[StolarStorm]

He doesn't know much about autism... There are those that have a form of autism called Aspergers and they have many issues as well. Seems like many of these "non autistic kids" may well have a form of Autism.

The comment "Some parents have even said, "Now I wish he would shut up." is telling. Aspergers have a hard time with knowing when talking is excessive or not and social issues like that.

[jazusamo]

He probably does know much more about autism than what's in this column. I believe he had a late talking child and wrote a book about it.

Late-Talking Children

[BfloGuy]

Seems like many of these "non autistic kids" may well have a form of Autism.

How did you possibly make that diagnosis based on one short essay?

[07Jack]

Sowell & Camaratta have done brilliant work on this subject. Please check out Sowell’s books: “The Einstein Syndrome” and “Late Talking Children”. Our son did not speak until until he was 5. Our Pediatrician, after many examinations expressed the opinion he was simply a late talking child who fell at the extreme end of the bell curve.
We were lucky enough to stumble upon Sowell’s book, and found that our child met the description of the children in his book. We were able to avoid attempts by the school district to label him as autistic in order to receive public funding for “special services.” Our son is now 9 and after 4 years of speech therapy, speaks very well, does extremely well socially and is an A student. It is important to note that Sowell does not paint with a broad brush and has come up with some very specific criteria for parents to consider when deciding a course of action that could potentially cause more harm than good.

[utahagen]

The hallmark of autism used to be the inability to make any kind of emotional contact with other people. To lump in kids with social problems of a less severe kind is to do a diservice to those children, not because it is “bad” to be autistic; but because real autism is different than what is now called Aspergers and which must be treated differntly.

[Mrs. P]

This guy knows what he’s talking about. I heard him discussing this on a radio talk show before our second son was born. When our son was three and still not talking, I remembered what Dr. Sowell had said about late talking children being mistakenly diagnosed as autistic. I had seen real autism when I was in nursing school and never forgot it. I knew my son who loved to cuddle and hug was NOT autistic.

We avoided the public schools and had him tested by a private audiologist, and went to private speech therapy. This did not totally avoid the people who see autism in every kid, though. One young lady who was fresh out of school with a master’s degree and absolutely no experience with three year olds told me she saw “autistic tendencies” in our son because he screamed when she took away his toy(his only available form of expression, not having any language skills at that time) and he liked to line up cars in a row, like they are on a road.

To make a long story short, we ended up seeing Dr. Camarata for evalutations three years in a row. He told us our son was definitely NOT autistic and had a language delay. He and his wife showed us how to handle it and told us what to do. One of those things was to home school our son because kids with his type of language problem did very well at home.

I wish I could meet Dr. Sowell and thank him in person for saving us from a nightmare.