Re: The Truth About Autism: Scientists Reconsider What They Think They Know

[Guest guest]

>

> http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-03/ff_autism

>

> The Truth About Autism: Scientists Reconsider What They Think They

> Know

> By Wolman 02.25.08 | 6:00 PM

>

Wow this article blew me away. Someone wrote something that talks

about what should be happening instead of what has been happening.

No suffering, no tragic no crud. I had been saying this since Ravi

was given a Dx. I participated in so many research projects hoping a

scientist would SEE, that Autsm didn't mean a death knoll for the

brain. Early on I would try to explain different teaching

techniques, to get the ASD brain to preform at optimum, but the

schools always said they were only intrested in bringing up his

defecits. I had given up hope that I could get them to understand.

I don't know where it will go But mass General hospital is in my

area. I am going to try to hook- up. With that lab. Thanks so

much!! Most of my depression over Ravi is the impact that others

have on his future. I have told people that it is my job to hold the

door open to make sure his opportunities aren't closed off from him

on the whims and perceptions of others. Really I am so excited.

When I started reading this article tears welled up in my eyes.

These perceptions keep us walled off from, family, friends and

neighbors. They have no idea what wonderful is because their brains

can't imagine anything else

mimi

[Guest guest]

>

> http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-03/ff_autism

>

> The Truth About Autism: Scientists Reconsider What They Think They

> Know

> By Wolman 02.25.08 | 6:00 PM

>

Wow this article blew me away. Someone wrote something that talks

about what should be happening instead of what has been happening.

No suffering, no tragic no crud. I had been saying this since Ravi

was given a Dx. I participated in so many research projects hoping a

scientist would SEE, that Autsm didn't mean a death knoll for the

brain. Early on I would try to explain different teaching

techniques, to get the ASD brain to preform at optimum, but the

schools always said they were only intrested in bringing up his

defecits. I had given up hope that I could get them to understand.

I don't know where it will go But mass General hospital is in my

area. I am going to try to hook- up. With that lab. Thanks so

much!! Most of my depression over Ravi is the impact that others

have on his future. I have told people that it is my job to hold the

door open to make sure his opportunities aren't closed off from him

on the whims and perceptions of others. Really I am so excited.

When I started reading this article tears welled up in my eyes.

These perceptions keep us walled off from, family, friends and

neighbors. They have no idea what wonderful is because their brains

can't imagine anything else

mimi

[Guest guest]

>

> http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-03/ff_autism

>

> The Truth About Autism: Scientists Reconsider What They Think They

> Know

> By Wolman 02.25.08 | 6:00 PM

>

Called and sent an e-mail but there is nothing going on right now.

If this takes long enough to happen I may be a doctor by the time

this research will come to light. argggggg!!

http://www.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/Neural_Systems_Group/staff.html

Well this is the way I try, I applaud you guys Tom and Raven (and

Willliam offering support) but this is what I can do most of the time

I feel inneffectual, and like Don Quitote (does what I do count or

even matter) am I cow towing? And there is the feeling when I

contact these people out of the blue that I am some sort of nut

ball. Great hope wells up in me I hope for understanding and

connection and then I end up feeling dashed on the rocks. oh well

[Guest guest]

" Really I am so excited. When I started reading this article tears

welled up in my eyes. These perceptions keep us walled off from,

family, friends and neighbors. They have no idea what wonderful is

because their brains can't imagine anything else. "

's online name is Silent Miaow. I realized quickly it would only

be a matter of time before the media caught on and picked up her story.

Let's hope it spreads.

Tom

Administrator

[Guest guest]

Great article.

>

> http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-03/ff_autism

>

> The Truth About Autism: Scientists Reconsider What They Think They

> Know

> By Wolman 02.25.08 | 6:00 PM

>

> The YouTube clip opens with a woman facing away from the camera,

> rocking back and forth, flapping her hands awkwardly, and emitting

an

> eerie hum. She then performs strange repetitive behaviors: slapping

a

> piece of paper against a window, running a hand lengthwise over a

> computer keyboard, twisting the knob of a drawer. She bats a

necklace

> with her hand and nuzzles her face against the pages of a book. And

> you find yourself thinking: Who's shooting this footage of the

> handicapped lady, and why do I always get sucked into watching the

> latest viral video?

>

> But then the words " A Translation " appear on a black screen, and

for

> the next five minutes, 27-year-old Baggs — who is autistic

and

> doesn't speak — describes in vivid and articulate terms what's

going

> on inside her head as she carries out these seemingly bizarre

> actions. In a synthesized voice generated by a software

application,

> she explains that touching, tasting, and smelling allow her to have

> a " constant conversation " with her surroundings. These forms of

> nonverbal stimuli constitute her " native language, " Baggs explains,

> and are no better or worse than spoken language. Yet her failure to

> speak is seen as a deficit, she says, while other people's failure

to

> learn her language is seen as natural and acceptable.

>

> And you find yourself thinking: She might have a point.

>

> Baggs lives in a public housing project for the elderly and

> handicapped near downtown Burlington, Vermont. She has short black

> hair, a pointy nose, and round glasses. She usually wears a T-shirt

> and baggy pants, and she spends a scary amount of time — day and

> night — on the Internet: blogging, hanging out in Second Life, and

> corresponding with her autie and aspie friends. (For the

uninitiated,

> that's autistic and Asperger's.)

>

> On a blustery afternoon, Baggs reclines on a red futon in the

> apartment of her neighbor (and best friend). She has a gray travel

> pillow wrapped around her neck, a keyboard resting on her lap, and

a

> DynaVox VMax computer propped against her legs.

>

> Like many people with autism, Baggs doesn't like to look you in the

> eye and needs help with tasks like preparing a meal and taking a

> shower. In conversation she'll occasionally grunt or sigh, but she

> stopped speaking altogether in her early twenties. Instead, she

types

> 120 words a minute, which the DynaVox then translates into a

> synthesized female voice that sounds like a deadpan British

> schoolteacher.

>

> The YouTube post, she says, was a political statement, designed to

> call attention to people's tendency to underestimate autistics. It

> wasn't her first video post, but this one took off. " When the

number

> of viewers began to climb, I got scared out of my mind, " Baggs

says.

> As the hit count neared 100,000, her blog was flooded. At 200,000,

> scientists were inviting her to visit their labs. By 300,000, the

TV

> people came calling, hearts warmed by the story of a young woman's

> fiery spirit and the rare glimpse into what has long been regarded

as

> the solitary imprisonment of the autistic mind. " I've said a

million

> times that I'm not trapped in my own world,' " Baggs says. " Yet what

> do most of these news stories lead with? Saying exactly that. "

>

> I tell her that I asked one of the world's leading authorities on

> autism to check out the video. The expert's opinion: Baggs must

have

> had outside help creating it, perhaps from one of her caregivers.

Her

> inability to talk, coupled with repetitive behaviors, lack of eye

> contact, and the need for assistance with everyday tasks are

telltale

> signs of severe autism. Among all autistics, 75 percent are

expected

> to score in the mentally retarded range on standard intelligence

> tests — that's an IQ of 70 or less.

>

> People like Baggs fall at one end of an array of developmental

> syndromes known as autism spectrum disorders. The spectrum ranges

> from someone with severe disability and cognitive impairment to the

> socially awkward eccentric with Asperger's syndrome.

>

> After I explain the scientist's doubts, Baggs grunts, and her mouth

> forms just a hint of a smirk as she lets loose a salvo on the

> keyboard. No one helped her shoot the video, edit it, and upload it

> to YouTube. She used a Sony Cybershot DSC-T1, a digital camera that

> can record up to 90 seconds of video (she has since upgraded). She

> then patched the footage together using the editing programs RAD

> Video Tools, VirtualDub, and DivXLand Media Subtitler. " My care

> provider wouldn't even know how to work the software, " she says.

>

> Baggs is part of an increasingly visible and highly networked

> community of autistics. Over the past decade, this group has

> benefited enormously from the Internet as well as innovations like

> type-to-speech software. Baggs may never have considered herself

> trapped in her own world, but thanks to technology, she can

> communicate with the same speed and specificity as someone using

> spoken language.

>

> Autistics like Baggs are now leading a nascent civil rights

> movement. " I remember in '99, " she says, " seeing a number of gay

> pride Web sites. I envied how many there were and wished there was

> something like that for autism. Now there is. " The message: We're

> here. We're weird. Get used to it.

>

> This movement is being fueled by a small but growing cadre of

> neuropsychological researchers who are taking a fresh look at the

> nature of autism itself. The condition, they say, shouldn't be

> thought of as a disease to be eradicated. It may be that the

autistic

> brain is not defective but simply different — an example of the

> variety of human development. These researchers assert that the

focus

> on finding a cure for autism — the disease model — has kept science

> from asking fundamental questions about how autistic brains

function.

>

> A cornerstone of this new approach — call it the difference model —

> is that past research about autistic intelligence is flawed,

perhaps

> catastrophically so, because the instruments used to measure

> intelligence are bogus. " If Baggs had walked into my clinic

> five years ago, " says Massachusetts General Hospital neuroscientist

> Zeffiro, one of the leading proponents of the difference

> model, " I would have said she was a low-functioning autistic with

> significant cognitive impairment. And I would have been totally

> wrong. "

>

> Seventy years ago, a Baltimore psychiatrist named Leo Kanner began

> recording observations about children in his clinic who

> exhibited " fascinating peculiarities. " Just as Kanner's landmark

> paper was about to be published, a pediatrician in Vienna named

Hans

> Asperger was putting the finishing touches on a report about a

> similar patient population. Both men, independently, used the same

> word to describe and define the condition: autist, or autism, from

> the Greek autos, meaning self.

>

> The children had very real deficits, especially when it came to

> the " failure to be integrated in a social group " (Asperger) or the

> inborn inability to form " affective contact " with other people

> (Kanner). The two doctors' other observations about language

> impairment, repetitive behaviors, and the desire for sameness still

> form much of the basis of autism diagnoses in the 21st century.

>

> On the matter of autistic intelligence, Kanner spoke of an array of

> mental skills, " islets of ability " — vocabulary, memory, and

problem-

> solving that " bespeak good intelligence. " Asperger, too, was struck

> by " a particular originality of thought and experience. " Yet over

the

> years, those islets attracted scientific interest only when they

were

> amazing — savant-level capabilities in areas such as music,

> mathematics, and drawing. For the millions of people with autism

who

> weren't savants, the general view was that their condition was

> tragic, their brainpower lacking.

>

> The test typically used to substantiate this view relies heavily on

> language, social interaction, and cultural knowledge — areas that

> autistic people, by definition, find difficult. About six years

ago,

> Meredyth Goldberg Edelson, a professor of psychology at Willamette

> University in Oregon, reviewed 215 articles published over the past

> 71 years, all making or referring to this link between autism and

> mental retardation. She found that most of the papers (74 percent)

> lacked their own research data to back up the assumption. Thirty-

nine

> percent of the articles weren't based on any data, and even the

more

> rigorous studies often used questionable measures of

> intelligence. " Are the majority of autistics mentally retarded? "

> Goldberg Edelson asks. " Personally, I don't think they are, but we

> don't have the data to answer that. "

>

> Mike Merzenich, a professor of neuroscience at UC San Francisco,

says

> the notion that 75 percent of autistic people are mentally retarded

> is " incredibly wrong and destructive. " He has worked with a number

of

> autistic children, many of whom are nonverbal and would have been

> plunked into the low-functioning category. " We label them as

retarded

> because they can't express what they know, " and then, as they grow

> older, we accept that they " can't do much beyond sit in the back of

a

> warehouse somewhere and stuff letters in envelopes. "

>

> The irony is that this dearth of data persists even as autism

> receives an avalanche of attention. Organizations such as Autism

> Speaks advocate for research and resources. Celebrity parents like

> Toni Braxton, Ed Asner, and McCarthy get high-profile

coverage

> on talk shows and TV news magazines. Newsweeklies raise fears of an

> autism epidemic. But is there an epidemic? There's certainly the

> perception of one. According to the Centers for Disease Control,

one

> out of every 150 8-year-old children (in the areas of the US most

> recently studied) has an autism spectrum disorder, a prevalence

much

> higher than in decades past, when the rate was thought to be in the

> range of four or five cases per 10,000 children. But no one knows

> whether this apparent explosion of cases is due to an actual rise

in

> autism, changing diagnostic criteria, inconsistent survey

techniques,

> or some combination of the three.

>

> In his original paper in 1943, Kanner wrote that while many of the

> children he examined " were at one time or another looked upon as

> feebleminded, they are all unquestionably endowed with good

cognitive

> potentialities. " Sixty-five years later, though, little is known

> about those potentialities. As one researcher told me, " There's no

> money in the field for looking at differences " in the autistic

> brain. " But if you talk about trying to fix a problem — then the

> funding comes. "

>

> On the outskirts of Montreal sits a brick monolith, the Hôpital

> Rivière-des-Prairies. Once one of Canada's most notorious asylums,

it

> now has a small number of resident psychiatric patients, but most

of

> the space has been converted into clinics and research facilities.

>

> One of the leading researchers here is t Mottron, 55, a

> psychiatrist specializing in autism. Mottron, who grew up in

postwar

> France, had a tough childhood. His family had a history of

> schizophrenia and Tourette syndrome, and he probably has what today

> would be diagnosed as attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder.

> Naturally, he went into psychiatry. By the early '80s, Mottron was

> doing clinical work at a school in Tours that catered to children

> with sensory impairment, including autism. " The view then, " Mottron

> says, " was that these children could be reeled back to normalcy

with

> play therapy and work on the parents' relationships " — a gentle way

> of saying that the parents, especially the mother, were to blame.

> (The theory that emotionally distant " refrigerator mothers " caused

> autism had by then been rejected in the US, but in France and many

> other countries, the view lingered.)

>

> After only a few weeks on the job, Mottron decided the theories

were

> crap. " These children were just of another kind, " he says. " You

> couldn't turn someone autistic or make someone not autistic. It was

> hardwired. " In 1986, Mottron began working with an autistic man who

> would later become known in the scientific literature as " E.C. " A

> draftsman who specialized in mechanical drawings, E.C. had

incredible

> savant skills in 3-D drawing. He could rotate objects in his mind

and

> make technical drawings without the need for a single revision.

After

> two years of working with E.C., Mottron made his second

breakthrough —

> not about autistics this time but about the rest of us: People

with

> standard-issue brains — so-called neurotypicals — don't have the

> perceptual abilities to do what E.C. could do. " It's just

> inconsistent with how our brains work, " Mottron says.

>

> From that day forward, he decided to challenge the disease model

> underlying most autism research. " I wanted to go as far as I could

to

> show that their perception — their brains — are totally different. "

> Not damaged. Not dysfunctional. Just different.

>

> By the mid-1990s, Mottron was a faculty member at the University of

> Montreal, where he began publishing papers on " atypicalities of

> perception " in autistic subjects. When performing certain mental

> tasks — especially when tapping visual, spatial, and auditory

> functions — autistics have shown superior performance compared with

> neurotypicals. Call it the upside of autism. Dozens of studies —

> Mottron's and others — have demonstrated that people with autism

> spectrum disorder have a number of strengths: a higher prevalence

of

> perfect pitch, enhanced ability with 3-D drawing and pattern

> recognition, more accurate graphic recall, and various superior

> memory skills.

>

> Yet most scientists who come across these skills classify them

> as " anomalous peaks of ability, " set them aside, and return to the

> questions that drive most research: What's wrong with the autistic

> brain? Can we find the genes responsible so that we can someday

cure

> it? Is there a unifying theory of autism? With severe autistics,

> cognitive strengths are even more apt to be overlooked because

these

> individuals have such obvious deficits and are so hard to test.

> People like Baggs don't speak, others may run out of the room, and

> still others might not be able to hold a pencil. And besides, if 75

> percent of them are mentally retarded, well, why bother?

>

> Mottron draws a parallel with homosexuality. Until 1974,

psychiatry's

> bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,

> described being gay as a mental illness. Someday, Mottron says,

we'll

> look back on today's ideas about autism with the same sense of

shame

> that we now feel when talking about psychology's pre-1974 views on

> sexuality. " We want to break the idea that autism should definitely

> be suppressed, " he says.

>

> Dawson doesn't drive or cook. Public transit overwhelms

her,

> and face-to-face interaction is an ordeal. She was employed as a

> postal worker in 1998 when she " came out of the closet " with her

> diagnosis of autism, which she received in the early '90s. After

> that, she claims, Canada Post harassed her to such a degree that

she

> was forced to take a permanent leave of absence, starting in 2002.

> (Canada Post says Dawson was treated fairly.) To fight back, she

went

> on an information-devouring rampage. " There's such a variety of

human

> behavior. Why is my kind wrong? " she asks. She eventually began

> scouring the libraries of McGill University in Montreal to delve

into

> the autism literature. She searched out journal articles using the

> online catalog and sat on the floor reading studies among the

stacks.

>

> Dawson, like Baggs, has become a reluctant spokesperson for this

new

> view of autism. Both are prolific bloggers and correspond

constantly

> with scientists, parents' groups, medical institutions, the courts,

> journalists, and anyone else who'll listen to their stories of how

> autistics are mistreated. Baggs has been using YouTube to make her

> point; Dawson's weapon is science.

>

> In 2001, Dawson contacted Mottron, figuring that his clinic might

> help improve the quality of her life. Mottron tried to give her

some

> advice on navigating the neurotypical world, but his tips on how to

> handle banking, shopping, and buses didn't help. After meeting with

> her a few times, Mottron began to suspect that what Dawson really

> needed was a sense of purpose. In 2003, he handed her one of his in-

> progress journal articles and asked her to copy-edit the grammar.

So

> Dawson started reading. " I criticized his science almost

> immediately, " she says.

>

> Encouraged by Dawson's interest, Mottron sent her other papers. She

> responded with written critiques of his work. Then one day in early

> 2003, she called with a question. " I asked: How did they control

for

> attention in that fMRI face study?' That caught his attention. "

> Dawson had flagged an error that Mottron says most postdocs would

> have missed. He was impressed, and over the next few months he

sought

> Dawson's input on other technical questions. Eventually, he invited

> her to collaborate with his research group, despite the fact that

her

> only academic credential was a high school diploma.

>

> Dawson has an incredible memory, but she's not a savant. What makes

> her unique, Mottron says, is her gift for scientific analysis — the

> way she can sniff through methodologies and statistical

manipulation,

> hunting down tiny errors and weak links in logic.

>

> Last summer, the peer-reviewed journal Psychological Science

> published a study titled " The Level and Nature of Autistic

> Intelligence. " The lead author was Dawson. The paper

argues

> that autistic smarts have been underestimated because the tools for

> assessing intelligence depend on techniques ill-suited to

autistics.

> The researchers administered two different intelligence tests to 51

> children and adults diagnosed with autism and to 43 non-autistic

> children and adults.

>

> The first test, known as the Wechsler Intelligence Scale, has

helped

> solidify the notion of peaks of ability amid otherwise pervasive

> mental retardation among autistics. The other test is Raven's

> Progressive Matrices, which requires neither a race against the

clock

> nor a proctor breathing down your neck. The Raven is considered as

> reliable as the Wechsler, but the Wechsler is far more commonly

used.

> Perhaps that's because it requires less effort for the average test

> taker. Raven measures abstract reasoning — " effortful " operations

> like spotting patterns or solving geometric puzzles. In contrast,

> much of the Wechsler assesses crystallized skills like acquired

> vocabulary, making correct change, or knowing that milk goes in the

> fridge and cereal in the cupboard — learned information that most

> people intuit or recall almost automatically.

>

> What the researchers found was that while non-autistic subjects

> scored just about the same — a little above average — on both

tests,

> the autistic group scored much better on the Raven. Two

individuals'

> scores swung from the mentally retarded range to the 94th

percentile.

> More significantly, the subset of autistic children in the study

> scored roughly 30 percentile points higher on the Raven than they

did

> on the more language-dependent Wechsler, pulling all but a couple

of

> them out of the range for mental retardation.

>

> A number of scientists shrugged off the results — of course

autistics

> would do better on nonverbal tests. But Dawson and her coauthors

saw

> something more. The " peaks of ability " on the Wechsler correlated

> strongly with the average scores on the Raven. The finding suggests

> the Wechsler scores give only a glimpse of the autistics'

> intelligence, whereas the Raven — the gold standard of fluid

> intelligence testing — reveals the true, or at least truer, level

of

> general intelligence.

>

> Yet to a remarkable degree, scientists conducting cognitive

> evaluations continue to use tests which presume that people who

can't

> communicate the answer don't know the answer. The question is: Why?

> Greg , an assistant professor of psychiatry at University of

> Texas Southwestern Medical Center, says that although most

> researchers know the Wechsler doesn't provide a good assessment of

> people with autism, there's pressure to use the test anyway. " Say

> you're submitting a grant to study autistic people by comparing

them

> to a control group, " he says. " The first question that comes up is:

> Did you control for IQ? Matching people on IQ is meant to clean up

> the methodology, but I think it can also end up damaging the study. "

>

> And that hurts autistic people, Dawson says. She makes a comparison

> with blindness. Of course blind people have a disability and need

> special accommodation. But you wouldn't give a blind person a test

> heavily dependent on vision and interpret their poor score as an

> accurate measure of intelligence. Mottron is unequivocal: Because

of

> recent research, especially the Raven paper, it's clearer than ever

> that so-called low-functioning people like Baggs are more

> intelligent than once presumed.The Dawson paper was hardly

> conclusive, but it generated buzz among scientists and the media.

> Mottron's team is now collaborating with Massachusetts General

> Hospital's Zeffiro, a neuroimaging expert, to dig deeper. Zeffiro

and

> company are looking for variable types of mental processing without

> asking, what's wrong with this brain? Their first study compares

fMRI

> results from autistic and control subjects whose brains were imaged

> while they performed the Raven test. The group is currently

crunching

> numbers for publication, and the study looks both perplexing and

> promising.

>

> Surprisingly, they didn't find any variability in which parts of

the

> brain lit up when subjects performed the tasks. " We thought we'd

see

> different patterns of activation, " Zeffiro says, " but it looks like

> the similarities outweigh the dissimilarities. " When they examined

> participants' Raven scores together with response times, however,

> they noticed something odd. The two groups had the same error

rates,

> but as an aggregate, the autistics completed the tasks 40 percent

> faster than the non-autistics. " They spent less time coming up with

> the same number of right answers. The only explanation we can see

> right now, " Zeffiro says, is that autistic brains working on this

set

> of tasks " seem to be engaged at a higher level of efficiency. " That

> may have to do with greater connectivity within an area or areas of

> the brain. He and other researchers are already exploring this

> hypothesis using diffusion tensor imaging, which measures the

density

> of brain wiring.

>

> But critics of the difference model reject the whole idea that

autism

> is merely another example of neuro-diversity. After all, being able

> to plan your meals for the week or ask for directions bespeak

> important forms of intelligence. " If you pretend the areas that are

> troubled aren't there, you miss important aspects of the person, "

> says Fred Volkmar, director of Yale's Child Study Center.

>

> In the vast majority of journal articles, autism is referred to as

a

> disorder, and the majority of neuro-psychiatric experts will tell

you

> that the description fits — something is wrong with the autistic

> brain. UCSF's Merzenich, who agrees that conventional intelligence-

> testing tools are misleading, still doesn't think the difference

> model makes sense. Many autistics are probably smarter than we

think,

> he says. But there's little question that more severe autism is

> characterized by what Merzenich terms " grossly abnormal " brain

> development that can lead to a " catastrophic end state. " Denying

this

> reality, he says, is misguided. Yale's Volkmar likens it to telling

a

> physically disabled person: " You don't need a wheelchair. Walk! "

>

> Meanwhile parents, educators, and autism advocates worry that

> focusing on the latent abilities and intelligence of autistic

people

> may eventually lead to cuts in funding both for research into a

cure

> and services provided by government. As one mother of an autistic

boy

> told me, " There's no question that my son needs treatment and a

cure. "

>

> Back in Burlington, Baggs is cueing up another YouTube clip. She

> angles her computer screen so I can see it. Set to the soundtrack

of

> Queen's " Under Pressure, " it's a montage of close-up videos showing

> behaviors like pen clicking, thumb twiddling, and finger tapping.

The

> message: Why are some stress-related behaviors socially

permissible,

> while others — like the rocking bodies and flapping arms commonly

> associated with autism — are not? Hit count for the video at last

> check: 80,000 and climbing.

>

> Should autism be treated? Yes, says Baggs, it should be treated

with

> respect. " People aren't interested in us functioning with the

brains

> we have, " she says, because autism is considered to be outside the

> range of normal variability. " I don't fit the stereotype of autism.

> But who does? " she asks, hammering especially hard on the

> keyboard. " The definition of autism is so fluid and changing every

> few years. " What's exciting, she says, is that Mottron and other

> scientists have " found universal strengths where others usually

look

> for universal deficits. " Neuro-cognitive science, she says, is

> finally catching up to what she and many other adults with autism

> have been saying all along.

>

> Baggs is working on some new videos. One project is tentatively

> titled " Am I a Person Yet? " She'll explore communication, empathy,

> self-reflection — core elements of the human experience that have

at

> times been used to define personhood itself. And at various points

> during the clip, she'll ask: " Am I a person yet? " It's a

provocative

> idea, and you might find yourself thinking: She has a point.

>

> Wolman (david@...) wrote about a terrorist attack

> response drill in issue 16.02

>

[Guest guest]

Great article.

>

> http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-03/ff_autism

>

> The Truth About Autism: Scientists Reconsider What They Think They

> Know

> By Wolman 02.25.08 | 6:00 PM

>

> The YouTube clip opens with a woman facing away from the camera,

> rocking back and forth, flapping her hands awkwardly, and emitting

an

> eerie hum. She then performs strange repetitive behaviors: slapping

a

> piece of paper against a window, running a hand lengthwise over a

> computer keyboard, twisting the knob of a drawer. She bats a

necklace

> with her hand and nuzzles her face against the pages of a book. And

> you find yourself thinking: Who's shooting this footage of the

> handicapped lady, and why do I always get sucked into watching the

> latest viral video?

>

> But then the words " A Translation " appear on a black screen, and

for

> the next five minutes, 27-year-old Baggs — who is autistic

and

> doesn't speak — describes in vivid and articulate terms what's

going

> on inside her head as she carries out these seemingly bizarre

> actions. In a synthesized voice generated by a software

application,

> she explains that touching, tasting, and smelling allow her to have

> a " constant conversation " with her surroundings. These forms of

> nonverbal stimuli constitute her " native language, " Baggs explains,

> and are no better or worse than spoken language. Yet her failure to

> speak is seen as a deficit, she says, while other people's failure

to

> learn her language is seen as natural and acceptable.

>

> And you find yourself thinking: She might have a point.

>

> Baggs lives in a public housing project for the elderly and

> handicapped near downtown Burlington, Vermont. She has short black

> hair, a pointy nose, and round glasses. She usually wears a T-shirt

> and baggy pants, and she spends a scary amount of time — day and

> night — on the Internet: blogging, hanging out in Second Life, and

> corresponding with her autie and aspie friends. (For the

uninitiated,

> that's autistic and Asperger's.)

>

> On a blustery afternoon, Baggs reclines on a red futon in the

> apartment of her neighbor (and best friend). She has a gray travel

> pillow wrapped around her neck, a keyboard resting on her lap, and

a

> DynaVox VMax computer propped against her legs.

>

> Like many people with autism, Baggs doesn't like to look you in the

> eye and needs help with tasks like preparing a meal and taking a

> shower. In conversation she'll occasionally grunt or sigh, but she

> stopped speaking altogether in her early twenties. Instead, she

types

> 120 words a minute, which the DynaVox then translates into a

> synthesized female voice that sounds like a deadpan British

> schoolteacher.

>

> The YouTube post, she says, was a political statement, designed to

> call attention to people's tendency to underestimate autistics. It

> wasn't her first video post, but this one took off. " When the

number

> of viewers began to climb, I got scared out of my mind, " Baggs

says.

> As the hit count neared 100,000, her blog was flooded. At 200,000,

> scientists were inviting her to visit their labs. By 300,000, the

TV

> people came calling, hearts warmed by the story of a young woman's

> fiery spirit and the rare glimpse into what has long been regarded

as

> the solitary imprisonment of the autistic mind. " I've said a

million

> times that I'm not trapped in my own world,' " Baggs says. " Yet what

> do most of these news stories lead with? Saying exactly that. "

>

> I tell her that I asked one of the world's leading authorities on

> autism to check out the video. The expert's opinion: Baggs must

have

> had outside help creating it, perhaps from one of her caregivers.

Her

> inability to talk, coupled with repetitive behaviors, lack of eye

> contact, and the need for assistance with everyday tasks are

telltale

> signs of severe autism. Among all autistics, 75 percent are

expected

> to score in the mentally retarded range on standard intelligence

> tests — that's an IQ of 70 or less.

>

> People like Baggs fall at one end of an array of developmental

> syndromes known as autism spectrum disorders. The spectrum ranges

> from someone with severe disability and cognitive impairment to the

> socially awkward eccentric with Asperger's syndrome.

>

> After I explain the scientist's doubts, Baggs grunts, and her mouth

> forms just a hint of a smirk as she lets loose a salvo on the

> keyboard. No one helped her shoot the video, edit it, and upload it

> to YouTube. She used a Sony Cybershot DSC-T1, a digital camera that

> can record up to 90 seconds of video (she has since upgraded). She

> then patched the footage together using the editing programs RAD

> Video Tools, VirtualDub, and DivXLand Media Subtitler. " My care

> provider wouldn't even know how to work the software, " she says.

>

> Baggs is part of an increasingly visible and highly networked

> community of autistics. Over the past decade, this group has

> benefited enormously from the Internet as well as innovations like

> type-to-speech software. Baggs may never have considered herself

> trapped in her own world, but thanks to technology, she can

> communicate with the same speed and specificity as someone using

> spoken language.

>

> Autistics like Baggs are now leading a nascent civil rights

> movement. " I remember in '99, " she says, " seeing a number of gay

> pride Web sites. I envied how many there were and wished there was

> something like that for autism. Now there is. " The message: We're

> here. We're weird. Get used to it.

>

> This movement is being fueled by a small but growing cadre of

> neuropsychological researchers who are taking a fresh look at the

> nature of autism itself. The condition, they say, shouldn't be

> thought of as a disease to be eradicated. It may be that the

autistic

> brain is not defective but simply different — an example of the

> variety of human development. These researchers assert that the

focus

> on finding a cure for autism — the disease model — has kept science

> from asking fundamental questions about how autistic brains

function.

>

> A cornerstone of this new approach — call it the difference model —

> is that past research about autistic intelligence is flawed,

perhaps

> catastrophically so, because the instruments used to measure

> intelligence are bogus. " If Baggs had walked into my clinic

> five years ago, " says Massachusetts General Hospital neuroscientist

> Zeffiro, one of the leading proponents of the difference

> model, " I would have said she was a low-functioning autistic with

> significant cognitive impairment. And I would have been totally

> wrong. "

>

> Seventy years ago, a Baltimore psychiatrist named Leo Kanner began

> recording observations about children in his clinic who

> exhibited " fascinating peculiarities. " Just as Kanner's landmark

> paper was about to be published, a pediatrician in Vienna named

Hans

> Asperger was putting the finishing touches on a report about a

> similar patient population. Both men, independently, used the same

> word to describe and define the condition: autist, or autism, from

> the Greek autos, meaning self.

>

> The children had very real deficits, especially when it came to

> the " failure to be integrated in a social group " (Asperger) or the

> inborn inability to form " affective contact " with other people

> (Kanner). The two doctors' other observations about language

> impairment, repetitive behaviors, and the desire for sameness still

> form much of the basis of autism diagnoses in the 21st century.

>

> On the matter of autistic intelligence, Kanner spoke of an array of

> mental skills, " islets of ability " — vocabulary, memory, and

problem-

> solving that " bespeak good intelligence. " Asperger, too, was struck

> by " a particular originality of thought and experience. " Yet over

the

> years, those islets attracted scientific interest only when they

were

> amazing — savant-level capabilities in areas such as music,

> mathematics, and drawing. For the millions of people with autism

who

> weren't savants, the general view was that their condition was

> tragic, their brainpower lacking.

>

> The test typically used to substantiate this view relies heavily on

> language, social interaction, and cultural knowledge — areas that

> autistic people, by definition, find difficult. About six years

ago,

> Meredyth Goldberg Edelson, a professor of psychology at Willamette

> University in Oregon, reviewed 215 articles published over the past

> 71 years, all making or referring to this link between autism and

> mental retardation. She found that most of the papers (74 percent)

> lacked their own research data to back up the assumption. Thirty-

nine

> percent of the articles weren't based on any data, and even the

more

> rigorous studies often used questionable measures of

> intelligence. " Are the majority of autistics mentally retarded? "

> Goldberg Edelson asks. " Personally, I don't think they are, but we

> don't have the data to answer that. "

>

> Mike Merzenich, a professor of neuroscience at UC San Francisco,

says

> the notion that 75 percent of autistic people are mentally retarded

> is " incredibly wrong and destructive. " He has worked with a number

of

> autistic children, many of whom are nonverbal and would have been

> plunked into the low-functioning category. " We label them as

retarded

> because they can't express what they know, " and then, as they grow

> older, we accept that they " can't do much beyond sit in the back of

a

> warehouse somewhere and stuff letters in envelopes. "

>

> The irony is that this dearth of data persists even as autism

> receives an avalanche of attention. Organizations such as Autism

> Speaks advocate for research and resources. Celebrity parents like

> Toni Braxton, Ed Asner, and McCarthy get high-profile

coverage

> on talk shows and TV news magazines. Newsweeklies raise fears of an

> autism epidemic. But is there an epidemic? There's certainly the

> perception of one. According to the Centers for Disease Control,

one

> out of every 150 8-year-old children (in the areas of the US most

> recently studied) has an autism spectrum disorder, a prevalence

much

> higher than in decades past, when the rate was thought to be in the

> range of four or five cases per 10,000 children. But no one knows

> whether this apparent explosion of cases is due to an actual rise

in

> autism, changing diagnostic criteria, inconsistent survey

techniques,

> or some combination of the three.

>

> In his original paper in 1943, Kanner wrote that while many of the

> children he examined " were at one time or another looked upon as

> feebleminded, they are all unquestionably endowed with good

cognitive

> potentialities. " Sixty-five years later, though, little is known

> about those potentialities. As one researcher told me, " There's no

> money in the field for looking at differences " in the autistic

> brain. " But if you talk about trying to fix a problem — then the

> funding comes. "

>

> On the outskirts of Montreal sits a brick monolith, the Hôpital

> Rivière-des-Prairies. Once one of Canada's most notorious asylums,

it

> now has a small number of resident psychiatric patients, but most

of

> the space has been converted into clinics and research facilities.

>

> One of the leading researchers here is t Mottron, 55, a

> psychiatrist specializing in autism. Mottron, who grew up in

postwar

> France, had a tough childhood. His family had a history of

> schizophrenia and Tourette syndrome, and he probably has what today

> would be diagnosed as attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder.

> Naturally, he went into psychiatry. By the early '80s, Mottron was

> doing clinical work at a school in Tours that catered to children

> with sensory impairment, including autism. " The view then, " Mottron

> says, " was that these children could be reeled back to normalcy

with

> play therapy and work on the parents' relationships " — a gentle way

> of saying that the parents, especially the mother, were to blame.

> (The theory that emotionally distant " refrigerator mothers " caused

> autism had by then been rejected in the US, but in France and many

> other countries, the view lingered.)

>

> After only a few weeks on the job, Mottron decided the theories

were

> crap. " These children were just of another kind, " he says. " You

> couldn't turn someone autistic or make someone not autistic. It was

> hardwired. " In 1986, Mottron began working with an autistic man who

> would later become known in the scientific literature as " E.C. " A

> draftsman who specialized in mechanical drawings, E.C. had

incredible

> savant skills in 3-D drawing. He could rotate objects in his mind

and

> make technical drawings without the need for a single revision.

After

> two years of working with E.C., Mottron made his second

breakthrough —

> not about autistics this time but about the rest of us: People

with

> standard-issue brains — so-called neurotypicals — don't have the

> perceptual abilities to do what E.C. could do. " It's just

> inconsistent with how our brains work, " Mottron says.

>

> From that day forward, he decided to challenge the disease model

> underlying most autism research. " I wanted to go as far as I could

to

> show that their perception — their brains — are totally different. "

> Not damaged. Not dysfunctional. Just different.

>

> By the mid-1990s, Mottron was a faculty member at the University of

> Montreal, where he began publishing papers on " atypicalities of

> perception " in autistic subjects. When performing certain mental

> tasks — especially when tapping visual, spatial, and auditory

> functions — autistics have shown superior performance compared with

> neurotypicals. Call it the upside of autism. Dozens of studies —

> Mottron's and others — have demonstrated that people with autism

> spectrum disorder have a number of strengths: a higher prevalence

of

> perfect pitch, enhanced ability with 3-D drawing and pattern

> recognition, more accurate graphic recall, and various superior

> memory skills.

>

> Yet most scientists who come across these skills classify them

> as " anomalous peaks of ability, " set them aside, and return to the

> questions that drive most research: What's wrong with the autistic

> brain? Can we find the genes responsible so that we can someday

cure

> it? Is there a unifying theory of autism? With severe autistics,

> cognitive strengths are even more apt to be overlooked because

these

> individuals have such obvious deficits and are so hard to test.

> People like Baggs don't speak, others may run out of the room, and

> still others might not be able to hold a pencil. And besides, if 75

> percent of them are mentally retarded, well, why bother?

>

> Mottron draws a parallel with homosexuality. Until 1974,

psychiatry's

> bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,

> described being gay as a mental illness. Someday, Mottron says,

we'll

> look back on today's ideas about autism with the same sense of

shame

> that we now feel when talking about psychology's pre-1974 views on

> sexuality. " We want to break the idea that autism should definitely

> be suppressed, " he says.

>

> Dawson doesn't drive or cook. Public transit overwhelms

her,

> and face-to-face interaction is an ordeal. She was employed as a

> postal worker in 1998 when she " came out of the closet " with her

> diagnosis of autism, which she received in the early '90s. After

> that, she claims, Canada Post harassed her to such a degree that

she

> was forced to take a permanent leave of absence, starting in 2002.

> (Canada Post says Dawson was treated fairly.) To fight back, she

went

> on an information-devouring rampage. " There's such a variety of

human

> behavior. Why is my kind wrong? " she asks. She eventually began

> scouring the libraries of McGill University in Montreal to delve

into

> the autism literature. She searched out journal articles using the

> online catalog and sat on the floor reading studies among the

stacks.

>

> Dawson, like Baggs, has become a reluctant spokesperson for this

new

> view of autism. Both are prolific bloggers and correspond

constantly

> with scientists, parents' groups, medical institutions, the courts,

> journalists, and anyone else who'll listen to their stories of how

> autistics are mistreated. Baggs has been using YouTube to make her

> point; Dawson's weapon is science.

>

> In 2001, Dawson contacted Mottron, figuring that his clinic might

> help improve the quality of her life. Mottron tried to give her

some

> advice on navigating the neurotypical world, but his tips on how to

> handle banking, shopping, and buses didn't help. After meeting with

> her a few times, Mottron began to suspect that what Dawson really

> needed was a sense of purpose. In 2003, he handed her one of his in-

> progress journal articles and asked her to copy-edit the grammar.

So

> Dawson started reading. " I criticized his science almost

> immediately, " she says.

>

> Encouraged by Dawson's interest, Mottron sent her other papers. She

> responded with written critiques of his work. Then one day in early

> 2003, she called with a question. " I asked: How did they control

for

> attention in that fMRI face study?' That caught his attention. "

> Dawson had flagged an error that Mottron says most postdocs would

> have missed. He was impressed, and over the next few months he

sought

> Dawson's input on other technical questions. Eventually, he invited

> her to collaborate with his research group, despite the fact that

her

> only academic credential was a high school diploma.

>

> Dawson has an incredible memory, but she's not a savant. What makes

> her unique, Mottron says, is her gift for scientific analysis — the

> way she can sniff through methodologies and statistical

manipulation,

> hunting down tiny errors and weak links in logic.

>

> Last summer, the peer-reviewed journal Psychological Science

> published a study titled " The Level and Nature of Autistic

> Intelligence. " The lead author was Dawson. The paper

argues

> that autistic smarts have been underestimated because the tools for

> assessing intelligence depend on techniques ill-suited to

autistics.

> The researchers administered two different intelligence tests to 51

> children and adults diagnosed with autism and to 43 non-autistic

> children and adults.

>

> The first test, known as the Wechsler Intelligence Scale, has

helped

> solidify the notion of peaks of ability amid otherwise pervasive

> mental retardation among autistics. The other test is Raven's

> Progressive Matrices, which requires neither a race against the

clock

> nor a proctor breathing down your neck. The Raven is considered as

> reliable as the Wechsler, but the Wechsler is far more commonly

used.

> Perhaps that's because it requires less effort for the average test

> taker. Raven measures abstract reasoning — " effortful " operations

> like spotting patterns or solving geometric puzzles. In contrast,

> much of the Wechsler assesses crystallized skills like acquired

> vocabulary, making correct change, or knowing that milk goes in the

> fridge and cereal in the cupboard — learned information that most

> people intuit or recall almost automatically.

>

> What the researchers found was that while non-autistic subjects

> scored just about the same — a little above average — on both

tests,

> the autistic group scored much better on the Raven. Two

individuals'

> scores swung from the mentally retarded range to the 94th

percentile.

> More significantly, the subset of autistic children in the study

> scored roughly 30 percentile points higher on the Raven than they

did

> on the more language-dependent Wechsler, pulling all but a couple

of

> them out of the range for mental retardation.

>

> A number of scientists shrugged off the results — of course

autistics

> would do better on nonverbal tests. But Dawson and her coauthors

saw

> something more. The " peaks of ability " on the Wechsler correlated

> strongly with the average scores on the Raven. The finding suggests

> the Wechsler scores give only a glimpse of the autistics'

> intelligence, whereas the Raven — the gold standard of fluid

> intelligence testing — reveals the true, or at least truer, level

of

> general intelligence.

>

> Yet to a remarkable degree, scientists conducting cognitive

> evaluations continue to use tests which presume that people who

can't

> communicate the answer don't know the answer. The question is: Why?

> Greg , an assistant professor of psychiatry at University of

> Texas Southwestern Medical Center, says that although most

> researchers know the Wechsler doesn't provide a good assessment of

> people with autism, there's pressure to use the test anyway. " Say

> you're submitting a grant to study autistic people by comparing

them

> to a control group, " he says. " The first question that comes up is:

> Did you control for IQ? Matching people on IQ is meant to clean up

> the methodology, but I think it can also end up damaging the study. "

>

> And that hurts autistic people, Dawson says. She makes a comparison

> with blindness. Of course blind people have a disability and need

> special accommodation. But you wouldn't give a blind person a test

> heavily dependent on vision and interpret their poor score as an

> accurate measure of intelligence. Mottron is unequivocal: Because

of

> recent research, especially the Raven paper, it's clearer than ever

> that so-called low-functioning people like Baggs are more

> intelligent than once presumed.The Dawson paper was hardly

> conclusive, but it generated buzz among scientists and the media.

> Mottron's team is now collaborating with Massachusetts General

> Hospital's Zeffiro, a neuroimaging expert, to dig deeper. Zeffiro

and

> company are looking for variable types of mental processing without

> asking, what's wrong with this brain? Their first study compares

fMRI

> results from autistic and control subjects whose brains were imaged

> while they performed the Raven test. The group is currently

crunching

> numbers for publication, and the study looks both perplexing and

> promising.

>

> Surprisingly, they didn't find any variability in which parts of

the

> brain lit up when subjects performed the tasks. " We thought we'd

see

> different patterns of activation, " Zeffiro says, " but it looks like

> the similarities outweigh the dissimilarities. " When they examined

> participants' Raven scores together with response times, however,

> they noticed something odd. The two groups had the same error

rates,

> but as an aggregate, the autistics completed the tasks 40 percent

> faster than the non-autistics. " They spent less time coming up with

> the same number of right answers. The only explanation we can see

> right now, " Zeffiro says, is that autistic brains working on this

set

> of tasks " seem to be engaged at a higher level of efficiency. " That

> may have to do with greater connectivity within an area or areas of

> the brain. He and other researchers are already exploring this

> hypothesis using diffusion tensor imaging, which measures the

density

> of brain wiring.

>

> But critics of the difference model reject the whole idea that

autism

> is merely another example of neuro-diversity. After all, being able

> to plan your meals for the week or ask for directions bespeak

> important forms of intelligence. " If you pretend the areas that are

> troubled aren't there, you miss important aspects of the person, "

> says Fred Volkmar, director of Yale's Child Study Center.

>

> In the vast majority of journal articles, autism is referred to as

a

> disorder, and the majority of neuro-psychiatric experts will tell

you

> that the description fits — something is wrong with the autistic

> brain. UCSF's Merzenich, who agrees that conventional intelligence-

> testing tools are misleading, still doesn't think the difference

> model makes sense. Many autistics are probably smarter than we

think,

> he says. But there's little question that more severe autism is

> characterized by what Merzenich terms " grossly abnormal " brain

> development that can lead to a " catastrophic end state. " Denying

this

> reality, he says, is misguided. Yale's Volkmar likens it to telling

a

> physically disabled person: " You don't need a wheelchair. Walk! "

>

> Meanwhile parents, educators, and autism advocates worry that

> focusing on the latent abilities and intelligence of autistic

people

> may eventually lead to cuts in funding both for research into a

cure

> and services provided by government. As one mother of an autistic

boy

> told me, " There's no question that my son needs treatment and a

cure. "

>

> Back in Burlington, Baggs is cueing up another YouTube clip. She

> angles her computer screen so I can see it. Set to the soundtrack

of

> Queen's " Under Pressure, " it's a montage of close-up videos showing

> behaviors like pen clicking, thumb twiddling, and finger tapping.

The

> message: Why are some stress-related behaviors socially

permissible,

> while others — like the rocking bodies and flapping arms commonly

> associated with autism — are not? Hit count for the video at last

> check: 80,000 and climbing.

>

> Should autism be treated? Yes, says Baggs, it should be treated

with

> respect. " People aren't interested in us functioning with the

brains

> we have, " she says, because autism is considered to be outside the

> range of normal variability. " I don't fit the stereotype of autism.

> But who does? " she asks, hammering especially hard on the

> keyboard. " The definition of autism is so fluid and changing every

> few years. " What's exciting, she says, is that Mottron and other

> scientists have " found universal strengths where others usually

look

> for universal deficits. " Neuro-cognitive science, she says, is

> finally catching up to what she and many other adults with autism

> have been saying all along.

>

> Baggs is working on some new videos. One project is tentatively

> titled " Am I a Person Yet? " She'll explore communication, empathy,

> self-reflection — core elements of the human experience that have

at

> times been used to define personhood itself. And at various points

> during the clip, she'll ask: " Am I a person yet? " It's a

provocative

> idea, and you might find yourself thinking: She has a point.

>

> Wolman (david@...) wrote about a terrorist attack

> response drill in issue 16.02

>

[Guest guest]

> 's online name is Silent Miaow. I realized quickly it would only

> be a matter of time before the media caught on and picked up her

story.

> Let's hope it spreads.

I wrote again to Clar VP Autism Ontario borough and included

this article along with the links to her youtube videos. After reading

the article and the video about Forest, I went back to 's videos.

As I began to watch the again, my son, who was home sick, came in to

join me. I left to do some chores and came back to see him going

through more of the videos she has posted. He said everyone should

watch these and people would have a far greater understanding of the

discrimination towards autistics and may change their behavior. He also

said that when it comes to understanding nonverbal autistics it is

society who has the problem because we have not learned to understand

what the body language means.

Kim

[Guest guest]

> 's online name is Silent Miaow. I realized quickly it would only

> be a matter of time before the media caught on and picked up her

story.

> Let's hope it spreads.

I wrote again to Clar VP Autism Ontario borough and included

this article along with the links to her youtube videos. After reading

the article and the video about Forest, I went back to 's videos.

As I began to watch the again, my son, who was home sick, came in to

join me. I left to do some chores and came back to see him going

through more of the videos she has posted. He said everyone should

watch these and people would have a far greater understanding of the

discrimination towards autistics and may change their behavior. He also

said that when it comes to understanding nonverbal autistics it is

society who has the problem because we have not learned to understand

what the body language means.

Kim

[Guest guest]

It is invigorating when an autistic realizes that it is okay to say and

feel that they are normal.

Tom

Administrator

I left to do some chores and came back to see him going

through more of the videos she has posted. He said everyone should

watch these and people would have a far greater understanding of the

discrimination towards autistics and may change their behavior. He also

said that when it comes to understanding nonverbal autistics it is

society who has the problem because we have not learned to understand

what the body language means.

Kim

[Guest guest]

It is invigorating when an autistic realizes that it is okay to say and

feel that they are normal.

Tom

Administrator

I left to do some chores and came back to see him going

through more of the videos she has posted. He said everyone should

watch these and people would have a far greater understanding of the

discrimination towards autistics and may change their behavior. He also

said that when it comes to understanding nonverbal autistics it is

society who has the problem because we have not learned to understand

what the body language means.

Kim

[Guest guest]

It would be nice to think and hope that such videos and articles

would help people change their misconceptions about people on the

autism spectrum, but sadly some still cling to their misconceptions

and prejudices :-(

>

>

> > 's online name is Silent Miaow. I realized quickly it would

only

> > be a matter of time before the media caught on and picked up her

> story.

> > Let's hope it spreads.

>

>

> I wrote again to Clar VP Autism Ontario borough and

included

> this article along with the links to her youtube videos. After

reading

> the article and the video about Forest, I went back to 's

videos.

> As I began to watch the again, my son, who was home sick, came in to

> join me. I left to do some chores and came back to see him going

> through more of the videos she has posted. He said everyone should

> watch these and people would have a far greater understanding of the

> discrimination towards autistics and may change their behavior. He

also

> said that when it comes to understanding nonverbal autistics it is

> society who has the problem because we have not learned to

understand

> what the body language means.

>

> Kim

>

[Guest guest]

It would be nice to think and hope that such videos and articles

would help people change their misconceptions about people on the

autism spectrum, but sadly some still cling to their misconceptions

and prejudices :-(

>

>

> > 's online name is Silent Miaow. I realized quickly it would

only

> > be a matter of time before the media caught on and picked up her

> story.

> > Let's hope it spreads.

>

>

> I wrote again to Clar VP Autism Ontario borough and

included

> this article along with the links to her youtube videos. After

reading

> the article and the video about Forest, I went back to 's

videos.

> As I began to watch the again, my son, who was home sick, came in to

> join me. I left to do some chores and came back to see him going

> through more of the videos she has posted. He said everyone should

> watch these and people would have a far greater understanding of the

> discrimination towards autistics and may change their behavior. He

also

> said that when it comes to understanding nonverbal autistics it is

> society who has the problem because we have not learned to

understand

> what the body language means.

>

> Kim

>

[Guest guest]

My son has observed what is considered 'normal' and he says he's glad

he isn't :-) I must admit what I have viewed of so called normal,

I've decided I don't like it and it isn't nice, so I kind of glad I

not considered normal too :-)

Anyways, I've said it before and I'll say it again 'Natural is what

you get when you stop trying to be normal' :-)

>

> I left to do some chores and came back to see him going

> through more of the videos she has posted. He said everyone should

> watch these and people would have a far greater understanding of the

> discrimination towards autistics and may change their behavior. He

also

> said that when it comes to understanding nonverbal autistics it is

> society who has the problem because we have not learned to

understand

> what the body language means.

>

> Kim

>