RE: capital A for Autism

[Guest guest]

Yeah, interesting issue, Bill. While I was typing I was if I recall rightly sometimes capitalizing and sometimes not. Very random. I think basically I look on Autism as just so desperately important, I automatically give the Capital. Of course in the quote below of Schneider’s book, the capital there is appropriate in the title. Apart from that, when typing, my fingers just automatically do things that I’m not thinking about. – on automatic pilot as it were. Also, I guess one is so used to capitalizing Asperger’s Syndrome, that one simply automatically capitalizes its parent title as well. Cheers, Ron.Subject: Re: Genetics and causes of Autistic behaviour. Ron Hedgcock wrote:> Good to see your comments, Bill. You reminded me of something Edgar> Schneider said in his " Discovering my Autism " . At two and a half, he was> bitten by a rabid dog, and he had to take the Pasteur series of injections.> Then when he was three or four, he came down with Pertussis (never heard of> that one) and Scarlet Fever. He has been told since that the combination> of any or all of these could have impeded normal and proper neurological> development, so as to have caused his 'Autism'. And that was only> diagnosed when he was in his late 60s or so, as I recall.[ snip ]That you should capitalize the word as " Autism " interests me greatly. Meaning no disrespect to you, it typifies a " drift " in both lay and professional understanding of what " autism " *is*.It seems a natural human trait that, if we *can* name a thing - *do* name a thing - then somehow we've *understood* it.We see this effect daily on ASPIRES, where one or another person's behavior is " autistic " , or the person is " AS " , or he/she " has " autism/Autism. ...Sometimes without benefit of professional blessing.The meaning of " autism " , our real understanding, drifts a little further from our grasp. Anecdotal " evidence " is not evidence - it's opinion.We have the talk, the writing, the books - all both lay and professional - using the still not-quite-settled terminology in order to provide definitions. ...Definitions which at best themselves are subjective - aggregated *opinions* with little objective backing.Of the " books " , e.g. ICD-10 and DSM-IV, some are considered Standards. But even the Standards are changing: DSM-IV soon will morph into DSM-V, with large changes. ICD-10 inevitably will conform - a jingoistic decision, not a medical one.Some of us - lay and professional alike - read those and other books.MIS-read them, often as not, interpreting what we read according to our diverse backgrounds - introducing our own biases and adding new " meaning " . Others take *our* interpretations and do the same.All of this contributes to the " drift " of meaning, the *changing* of " autism " from one thing into another very different thing. And still, while all of this *implies* understanding, ...nothing actually *provides* it.We are as far away today as we ever were, to *understanding* what autism actually is -- or just as close as Kanner and Asperger were in the 1940s.- Bill, AS, 79-- WD " Bill " Loughman - Berkeley, California USAhttp://home.earthlink.net/~wdloughman/wdl.htm