Mother Reacts To Shock Jock's Autism Rant

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Mother Reacts To Shock Jock's Autism Rant

" Now, you want me to tell you my opinion on autism, since I'm not talking about autism? A fraud, a racket, " said nationally syndicated radio jock, Savage.

Posted: 10:55 PM Jul 22, 2008

Reporter:  DearboneEmail Address: ryan.dearbone@...

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" Now, you want me to tell you my opinion on autism, since I'm not talking about autism? A fraud, a racket, " said nationally syndicated radio jock, Savage.

Now, an uproar has been sparked, and many people are reacting to those comments.

The comments made by shock jock Savage have made their way to one local mother who has an up close and personal look at autism everyday... through the eyes of her son. Butterfield has spent the last 2 years adjusting to 5-year-old Christian Butterfield's autism.

" Christian has high-functioning autism. He has a lot of sensory sensitivity and he has some social skills that he has a little bit of difficulty with, " says Butterfield.She said it was very hard to deal with at first.

" In the beginning, when we found out Christian had autism, it was challenging. We had to learn how to speak his language, how to relate to him, learn how to communicate with him, " Butterfield adds.So she feels disrespected by the comments she heard on the radio.

" You know what autism is? I'll tell you what autism is. In 99% of the cases, its a 'brat' who hasn't been told to cut the act. Thats what autism is, " says Savage in another excerpt from his show, " The Savage Nation " .

" He was uneducated. He was uneducated and never had somebody to touch his life personally with disability, " says Butterfield. " Its taken a couple of decades for researchers and practitioners to overcome some of the initial misperceptions in autism, " says Dr. Rich Mancil of the Autism Center.

Dr. Mancil says these comments can be very harmful. " By labeling these kids as just " brats " is a very unfair statement. These individuals don't always perceive the environment the same as everyone else. They'll either be what we called " hyper " or " hypo " sensitive, " says Dr. Mancil.

While Butterfield doesn't like the comments against autism, she wouldn't change who Christian is for anything in the world. " Christian is very joyful. He brings lots of love to people and it helps educate people, " Butterfield says proudly.

Dr. Mancil says if children are diagnosed with the disease early enough, they can go on to live normal, happy lives.For more about this story click here.