I don’t know what exactly he said, but there’s been a lot of intelligent commentary in the past year or so, about the increasing practice of diagnosing kids as being “on the autistic spectrum” (also called “pervasive developmental disorder”), resulting a huge number of kids being labelled “autistic” who certainly wouldn’t have been given that label 20 years ago. Now a large majority of kids with this diagnosis and it’s shortened label are kids who wouldn’t have been called “autistic” in the past. While the majority certainly do have some genetic/physiological disorder, it’s entirely possible that some of the ones on the very mild end of the “spectrum” are indeed kids whose parents’ permissiveness and other poor parenting practices fully account for the child’s symptoms.
I also suspect that some of these kids would instead be labelled “ADHD” if the diagnosis happened to be made by a doctor who prefers that label. Both groups of labelled kids surely include a lot who simply don’t care to sit still through hours of academic-oriented preschool classes, or to follow orders through hours of “enrichment” activities their parents drag them to (musical instrument lessons, foreign language lessons, regimented sports instruction, etc).
Now, the illness du jour is autism. You know what autism is? Ill tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, its a brat who hasnt been told to cut the act out. Thats what autism is.
What do you mean they scream and theyre silent? They dont have a father around to tell them, Dont act like a moron. Youll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Dont sit there crying and screaming, idiot.
Autism everybody has an illness. If I behaved like a fool, my father called me a fool. And he said to me, Dont behave like a fool. The worst thing he said Dont behave like a fool. Dont be anybodys dummy. Dont sound like an idiot. Dont act like a girl. Dont cry. Thats what I was raised with. Thats what you should raise your children with. Stop with the sensitivity training. Youre turning your son into a girl, and youre turning your nation into a nation of losers and beaten men. Thats why we have the politicians we have.
Now you know exactly what he said.