Autism worse than thought?
August 17, 2006 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
That, minus the question mark, is the title of an article in today’s Daily Telegraph (Australia) about a new research study that suggests that autism “affects the functioning of virtually the entire brain, and is not limited to the brain areas previously thought.”
While our days with Charlie can have plenty of tough moments, he is always the best boy I could ever have had. So I would have to say instead of “autism worse than thought,” for us it is:
Autism better than thought.
Here here! Yesterday at kindergarten orientation, Jared may have had more trouble sitting still than the other kids during the powerpoint presentation, but he was the only one who could read all the slides. All things considered, I’ll take the one I’ve got and be happy. =-)
Go Jared!
Just blogged another story citing the same report.
http://laurentius-rex.blogspot.com/2006/08/study-autism-affects-entire-brain.html
To me it is Autism better than could have been thought, in that it vindicates my way of being as so tightly integrated into my brain that it cannot possibly be a disorder but the way I was meant to be.
Lets see the curebies work this one out an blame it on mercury or opiates or the conjunction of Pluto and Uranus.
Thanks for the post — and the positive attitude. My teen with Asperger’s can be a delightful young man; adults who come into contact with him adore him. He is who he is, and he’s amazing.
Perhaps the conjunction of Mercury and the sun…….
“He is who he is”: Ditto for Charlie!
It never ceases to amaze me how people’s preconceived notions (mine included) often get in the way of how they see new things. Despite the inherently negative bias of the first news story I read about this study, my first thought was, “Maybe this will help people see that autistics don’t have parts of the brain that don’t work ‘right’, but rather the autistic brain/mind is a unique whole that just gets things done differently.”
This obviously shows my bias, because never in my wildest dreams would I ever have thought, “Holy crap, it’s not just a part of the brain that doesn’t work right, it’s the whole damn thing!”