Callista wrote:
Spokane_Girl wrote:
Temple had always seemed mild because she learned to talk at three and a half and she went to normal classes and she just seemed mild when I read her books when she wrote about her childhood.
"Mild" because you can understand what she is talking about and it's not completely alien to your own experiences? 'cause in many cases even really, really obvious autism, if present in someone who can communicate in writing, isn't going to come across as all that foreign to someone with AS. Being mainstreamed just because your parents refuse to put you in special ed isn't an indicator of how non-autistic you are so much as an indicator of not doing any major disruptive behavior that would jam up an NT classroom... Anyway, mild/severe/whatever... I've heard her described as everything from "severely autistic as a child" to "high-functioning" and that's probably because the labels aren't precise.
Gaining speech at three and a half is fairly typical for classic autism. About 90% or so of autistics with speech delays will have speech by age nine, in any case, and most of those will gain it before six. (That doesn't stop the other 10% from learning speech later, becoming literate and writing/typing, or becoming proficient in the use of alternative communication from sign to PECS to picture/symbol-based electronic devices.)
So what's your definition of "severe", anyway? Somebody who has trouble with speech? Somebody who doesn't use speech? Somebody who needs help with ADLs? Somebody with autism+developmental delay? There are a lot of different possibilities.
BTW, though, if you want a very disabling form of autism, try Rett syndrome. It's rare and it includes specific neurological traits as well as the autism (kind of the way Down Syndrome is more than just developmental delay). It comes from a specific mutation (the only kind of autism with such a specific known cause) and tends to result in non-verbal individuals, though it doesn't always.
When you see someone like Simon Linch or the character Adam from House in "Lines of the Sand" and when you watch videos made by Autism Speaks showing how badly effected those kids are by autism, that's severe. No way they can be in a normal classroom. They would need special ed at all times.
Talking at three and a half is early for an autistic. Some talk much later than that like at age seven. Some never learn to talk at all.
Temple just never seemed severe to me from what I have read by her about her childhood. She was raised the same way my mother raised me and she seemed to have understood the rules and knew of the consequences just like I did or else she wouldn't be able to listen because her cognitive level be so low which is common in kids of severe autism. You can't tell a severely autistic child to quit doing something and expect them to listen and then you punish them like you would with a normal child and that kid still wouldn't learn because their cognitive level is so low and explaining their actions still won't get to their head but Temple on the other hand was given rules and expected to follow them and her mother punish her when she didn't follow them and she understood them.
Heck I've read in my records I was severely delayed and I don't agree with that because I have seen myself on the home videos my dad took and I looked typical and I could dress myself and feed myself and knew how to get food and I could fold clothes and I did some pretend play like a normal toddler. How can they say I am severely delayed if I could do all those things? I was even in a classroom with high functioning kids than kids who were severely delayed and handicapped and I knew the rules and followed them.
26 Jul 2009, 12:44 pm
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