Radio Host Michael Savage Says Autistic Kids Aren't Sick..."Just Brats"

Of course "it's real to us," as one of Kipling's characters said.

But being "quirky" didn't used to be a medical diagnosis. Odd compulsions and so forth run in my family. I'm a borderline case, my son is more so (he can't bear to be touched either). We fight it when we can, work around it when we can't.

Addressing the issues in childhood is probably easier, just because habits aren't formed yet, but put your engineering thinking skills to work and you'll find ways around. And for heaven's sake try to reassure your parents that they shouldn't feel guilty.

You can’t just ‘misdiagnose’ a normal child as retarded and have everybody accept that. It would be like saying a child has Down’s Syndrome when they do not! If something would get misdiagnosed on purpose I think it would be something like ADHD or depression because normal kids get hyper or sad sometimes so the diagnosis could be believable. But normal kids don’t just up and act retarded, so I don’t think anyone would believe their child had autism unless they really did.

You SHOULD be 100% right...you really, really SHOULD be.

There's no getting around the fact that Savage goofed badly - he made up statistics, and as you point out, probably picked on the wrong demographic (ADHD vs. autism). You needn't look far into the community to find kids where you can say "yeah, that kid obviously suffers from A/B/C, no doubt."

However, there is a (not huge, but) growing issue with problem-behavior children whose diagnoses are being manipulated by problem-behavior parents. (And yes, surprisingly, this sometimes includes steering towards a diagnosis of autism.) This is most likely to happen in situations where the parents have never been able to conrol little Johnny, discover they are in a public school system where there are special programs for disorder A, or B, or C, and see this as a means of shifting blame towards a disorder instead of a parenting style.

(Through the eyes of family members who teach in the local school systems), I have seen cases where the kid was diagnosed as A, but the parent badgered a psychiatrist to diagnose the kid as B, because the school had a special program for B. The kid spent a year there, and the program "didn't work" (translation, parenting was still necessary). Therefore, the parent decided that a different school with a program for C would be better.....so they went, with announced premeditation, and got a diagnosis of C, and moved the kid to that school. Because it is a public school, nobody dares risk the fallout from challenging such parents.

Some of the As, Bs and Cs that have been involved in these little games are Aspergers, Downs(!), Autism, ADHD, etc. The most insidious thing about parents who play these games is that they begins to cast aspersions on the majority of families who ARE affected by these conditions.

I think Savage would have been better served to narrow the focus of his tirade: even the New York Times has dared to tread into the discussion of improving parenting skills to help with childhood mental disorders.

...But the science behind nondrug treatments is getting stronger. And now, some researchers and doctors are looking again at how inconsistent, overly permissive or uncertain child-rearing styles might worsen children’s problems, and how certain therapies might help resolve those problems, in combination with drug therapy or without drugs.

Savage is dead right about this. In my son's kindergarten class 10 out of 12 of the boys--and NOT ONE of the girls--had been diagnosed with some bullshit "autistic spectrum disorder", including a kid who was the best reader in the class.

Boys who talk late are being diagnosed. My wife's brother did not speak nary a word until he was FOUR, and now is a top salesperson for IBM. He is 55. Had he been around today, the idiot quacks would have convinced his parents to f**k him up with drugs and useless "therapy".

Just like ADD and ADHD (with which I myself was "diagnosed" and my parents--thank God--ignored the diagnosis), 80-90% of "autistic spectrum disorder" diagnoses are bullshit.

I do not trust these pediatricians, as I do not trust OBGYNs who try to outlaw midwives (our children were born at home despite the hysterical pleas of our OBGYN-brainwashed relatives). Just as with "global warming" this is about MONEY, not science. And the gender discrimination is just absurd, along the lines of "The War Against Boys". Boys who won't act like girls are often the first to be pigeonholed into ADD or Autistic categories.

Of course there are exceptions--but they are OBVIOUS. Truly autistic children are a tremendous challenge and often a nightmare for their parents.

Michael Savage did not point our correctly why misdiagnosis is happening.
It is not because of children’s behavior although it can be involved.
It includes children who talk late , learn differently, or have a different personality of any kind that is overdiagnosed.
Go to www.latetalking.org, for the facts on this issue.
There is a support list for parents in this situation.
Dr Camarata likely pointed out more clearly and correctly than Michael Savage that overdiagnosis is largely due to a falsely increased spectrum .This so called spectrum has gone way beyond the requirements of the DSM IV. It includes differences in personality.
Even the DSM IV criteria can be subjective, but school professionals have bought into overdiagnosis to the point that perfectly normal children are being so called diagnosed only because they speak later.
There are now “ cures” for normal kids with different personalities, being claimed by the therapists.
There IS autism for sure, but the kids who really need the help are not getting it because of this very complicated self deception . The funding needed is spreading out to the wrong children in the wrong way.

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