Best Jr. Question for you...

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

I'm new to this group and I don't " know " everyone yet, so please

bear with me. I read your response to Kathleen regarding ABA and it

made me wonder a few things.

Here is your response (and my questions are below):

[Kathleen, If you followed Andy's advice 7 years ago, you might not

have ever needed the ABA. Perhaps we're looking at this from

different perspectives. Recovery is unacceptable to me. Cure is the

only word I accept. Recovery is a half-assed solution.

I don't care that it might be possible to teach my son to behave in

any certain way. I won't be satisfied until his brain functions the

way it is supposed to. Your empirical research on ABA is now

obsolete. Let this sink in, you can not cure mercury poisoning with

ABA. Those who continue to shove ABA down our throats are only

giving us a band-aid. Modifying behavior will not make the brain

work the way it is supposed to. And, touting ABA as a cure for

autism will not hinder the drug companies in poisoning more babies

for profit.

]

So, my questions are first how is your son doing? How long have you

been chelating? Is your son " cured " ? How old is your son? Please

share what you think is helping him the most.

And a bit about me. I know mercury caused my son's autism. We

started him on biomed (and all that entails) and ABA (more precisely

discrete trial learning) when he was 2 1/2. He is 4 1/2 now and is

doing well...far from " cured " but doing really well. He doens't

have " behaviors " per se, but he does not understand language (mostly

spoken). So, by breaking down the steps via DT (ABA) he learns.

It's not perfect, but it's working slowly but surely. We are a very

loving family and we get down on the floor and play with him all the

time, but that does not teach him language. ABA (DT) does. Some

children understand language and the world around them, but they

can't access the ability to speak. My son is the opposite.

I agree that we have to get the mercury out of his brain (and we

are). But isn't there a chance that some damage has been done? Or

connections have been blocked or misfired? ABA (DT) aims at

rebuilding mis-fired connections in the brain, and builds

connections that were never made (due to the mercury getting in the

way). If you look at it this way, maybe you can see the value of

ABA. It's not only to control behaviors. My son wants to

understand the world, but he can't intuitively. ABA gives him the

tools to make sense of the world around him. And even though we

have to do maintenence trials to be sure he's getting it, we have to

start somewhere. Over time he's begun to learn more from his

environment (albeit very slowly), but it's happening. He is a

really good generalizer too. Nothing robitic about him at all.

We all want to help our children. If a parent tells me something

works for their child, I beleive them. And I want to know about

it. I want to know about everything (from the PARENTS) not the

people selling the product. I respect the parents. If someone told

me their child was helped by standing on his/her head, I'd beleive

them, because why would they lie about it? We need to respect each

other.

Mostly I just wanted to find out more about what YOU think!

Thanks,