McCain, Obama and the Politics of Homogenizing Autism

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http://www.basilandspice.com/mind-and-b ... utism.html

This was written by someone I have great respect for. I didn't know if it should go here, or the Politics section, and truly it probably belongs in both. Would love to hear your opinions.

I think the most interesting parts of the piece address treatment for autism, and this statement (regarding ABA) is one that really strikes a chord with me: "Further, we’ve portrayed autism as so complex and complicated, we’ve disempowered parents from parenting. We’ve supplanted their ability to develop a relationship with their own children by dictating that a professional, previously a stranger to the child, is solely qualified (and required to be so) to interact with their child for hours on end. This creates system dependency instead of imparting skills, techniques and strategies to parents that empower them to parent effectively, capably, and competently."

I do not like the cookie cutter approach that ABA is the only and most effective option. I'm skeptical that either of the candidates truly understands the challenges of raising a child on the spectrum. I know this, I won't vote for a Presidential candidate based on the issue of Autism. I would be more inclined to do that at a local or State level.

DW_a_mom, I totally agree with the particular section you pulled out from Bill's article. I agree with what he says about ABA, especially about it being a situation where a parent is giving away their responsibilities to a total stranger. We actually did this for a short time, under a year, and although I felt it was effective, I also felt kind of strange about it.

I think parents turn to ABA because they can't think of anything else to do. It's like a last resort solution.

The reason why Bill's article is so effective is because he's on the spectrum himself and he knows what he's talking about.

The one thing that is difficult in his article, though, is when he talks about natural learning with children on the spectrum. Sometimes, you just can't get them interested in certain things. Plus, you can't see that things will get better in the future, so you just can't figure out what the right thing is to do to help your child along.

It's something I've been thinking for a while, especially when I read forums frequented by those with more severely affected children, but it's something I've always nudged around because, quite honestly, having a very lightly affected child, who am I to speak to it? Still, the direction treatment is taking feels so counter-intuitive to me, mostly because of what I know has worked best with my son. What we see is a much wider window into the ASD mind. And aren't many of the popular therapies out-shoots of things that observant parents discovered worked for their own children? I guess it was good to hear someone who really was in the know voice something that has been eating at me for a while.

Obviously, most of us parents just don't have the tools to figure it out by ourselves. And many parents will never have the will. So some professional intervention is needed. But I like the idea of partnerships, that pass the skills onto to the parents, if the parent is willing. A more intense version of everything I've gotten from the resource team at my son's school, and at a much younger age. But, still, focused at a personal, family, level.

One of the things Bill talks about in his articles and seminars is using a special interest as much as you can for learning. If you think about ways to incorporate the special interest, and use your child's Passions it can be a stepping stone to new information.

The reason my daughter taught herself to read at age 3 was because of her passion: video games! She's loved them for a long time, and we've used characters in her games to illustrate social stories, teach about computers and graphics, (she at one time aspired to work for Pixar), and she is interested in graphic design and computer animation. She now wants to learn more about how computers work. We use computers to communicate and learn. There are all sorts of opportunities for math, programming, etc. Each year during the summer we purchased the jumpstart game for the next year of school. She loved those games! She finished them before the school year started and they made her feel comfortable.

What Bill is saying about teaching is to use as many real life examples as possible. Rather than teaching apple by a picture of the apple, also use things like cooking with apples, looking at different types of apples. You can do this with a multitude of things. Replace apples with the thing you want to teach

Check out his website for more information too williamstillman. com He's written several books, and there are atricles on his website. If you can catch one of his seminars, they are wonderful! We are very fond of Bill. He did a consultation for us with our school district 4 years ago, and it really was invaluable for us.