to Aut2prayegroups.

If you would like to join this list and to receive a list of children to

pray for, you can subscribe by sending your message to

Aut2Pray-subscribeegroups.

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Bad Boys, Bad Boys Whacha Gonna Do?

Taming the Troublesome Child: American Families, Child

Guidance, and the Limits of Psychiatric Authority - Book Review

[by Kathleen W. . 310 pp. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University

Press, 1999. $47.50. ISBN 0-674-86811-0 In the New England Journal of

Medicine.] http://www.nejm.org/content/2000/0342/0005/0361b.asp

Whom should parents turn to when a son or daughter exhausts their

child-rearing capabilities, leaving them at their wits' end? In Taming the

Troublesome Child, Kathleen W. , a historian at Virginia Polytechnic

Institute and State University, provides an eloquent, erudite account of

how, during the first half of this century, psychologists, psychiatrists,

and social workers banded together as a child-guidance team to claim sole

authority in understanding the causes of and cures for problematic behavior.

's story begins with Progressive Era reformers such as Jane

Addams, who " believed in the righteousness of middle-class family values "

and set out to impart these to working-class and immigrant families who,

because they had not been Americanized, were, in their view, producing

feebleminded and delinquent children. These " child savers " were

" environmentalists. " Much like their counterparts in public health, they saw

troublesome behavior as stemming largely from the impoverished conditions in

which children were being raised. However, environmentalism was gradually

replaced by emotional determinism, in which children's behavioral problems

were seen as rooted in unmet emotional needs.

illustrates this transition to psychodynamic ascendancy using

the medical records of the Judge Baker Foundation (later renamed the Judge

Baker Guidance Center), which was established in Boston in 1917. The Baker,

as it is known locally, was originally a branch of the juvenile court but

later served many troublesome children who were brought in by parents. The

protagonist in 's narrative of this ideological shift is Dr.

Healy, the clinic's first director and the author of its major research

study, The Individual Delinquent: A Textbook of Diagnosis and Prognosis for

All Concerned in Understanding Offenders, published in 1915 (Glen Ridge,

N.J.: Reprint, 1969).

In his book, Healy presented 20 general categories of " causative

factors " for delinquency, including ones that were " developmental, physical,

environmental, and psychological. " Most often, Healy determined that a case

could be explained only by a combination of several of these causes. To

arrive at this position, Healy had to eschew previously popular hereditarian

explanations, as well as those linking delinquency to feeblemindedness or

other " mental defects. " His scientific approach left him no other

alternative. Healy observed that delinquent patients at the Baker did not

necessarily have subnormal IQs on the tests that had become a standard part

of the clinic's evaluation " ritual. " And because the ideology of the clinic

had been popularized by proponents of child guidance ( " child guiders " ), the

clinic's patients were increasingly from " good " middle-class families, not

the poor served by the child savers.

Even though they were published more than 80 years ago, the diagrams

from The Individual Delinquent, in which Healy showed the " web of

causation, " could easily be mistaken for contemporary illustrations, with a

few modifications of terminology such as changing " broken-up home " to

" female-headed household. " But rather than laud Healy as a visionary,

casts him as a kind of villain who " helped sound the death knell of

Progressive environmentalism and community intervention, " paving the way for

detrimental " mother-blaming " theories (blaming the mother for the child's

problems) because of his focus on the individual patient and a " shallow

environmentalism " that ignored the importance of class distinctions.

's account is colored by her apparent belief that proper

treatments for mental health problems are environmental, but her criticisms

are most often oblique and veiled. She comes close to a direct ideological

statement when she writes: " At a point in American history, in the midst of

the country's worst economic catastrophe, child guidance provided a way to

care for all children without any economic restructuring. " Similarly,

seems unable to sanction the use of emotional determinism to remove the

blame for troublesome behavior from the shoulders of children. In describing

Healy's testimony for the defense at the murder trial of Leopold,

Jr., and Loeb, she writes that " the abnormal and abominable behavior

of Leopold and Loeb was tamed and made normal through the analyses of expert

witnesses. "

In describing the clinic's treatment of 11-year-old Adam, whom

describes as a hellion because he had started a fire, stolen money, " and

generally made his stepmother's life miserable, " she downplays the fact that

Adam had never known his biologic father, that his biologic mother had died,

and that his remarried stepfather and new stepmother wanted to " put him

away. " Instead, she writes that " security and parentage were a long way from

the fire setting, stealing and upsetting behavior Adam's parents had seen as

their son's problems. In fact the problem ceased to be Adam's at all as the

clinic explored his parents' failure to meet his emotional needs and

examined ways to change the parents. "

There are other lacunae. Despite the fact that 90 percent of the

children treated in the clinic were boys, tends to illustrate her

writing with renderings of girls who were troublesome because they chafed

against the narrowness of early-20th-century sex roles. The human element of

clinical practice is also missing. writes extensively about how

children were " always involuntary participants " at the clinic and how

clinicians used deception to sustain treatment, but there is scant mention

of caring, connection, or cure.

A great deal of harm has been caused by mother-blaming, especially by

the notions of " schizophrenogenic " mothers and " refrigerated " mothers (cold

and distant mothers thought to cause autism), and by misguided

psychoanalytic treatment such as attempts to " cure " male homosexuality. It

is commendable that investigates the events that predated these

appalling practices. Her account is well written, informative, interesting,

and intelligent. It is also incomplete. finds herself in the position

of a psychiatrist who misdiagnoses a patient's disorder because she has not

taken a thorough history.

J. Kindlon, Ph.D. Harvard Medical School Boston, MA 02115

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Book Of Poetry Offers Insights Into Autism

[From today's Fairfax Journal (Virginia). Kathy (the author mentioned

below) was my son's first teacher. She pushed mainstreaming and

really helped all of her former students. Thanks to Santos.]

http://cold.jrnl.com/cfdocs/new/ffx/fpstory3.cfm

Poetry Book Arises From Notes Jotted In A Fairfax Classroom

By Shek, Journal staff writer

When publisher Hammer met Smitley, a Fairfax County

public school teacher, two years ago, he was not at all excited about her as

a poet. After all, Hammer reads 12 manuscripts a day and has published only

10 books in the past 20 years.

Hammer had never published a poetry book and didn't want to, simply

because, as he puts it, poetry books don't sell.

But Smitley was eager to show her poems.

" I didn't have too much reaction until she brought out this folder of

poems, " Hammer, of Minneapolis, recalled of his meeting with Smitley in a

restaurant in Occoquan, Va. " I read the first poem, and it just knocked me

off. I thought, who is this person? "

Smitley has taught autistic children in Fairfax County public schools

for 23 years and currently teaches a group of boys at Shrevewood Elementary

School in Falls Church.

In September, Smitley's first book " Through 's Eyes, " a

collection of 50 poems depicting life in her classroom, was published by The

Place in the Woods in Golden Valley, Minn. The pink cover features a

childhood photograph of Smitley.

" The book is for teachers, parents and people who love children, " said

Smitley, 51, who lives with her husband, , in Fairfax Station.

Smitley never thought of publishing a book. It all began when she

started spontaneously jotting down poems when something funny happened in

her class.

" I told her she should write them down and put them on computer disks

and keep them, " said Smitley's friend and editor of her book, Deborah

Truscott.

" She became more serious about it. "

Smitley said she wants to bring her readers into the world of autistic

children and the joy and rewards she receives from educating them.

" Autistic children are children who perceive the world differently

[and] therefore don't understand conventional explanation, " Smitley

explained.

With no children of her own, Smitley sees her pupils as her family.

She dubs herself their " school mother. "

" I don't put them to bed at night. I don't feed them, " she said. " But

I am responsible for their knowledge. "

Smitley likes to make an analogy about her pupils as children locked

away in the chambers of a sunken boat. Her mission is to find them and bring

them to the surface.

" The challenge is being able to go out on the boat and go down to get

the children, " she said. " That book tells about where these kids are. "

Smitley said her poems are meant to be humorous but also insightful,

inviting readers to step into the world of special education.

Whether it's a funny incident in the cafeteria or a child refusing to

listen in the classroom, Smitley said she hopes readers will enjoy the

stories and, at the same time, be aware of the needs of autistic children.

The book also includes Smitley's impressions of what it means to be a

teacher and her opinions on how children's education can be improved.

" I read it three times, " said Diane , another teacher of

autistic children at Shrevewood, who is also known as the " detention lady "

in Smitley's poems. " I read it, and I laugh. "

The book has been nominated for the Book Poetry Award sponsored by

the Library of Virginia. Smitley will sign her work at & Noble in

Richmond, Va., Feb. 13.

Available at Amazon.com:

Through 's Eyes (A poignant, insider's look at teaching)

by Smitley

Paperback - 104 pages 1st edition (September 1, 1999)

Place in the Woods; ISBN: 0932991327

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editor: Lenny Schafer schafer@...

eastern editor: , PhD

newswire culls: Ron Sleith RSleith@... | * Not FEAT

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