Posted on 07/21/2008 11:23:49 AM PDT by camerakid400
Michael Savage, the incendiary radio host who last week characterized nearly every autistic child as “a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out,” said in a telephone interview Monday morning that he stood by his remarks and had no intention of apologizing to those advocates and parents who have called for his firing over the matter.
“My main point remains true,” Mr. Savage, whose radio audience ranks in size behind only those of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, said in an interview on Monday. “It is an overdiagnosed medical condition. In my readings, there is no definitive medical diagnosis for autism.”
On his program lastWednesday, Mr. Savage suggested that “99 percent of the cases” of autism were a result of lax parenting. He told his audience: “They don’t have a father around to tell them, ‘Don’t act like a moron. You’ll get nowhere in life.“ He added, “Straighten up. Act like a man. Don’t sit there crying and screaming, idiot.’ ”
Asked Monday if he actually believed that 99 out every 100 cases of autism was misdiagnosed, Mr. Savage conceded that figure was “a little high.” “It was hyperbole,” he said.
But he said he was proud to have prodded discussion on the subject, and planned to give over his entire show on Monday — broadcast live from northern California from 3 to 6 p.m. Pacific time — to parents and other callers who wished to disagree with him, and to educate him.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Good then. Don’t be surprised when the new fad is something severe like Autism because it gives carte blanche prescriptions for normal behavior by way of Prozac, Haldol, and Valium which just had the age of prescribe lowered to increase demand and supply.
All those parents suffering are getting bounced out by the new welfare stimuli package and they are so beholden to the disease that they can’t see what they are doing to their own children by proxy. Watered down and given acceptance to the cartels of legalized drug pushing.
The ignorance of some of the statements on this thread is staggering.
I could argue a bit. The traditional ideas of discipline often don't work very well with autistic kids. In order to modify behaviors, positive reinforcement is a zillion times more effective than punishment. In fact punishment often escalates things to the point where both parent and child are near losing control. We chose not to medicate, and found that repetition and reward worked best. Still, we lived thru four hour tantrums for a long time until we realized how much of the problem was a communication problem that required us to tune in to his way of seeing the world in order to teach him ours.
Bingo Einstein. It can’t be fixed by medication, but the symptoms via diagnosis can and they include a myriad things broken down into categories. Even a pediatrics online website can school you.
Are you that stupid to not understand the resurrection of flat lined selling drugs by way of same drugs re-introduced in an age lowering prescribe. Read dumbarse:
http://pediatrics.about.com/od/autism/a/05_autism_rx_4.htm
Report back and then read this:
http://www.autismvox.com/is-autism-diagnosis-trendy/
From an Autism website nonetheless.
Ask the CDC to answer the 10 fold increase in diagnosis this past few years. They can’t.
Again, my grandson is not medicated and never has been. Can you read, or do you just repeat the same thing over and over to every poster?
Either that or someone is wearing a badge of honor by introducing normalcy as some special thing.
What I've been seeing for the past 5-7 years is labeling kids that formally would have been educable mentally retarded as autistic. The rationale is that both sets have difficulty with age appropriate behavior, failure to adopt behavioral norms, and failure to sustain long term relationships both in and out of school. Plus, it is easier to look across a table and tell a parent that Johnnie is autistic rather than retarded. I've also been on the dissenting end of those meetings too and been the only one who voted NO to an autistic label. That's been a problem, especially when the parent sees me as the enemy saying her son is retarded, and then the next week she finds out I'm the case manager for the child. Good times there I tell you
But I shared this for a reason, I cannot imagine that our district is the only one to come up with this ruse and may explain why nationwide numbers of EMR/TMR are coming down whilst Austism is going up. My county is just not that smart - it has to be going on else where
You take your relative actual diagnosis as some sort of homage and birthright, meanwhile it is the convenient diagnosis watering down the actual definition. You are doing no favors to the struggles of the truly afflicted by masking your beliefs in personal affronts to the new epidemic.
You work well for the legal drug cartels enabling bad parenting, meanwhile you might have actual anecdotal experience of the fraught struggles true affliction brings.
It is a badge of honor and relished. Autism is fashionable, it is bragged about, it is highly regarded. Too many people watched Rainman, because if you know the affliction, you would know the true parental struggle. Just because your child likes numbers, hates people; or likes to hum and doesn’t speak at age of two does not mean heshe is Autistic. Certainly, I would hope, that we can all agree that if your child doesn’t take direction and is preoccupied with something like tree climbing and doesn’t want to listen to direction, it doesn’t mean he or she is Autistic. Speak to those that have actually been dealing with it for decades and let them tell you. Don’t let the new MD incentive make you feel a part of something larger than yourself by way of excuse for pharmaceutical profit and lazy teacher convenience.
My grandson was diagnosed at 3. He is "truly autistic." Until age 3 1/2, he could only bark like a dog, hum, and lie on the floor making the wheels of little cars go around and around and around for hours. He could not make eye contact or stand another human's touch. Sudden or loud noises, or just those that he perceived as annoying, would send him into a frenzy.
He flapped his hands (and still does). Certain foods could not be eaten as he could not bear the textures of them in his mouth. Those he could tolerate had to be arranged with certain regularity on his plate, and eaten in a certain order. Innumerable physical sensations,many which most children love, caused him trauma.
I could go on and on but the point is lost on those who cannot see, or who have an agenda. The bottom line is that, after years of speech and occupational therapy, special schooling, and much love and attention, the boy is now in a regular public school and doing very well, and even has glimmers of brilliance in mathematics. His behavior is good but it was always good. Even when his symptoms were at their severest he was relatively well-behaved. (Despite what Mr. Savage thinks, not all autistic children are "brats.")
Now, eight years after his initial diagnosis, most people think he is just a little nerdy, a little stand-offish and shy. Even though he lacks the social skills and empathy necessary to relate well to people, and thus may never have intimate friends - he doesn't so far - he does the best he can.
In short, all things considered, I would say he functions very well.
Period.
Stop embarrassing yourself. And while you're at, stop posting to me. I have no use for such idiocy.
Interestingly, the top occupations for high-functioning autistics are in the math, science and computer fields. A lot have ended up in Silicon Valley. It seems likely that the tendency for the developmental disorders of autism are at least partially inherited. Draw your own conclusions as to why there are a lot of autistic children in the area.
There was a point being missed, in terms of the schools and many disorders. School encourage disorders to the extent it allows them to drop that child from the rolls of the Federal Tests. Schools absolutely look to exclude any child that would bring the average down, this is common.
I don’t believe in you
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.
quote: Are you that stupid to not understand the resurrection of flat lined selling drugs by way of same drugs re-introduced in an age lowering prescribe Read dumbarse
your sentence is incoherent and your manner insolent. Come back when you can post thoughtfully.
You yourself are spreading misinformation. There is no such thing as "high-functioning autism". Don't makes excuses for lousy science.
Guess what? I’m not offended.
And still children are being drugged for no reason.
As a father of a TRULY autistic child, Savage's comments have nothing to do with you.
I agree. Many are. My wife and I never went along with any medications. We asked what interventions might be tried without medicating. We made some progress with behavior mod. We worked at other approaches. As long as we saw progress we didn't medicate. Our son is now 18 and doing fine without meds.
Having dealt with the real backbreaking work that it takes to raise an autistic child, I understand the desperation that brings parents to look for a magic pill. Sometimes the pills seem to work for a while. Often the positive effects diminish with time. Then another med is tried. Far too often kids end up on a cocktail of drugs whose effects can't be predicted. To me the big problem is that the drugs don't address the mind-blindness that is at the core of autism. That can only be helped by deliberate and patient teaching. Even so, the intuitive social skills that come so naturally to other people aren't a possibility cause their brain just isn't wired that way.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.