Saw something on CNN on autism that made me want to throw up

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This afternoon CNN had a story on a family with 4 children. Two of the children were autistic. One had AS and I forgot what they said the other had. The parents basically said " we feel so bad that our kids are autisic and are working with them so they can be normal." This made me sick. How about accepting your children for who they are instead of trying to change who they are?

I saw it to. They had a girl that had autism and a boy with asperger. CNN's doing
segments on autism all week. I saw another segment about a boy with autism that
made alot of progress in Martial Arts.

You should write a letter saying how disgusted you are. Over here in Britain there is a short programme called 'Points of View' about BBC Programmes which people write in to and have their thoughts published on the TV. Is there any programmes like that in the US concerning CNN?

I would gladly help writing the letter, if you would like.

Things like this aren't acceptable.

I did not watch it that close ( my ADHD ) The CNN anchor did close the story
with "There is no cure" Myself I was not mad at the story for what was said but for
what was not said. They mentioned there is no test for autism and its hard to define
what autism is.

Why don't they accept their children who who they are. I wouldn't have made me throw up. What was so sick about it?

In a world as shallow and basic as this one though I can't blame em. Unless there that specific kind of AS or HFA that stands to make a lot of money off their strengths or has really has that certain akward social charm the odds of them making it aren't very good. As for CNN showing this kinds of things, lots of people probably still need to get their heads around the fact that its not a parenting or attitude disorder.

shows on tv about autism are designed to educate and inflame, its media hype, and it doesnt help us , aspies need a new profile , a raised profile, we are the new gays.
we need to have direction and to come out and raise aspei awareness.
we need a high profile aspie and an aspie structured response to these types of media shows.
20 years ago every one hated gays, now every one is gay....we need an aspie revolution, until then we need to suck it out

i'll be willing to do it, if I had help.

I don't know about user:donkey, but I know that I haven't been treated with the same disdain that the average gay person gets treated with, and I don't really see how we could be considered the 'new gays.'

but yeah, that article sounds F-ed up. And is, truely, just another example of American media's preoccupation with "Telling a story as fast as possible, in the most Exciting way possible" rather than Telling a story as Completely, and truthfully as possible.

I thought this topic was going to be about something worse though. I bet that most autistics and Aspergers people were shuttled into 'Special-Ed' classes (I know I was), or were told to take 10 different kinds of drugs to "help them cope".

well, I read an article awhile back about how this mother filed a Suit against the local school system for using Electro-shock therapy on her 'Special-Ed' kid, and a few days before it was brought before the court, about 40-50 parents were protesting outside the courthouse because they thought that The Woman was wrong, and The School Board was In the Right! o_0

CNN is screwed up to begin with. They take an major issue, and only talk about one aspect of it. With autism, they only talk about cures. With Israel, they only talk about occupation. And so on.
I can imagine if an autistic man from Israel developed a cure for AIDS, this is how a report would go:

Most major news outlets are best viewed as entertainment, loosely based around real events.

Its exactly the same over here; the BBC is meant to be a bastion of unbiased & informative reporting, but when it comes to minor* 'human interest' stories, often they like to present an oversimplified polarized version of the debate that creates a throwaway moment of interest, rather than giving the viewer something too complex that theyll have to think about.

I think thats what most people want: theyve turned on the box to relax at the end of a hard day - theyre after a moments distraction, not the burden of having some complex social issue that requires research & soul-searching.

I haven't watched that but I saw a segment of it on a comerical. I think that it is stupid.

ok a cout d'eat is need!

I can hardly stand these news specials anymore because they all seem like what we used to call tabloid tv. I find a great deal of news and advertising to be highly insulting to our intelligence.

When you say that you're opposed to a cure, do you mean you're opposed to ALL treatment, therapy etc?

If you're going to make this into a cause, make sure you're clear on exactly what you're opposed to, because right now you're being unspecific. For instance, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't have anything against teaching aspies to read body language.