Fw: Autism needs to break out of ice age

[Guest guest]

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/news/editorial/9204075.htm

Autism needs to break out of ice age

BY LENORE SKENAZY

New York Daily News

(KRT) - You have a wonderful little baby, sweet and quiet. But when he

cries, your hugs don't comfort him. When you smile, he stares straight

through you. And when you bring him to the doctor, you're told:

Of course he's withdrawing from you! It's your fault for being so cold! You

are a Refrigerator Mom.

From the 1940s to the '60s and sometimes even into the present, that is

exactly what the medical profession told the mothers of children born with

autism.

Which just happens to be unconscionably wrong. Though autism has no known

cause - or cure - we now know it has nothing to do with parenting.

In " Refrigerator Mothers, " a documentary honoring the moms who suffered the

guilt of this gross misdiagnosis, producer J.J. Hanley outlines its origins.

The theory was popularized by Bruno Bettelheim, a psychiatrist who had been

imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp.

There, Bettelheim saw prisoners withdrawing into their shells. Years later,

when he saw autistic children doing something similar, he assumed it was for

the same reason: " The autistic child (feels) everybody wants them to be

dead, " he said. And what kind of parent could possibly want that? Moms as

cold as Nazis.

How likely is that?

The moms in the documentary, originally aired on public TV's " P.O.V. "

series, haul out old home movies of their children doing things like rocking

and flapping. Nostalgia mixes with anger.

" I didn't find out for 18 years that I wasn't at fault, and I can't quite

overcome it, " says one quietly.

They visit their children, now grown and living in group homes. One asks her

middle-age son to water the flowers and, expressionless, he empties the

watering can on the stoop. His mom gives a warm little laugh. That's just

the way it is.

" Aw, how pretty, " says another mom, brushing her daughter's hair as the

young woman stares into space.

To see these stubbornly loving families is to desperately hope no one ever

again gets blamed for bringing on autism. And yet it still happens, as

Hanley well knows:

In 1996, worried that her 3-year-old was not speaking and spent all his time

alone, she took him to the doctor. " He said, 'There's nothing wrong with

him,' " recalls Hanley. " It's you. You're overbearing and neurotic. Leave him

alone.' "

Luckily, she didn't. She took him to another doctor and learned he has

autism. After working with her son intently for eight years, he can talk,

hang with friends and go to school. Says Hanley proudly, " He's great! "

Were it not for Bettelheim, however, it's possible he could be even better.

Decades of research time were lost when scientists didn't bother to study

autism because they were told its cause was obvious: Mom!

As the number of kids with autism soars, from one in 3,000 10 years ago to

as many as one in 166 today, Bettelheim's legacy is a cold one indeed.

---

ABOUT THE WRITER

Lenore Skenazy is a columnist for the New York Daily News, 450 West 33rd

Street, New York, N.Y. 10001; e-mail: lskenazy@....

---

© 2004, New York Daily News.

Visit the Daily News online at http://www.nydailynews.com

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

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www.celebrateautismtoday.org

[Guest guest]

Irma thanks for the historical reminder. I had a friend who took her

son to Bettelheim many years ago and she was told this, he was not DS.

Sad legacy to leave, so much has been learned, wonder what Bettelheim

would think today. Louise

[Guest guest]

The article doesn't mention that Bettelheim was not only wrong (in a profoundly

damaging way) but he also a fraud. He did not have any of the academic

credentials he claimed:

" Pollak presents Bettelheim’s false claims alongside a well-documented record of

the facts of his background and training. Bettelheim did not mention the twelve

years he spent working in the family lumber business. The fourteen years he

claimed he spent at the University of Vienna, supposedly resulting in three

Ph.D.’s summa cum laude were actually six years and a Ph.D. without honors in

philosophical aesthetics. Further claims included studies with Arnold Schoenberg

(no evidence), acquaintance with Sigmund Freud, and Freud’s personal blessing on

Bettelheim’s analytic training (no evidence he ever met Freud), psychoanalysis

and psychoanalytic training (a truncated analysis, no training), two books

published (no books published), membership in an organization that studied the

emotional problems of children and adolescents (no evidence). "

(http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9706/articles/finn.html)

Dan (father to Luca, 7, DS/PDD)

Louise & Andy wrote:

Irma thanks for the historical reminder. I had a friend who took her

son to Bettelheim many years ago and she was told this, he was not DS.

Sad legacy to leave, so much has been learned, wonder what Bettelheim

would think today. Louise

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[Guest guest]

Thanks Dan very interesting article. It adds another perspective.

Louise