kgaccount form YouTube says aspergers is not autism.

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW-FzHSvCVk[/youtube]

she blocked me because I didn't agree with a comment she made,

I have heard of her before and think she is an idiot. I don't really care what she thinks and don't have the mental energy to argue with her.

I would ask for psychiatry credentials.

This is like one of those parents who's become so wrapped up in self-pity that she's forgotten her own child, worshiping the theoretical parallel-universe child that could exist if autism didn't...

Misdiagnosis of autism doesn't hurt anybody but the people who are misdiagnosed; and AS/HFA is not a misdiagnosis. Just hang out on WP for a while and talk to some of us about all the stuff we have to learn before we can get through a day in the NT world without going nuts.

It's like saying that my friend with the ankle braces doesn't have CP because that's the same diagnosis as my other friend with the wheelchair and they can't possibly have the same diagnosis because one's got it more than the other does. But in some ways, she's got it tougher because she spends a heck of a lot of effort walking, instead of using a power chair. AS/HFA, or whatever you want to call it when we can talk enough to say "stop pitying me, you jackass," is pretty similar to that. Close enough to typical to be spending a lot of effort to "pass" (or, if we can't pass, just to communicate); far enough away to be disabled; close enough to typical to miss out on a lot of the services; close enough to be assumed to be typical and blamed for moral failings when it's discovered that we're not.

There's just not any simple comparison where it's easier for one person than another, or one person's parents than another person's parents. And parents who spend their lives wallowing in what a burden their child is don't deserve to have that kid to begin with. There are plenty of parents of really, really autistic kids who are happy that they have their kid, that say their kid is a blessing to them, that they're enjoying watching them grow up and learn things. And there are plenty of parents of barely-autistic kids who think their kids are defective and horrible burdens and a blight on their lives. I'm sorry, but having a kid with severe autism is NOT an excuse to say, "My life is horrible; I blame my kid."

Yea when it comes to YouTube, in general you want to stay away because a lot of people have negative, hurtful, or silly comments that are based on zero knowledge of the subject being commented on.

There are people that are intelligent and base their comments, whether positive or negative, on some prior knowledge, but the sense I get is that the majority of negative comments on YouTube are based on a lack of knowledge or simply pure ignorance.

Stick to WrongPlanet, the comments here are for the most part mature, realistic, and based on personal knowledge or the knowledge of a healthcare professional.

Transcript, please.

You can forward a bit; she starts scrolling words across the screen. I just skipped her talking and read those. Oh, and she's yet another person on the "Amanda Baggs isn't autistic" kick... apparently she's convinced that it's impossible to lose skills in adulthood, and has gotten misinformation from somewhere...

Ever notice how these people tend to claim that any autistic capable of speaking for him/herself isn't autistic? It's like they're threatened by the idea that we might have our own opinions. No, scratch that, they are threatened by it.

I wonder who the guy in the video was. He seemed pretty annoyed by the people manhandling him.

Still feeling sorry for herself.

He's a handsome boy.

Sh*t I've watched a few of the other videos, and that looks a hard life. My sons had a few seizures and they were the three worst times in living memory for me

she reminds me of this edit form yahoo answer.

Lena wrote

But nostromo, your kid had three of them, not dozens or hundreds. I'm willing to bet that the first three are about as hard as the second thirty... After you get used to making sure the person doesn't hurt themselves during a seizure and know what to expect, I have the feeling it's not nearly as scary.

Plenty of people have epilepsy and do fine with it. Not fun and games, of course, but apparently not the end of the world either, especially when it's a stable condition and the seizures don't occur constantly.

I've been looking at her channel too... and it almost looks like she's using that guy as a circus exhibit or something. I haven't watched all the videos because I'm not a masochist, but even the one in this topic is... I dunno, there's just something wrong with videotaping your adult (teenage?) son in the shower. I don't care if he needs help in there; it's still a personal thing.

There is ONE positive video about her son. One. All of the others (forty-some) are about how horrible it is to have a kid with autism or how to "handle" his "behaviors". And the word "severe" is plastered all over the place... like she expects everybody to bow down to her for being some kind of a saint or something.

I keep wanting to say, y'know, woman, you're a mom. This is what you signed up for when you decided to become one. Not everybody gets a disabled kid, but if you aren't ready for a disabled kid, then you aren't ready for a kid, period.

People like that are incredibly selfish and contribute directly to great hardship for autistic people who don't fit their narrow mold. Also ignorant of the origins, when the original autistic people studied were almost all so-called HFA or AS by current standards. Viewpoints like this contribute to such situations as homelessness, starvation, extreme poverty, misdiagnosis, mismedication, and death for autistic people who have serious trouble functioning but can or used to be able to pass or be passed off as high functioning or nonautistic.

I take that very seriously as I run a list for autistic people who struggle with daily living tasks and know many autistic people there who face those situations. Including many who like me lost significant skills in adolescence or adulthood or simply never had the skills we were presumed to have. And I would say all this even if she weren't calling me a fraud, have been saying it since before that whole defamation/stalking/bullying thing erupted due to my media appearances which threatened established notions of autism that some people had a vested interest in upholding.

People like this would want me and those like me and those like me dead (which is where I'd be without a diagnosis of autism+progressive movement disorder which is much of what causes my ongoing adolescent/adult skill loss -- and such skill loss occurs for one reason or another in 1/6-1/3 of autistics in outcome studies I have read, with catatonic features in about 1/11 by adulthood in one study) rather than sullying the purity of their autism label. That is a horrible price to pay for some people's selfishness and self-pity and nothing they could do to me short of physical incapacitation will shut me up about the consequences of their self-serving worldview. I watch people, real people, paying that price every single day. It is not and will never be acceptable.

I notice that the autism community is embroiled in such boundary policing more than many other disability communities. The general developmental disability community is more concerned with advocating for rights than trying t decide wh is not disabled enough to qualify. I mean sure the parent-led "Voice of the ret*d" pulls the same crap against those with MR speaking for themselves. But among a tual self-advocates in that community you rarely see this level of gossip, backbiting, and identity policing and see much more commitment to improving each others lives. The autistic community ought to be more like that. We would get more done. In playing along with this crap or allowing it airtime in our brains, we are doing exactly what this style of parent wants -- dividing in order to be conquered. Meanwhile real autistic people suffer and even die for lack of services because some people believe the stereotypes this woman upholds. Not acceptable at all. Dangerous and destructive.

Wow.. I think I lost a few brain cells reading that. I love how she recognises that autism is a spectrum disorder - but then complains about how people who aren't as severe as her son are being included in the spectrum and then labels every autistic person who's been covered by the media (except for Rainman!) as not really autistic. Also, parents are not to blame for misdiagnosis - but at the same time there's an epidemic of people fraudulently faking autism to get attention . She could have cut that video down to a simple statement of, "people that don't want to indulge in my pity party about not having the properly normal child I deserve to have, aren't autistic and need to shut up."