Comments on: “He’s Just a Late Talker—He’ll Grow Out of It”

By: Mary

Mary — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:19:23 +0000

Gosh John, I wish I had found your “data” before! We could have saved ourselves so much time and money if we had only been physically rough with my son, and if my husband had only loved him. I guess the whole SAHD concept is one which you don’t know anything about, since my husband is one. I guess you don’t know about sensory issues that almost demand roughhousing to force J-man’s body/mind to calm. I guess sleeping in the same room with the J-man until he was almost 1 somehow doesn’t come close enough to forcing him to be social. Maybe if we had just “used the rod, and beat the child” he wouldn’t be autistic?

Also… I guess my dad, who is 62 and severely dyslexic, doesn’t exist either.

Shut up and read for a while before you start making stupid statements.

By: Regan

Regan — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 22:36:31 +0000

Interesting comment about the Russians.
Since there was no citation provided for the “grabbing them to get their attention” treatment modality, let me provide a possible alternative published in JADD. Interestingly enough, what is written sounds very similar to both diagnostic descriptions, treatment modalities and outcome goals that are already somewhat familiar.
Apologies for the length.

(…) Our data support the multiple causation theory for autism. We have seen no cases in which the disease had psychogenic origins. We have seen its connection with inherited pathology (autistic features of character, autistic
constitution, accumulation of certain psychotic episodes among relatives, presence of fragile X chromosome, phenylicetonuria, and more rarely, other metabolic disorders), and in some cases, we have noted general cerebralorganic
insufficiencies.
(…)
AN APPROACH TO TREATMENT OF CHILDREN WITH AUTISM
At the Institute, we combine medical, psychological, and educational treatments as appropriate for meeting the varied needs of children within each of the four groupings of autism. While strategies for treatment are
designed to address the levels of pathology of development and affect characterizing the children in each of the four groups, they also are individualized for each child and family.
Drug therapy is directed mainly at easing basic pathological conditions with the goal that it function as a supportive therapy. Our experience
shows that adequate medication often catalyzes the effectiveness of other treatments. Our use of medications is governed by the principle of using the minimal affective doses with the least hindrance of psychic development. We also find that drug treatment sometimes becomes necessary for members of the family living in a lasting psychologically traumatic situation.
Psychological treatment has the goals of recovering the child’s need for emotional contact with others, developing the child’s emotional independence from others, using emotional bonds with others for developing activities for the child, reducing the level of the child’s anxiety and fear, and normalizing and developing the child’s forms of interaction with the outside world. The work toward these goals includes developing the ability to have self-preservation reactions, to interact with other people through
verbal dialogue, to accept and use detailed behavioral rules, to attend to the feelings of other people, and to understand the emotional aspects of interactions with others.
Pedagogical treatment begins with establishing an emotional contact between a child and an adult. The treatment has a variety of aims including the development of motor skills, self-help skills, speech, an increased attention
span, the ability to switch attention from one thing to another, and basic school readiness for learning reading, writing, and counting.

Our work with families focuses on both the needs of the parents and on the parent-child relationship. We offer psychotherapy to the parents aimed at softening their reaction to their child’s illness by helping them deal with feelings such as fear, guilt, and perplexity. We help parents understand their child and the nature of their child’s autism, and with them we develop an individualized program for raising the child. We teach parents how to organize their child’s life and how to evaluate progress in the various aspects of the child’s program (…)

Lebedinskaya, K.S., and Nikolskaya, O.S. (1993). Brief report: Analysis of autism and its treatment in modern Russian defectology. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, Vol. 23, No. 4, 675-679.

By: xtiluv

xtiluv — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:06:42 +0000

@John–yes, it is all mom’s fault. Once again, let’s blame the mother. My child is just pretending not to be able to speak. It’s fun for him to not communicate efficiently with the world around him. I am simply not trying hard enough, not to mention my cold and unloving nature. Maybe I can just shake it out of him. Physical techniques…why didn’t I think of that? It’s so simple…a little child abuse ought to solve the problem. Thanx for the wake up call. I am sure that tomorrow he will not be autistic. Grrrr…..

Just another refrigerator mother.

By: Regan

Regan — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 10:09:22 +0000

Most of the “problems” we see in children these days are not real, they are imagined problems that someone makes money out of and that allow mothers, in the main, to validate themselves as wonderful supporters of their children at the expense of handicapping those children.

Ugh.

By: Something(s) To Comment About

Something(s) To Comment About — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 05:14:06 +0000

[...] post about late talking written in July continues to draw comments, including this one from John which argues that autism [...]

By: John

John — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 16:55:07 +0000

Autism was extremely rare until relatively recently. Why? Was it just not diagnosed, no it was simply that people by and large had no room to get away from interaction with other people, their family was “in their face” all the time. The Russians have had great success with children who were severely autistic by physically grabbing children to get their attention. As with so many American drug based techniques that simply don’t work (but make all those PHD’s out there a lot of money) physical techniques do work but they are cheap and of course cheap means they can’t make money out of it so they are derided by “experts”. Dyslexia is another “modern” ailment that miraculously disappears when children are taught to read using phonic methods as anyone over the age of forty probably was, how many of us were/are dyslexic? Most of the “problems” we see in children these days are not real, they are imagined problems that someone makes money out of and that allow mothers, in the main, to validate themselves as wonderful supporters of their children at the expense of handicapping those children. When we see demons or disease around every corner it is usually time to look in the mirror for the source. Children by and large are fine if left to go at their own pace but socialisation requires places to socialise and separate bedrooms and “me time” are about de-socialisation so logically we either reverse these trends or we accept the result, unsociable, selfish adults. Tough love, a father’s love, is what is required and not the child abuse of projecting imagined illnesses on our children that they are all too ready to play up to. To be led astray is no excuse for going astray ……. unless you are a very young child so let’s put the blame where it should be put on the adults who should know themselves and their failings better before they presume to know their own children and their imagined failings.

By: Top Posts From the Past 2 Weeks

Top Posts From the Past 2 Weeks — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 16:03:22 +0000

[...] “He’s Just a Late Talker—He’ll Grow Out of It” Late talking child or child on the autism spectrum? [...]

By: Karen

Karen — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 02:11:41 +0000

Well put, Jane!

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 00:58:47 +0000

Nothing to be fear in an autism diagnosis, or when there is late talking—–because there is a lot that can be done, and if getting a suggestion of a diagnosis leads to starting speech therapy and other educational therapies, this can be well.

@Jodi,
And one might especially wish for more consistency in regard to school districts who evaluate children, versus physicians and other medical professionals who have been trained to evaluate a child based on ADOS and the other tests suggested.

One wonders too about reports of “recovered” children: Perhaps their diagnosis was not accurate.

By: Jane

Jane — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 23:34:30 +0000

Leila wrote: “A lot of people have trouble accepting the autism label…”

The reason a lot of people may have trouble accepting the autism dx is because they know it is not the correct dx for their child.

My child was misdx’d at age 22 months. I knew it, his EI therapists knew it and I didn’t worry too much about it at first because to me it seemed evident the dx was incorrect.

When he transitioned to special education preschool and BEFORE the new therapists received his IEP, I did not tell them about his dx. (I did not know it would be written on the IEP, was told it would not follow him). Prior to their receiving it, his therapies were appropriate to his needs, I was told how well he was doing and everything went smoothly.

As soon as they received the IEP and read the dx, his therapies CHANGED! Why? Because now they were providing techniques and therapies to coincide with a dx, not with the child.

Here is a simple way to put it for those who have a child on the spectrum. You might have heard time and time again your child was just a late talker. That was very frustrating for you because you KNEW that was not correct and something else was going on.

It is just as frustrating for parents whose kids are late talkers or have expressive/receptive language disorder when they are told their kids are autistic. They KNOW that is not right. It is just as demeaning to those parents when no one believes them when they say it is not autism.

I don’t understand why some parents who have a child with autism INSIST that if a parent will not accept the autism dx it is because they are in denial. How are we any different? We are not!

Imagine if the school district INSISTED to you that your child did not have autism, but was instead severely mentally retarded, but don’t worry! We will give your child services.

Would that be okay? Would you believe that those services would be appropriate for you child? I think not!

It is not any different to those of us who KNOW our child is not on the spectrum. That does not mean we run from evaluators and the school district. My SD insisted my son was PDD-NOS. I had him privately evaluated 5 times! Each time I was told he was not on the spectrum.

I had him evaluated so many times because I was so afraid of my being wrong and not getting my child the services he might need, but he was DEFINITELY stressed from getting inappropriate services.

I finally once and for all had my son evaluated by Dr. Stanley Greenspan who said he was not on the spectrum. Only then could I finally relax and trust what I KNEW in my heart all the time.

However, before this eval, the school wanted to place my son in a special ed class. He NEEDED it they told me. After the eval, surprise, surprise, the SD said he no longer needed the special class.