That’s crazy talk.

You are really keeping yourself in self-imposed darkness. It isn’t MY definition, have you read the DSM-IV? It’s effectively the English language definition. By going off and creating your own, very myopic definition you are undermining your own use of language and in a real way very much cutting yourself off from the rest of the world.

A world that could help you help your son. Neurodiversity.

Your posts are brim filled with misconceptions. Not the least of which I suspect is who I am, definitely what my experiences are (with my son and beyond including kids more severe than yours), and certainly what my views are. So I’m going to keep it short, because this isn’t the easiest or most appropriate place to get into all that.

Instead I’m going to focus on the positive here. You started out with a great explanation of “Why?” So lets at the root goals. I see in there, and some are a bit buried:
- basic communication
- communication of his state of being, needs, and wants, this is HUGE (and you are SO mistaken about who thinks this is wrong), it is also a sprawling category with lots of steps inside it
- written language
- communication with speech
- sophisticated, detailed grammar in text mode
- sophisticated communication with speech and body language

Those are in mostly logical order of pursuit, though depending on your son some of them run concurrently. It’s really a range of things as picture/graphic/sign language based communication can be taking really far. There is a lot of happiness to be had, for you and your son, in just steps one and two. Although there might be another goal hidden in there.
- awareness of physical state so as take care of self or ask for help

Your son may or may not have been consciously aware of his sore throat, it’s really hard to tell pre-communication. If it was a scratchy throat and he wasn’t doing anything about it he might not have even been directly aware of it.

This is why “I want him to talk” by itself is so empty of meaning. It was an extremely poor description of what your desires are. Again your language use is cutting you off, cutting you off from the people that can help you and your son. That want to help you and your son. That are trying to help you and your son in a practical, sensible way.

You’ve got a long, hard path to go. Disheartening in the extreme, this isn’t the parenthood you signed up for. But your railing against “neurodiversity” is based on a very basic misunderstanding of intentions, motives, and understanding.

P.S. A question, how old is your son and has he been introduced to PECS. Anything there at all yet?

Being able to write doesn’t necessarily mean that an individual can do ANYTHING ELSE that goes with “standard issue living”.

Additionally, in MY case, if we’re being specific, yeah, I can talk. That means that instead of noticing I don’t talk (which takes a while), people notice within a sentence that I talk FUNNY. Kids love me, adults find me seriously disconcerting.

Being able to physically write my name on a contract doesn’t confer the skills to understand or keep up with one. Being able to blog doesn’t confer ability to do housework. Being able to blog doesn’t confer ability to get everything that needs to be done, done at once…even if technically one CAN do all the skills a bit at a time.

Redefining autism and cure for y’alls own ends isn’t helping ANYONE.

Serious pro-neurodiversity advocates do support more severely handicapped autistic people (so-called “low-functioning” autistic people) acquiring language, literacy, and maximal self-sufficiency. By whatever combination of educational, medical, and allied-health (OT, PT, etc.) interventions really do work for the individual.

That means, among other things, yes — pD’s son communicating. Whether by speech, keyboarding, sign, picture-and-letterboard, whatever.

Actively support. Through organizations like AutCom and TASH (whose clinical and professional members really are in the business of providing basic literacy education and access to, and training in the use of, alternative and augmentative means of communication), and for that matter, through other organizations funding serious research and clinical trials for medical interventions that can help. Work that gets peer-reviewed, and that has mitigation of specific medical ailments as its goal. Not vague handwaving about reduction of “autistic symptoms” or “autistic behaviors”. That’s what we mean by high standards of science and ethics.

We’re not against mitigation of handicap. Just against nostrums and regimens that make false claims. And just against misbegotten priorities, such as placing “looking nonautistic” above “gaining skills and developing strengths”.

What you call “cure” is, if it’s measures that really do help, what we would call mitigation of handicap.

It’s just wrong to call that “curing autism”. The end result is a person who is still autistic — just healthier and more capable.

We seek that for all autistic people, regardless of what handicaps they may be facing at present.

If you’re incontrovertibly committed to seeing us as the “enemy”, maybe I can leave you with a paranoia-inducing thought: what we who (you say) write so articulately on the Internet seek, is for more and more outcomes just like us. We apparently think that that is more of a possibility for your children than some of you do. It’s a matter of not letting what-is-currently obscure your view of what-can-be.

Think this through: if your greatest expectations for what you are calling “cure” come true, your children will not end up like you, they will end up like us.

In other words: Resistance is futile. You[r children] will be assimilated .

(Actually, my favorite parody of the Borg has to do with a poster-child for educational/behavioral intervention with the wrong set of goals:

“I am Lovaas of Borg. Your parents have paid me great sums of money. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.”

In that case, meaning assimilated into the nonautistic population. Which, from your definition of “cure”, you seem to agree with me is neither likely, nor of paramount importance to you. And that says to me that if you can be rational about it, and abandon the strawmen perennially constructed about us, you don’t need to regard us as the “enemy”.)

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A further parting thought a propos self-sufficiency: no people, not even nonautistic people, are 100% self-sufficient: do you do your own car repairs, plumbing, HVAC maintenance, raising and processing of food, waste processing, diagnosis of computer hardware, software, and network malfunctions, etc.? Why are the things that the so-called “able” majority turn to specialists for OK to be dependent about, but things like assistance with household management, financial management, transportation, aspects of personal care requiring agility, strength, coordination, etc., considered not OK to turn to specialists for, and not funded and budgeted for on an equal par with the former set?

Language doesn’t necessarily confer any skill except more ways to make it easily apparent that I’m diagonally parked in a parallel universe.

The ability to use language does confer more skill; you just can’t see it!

You understand what a period means. You understand that capitalizing letters conveys additional meaning. You understand grammar. You understand that the phrase ‘diagnonally parked in a parallel universe’ has meaning to convey a message; this means you understand an extrodinary range of abstract concepts. You understand that typing autismvox onto a screen will take you someplace where people are discussing autism. You understand that words are comprised of letters, that words are meaningful tools for getting information out and in. You understand the rules of spelling, which means you’ve understood some very cumbersome, and indeed, often illogical conventions. But this isnt’ about literacy; because people that don’t know how to read are aware of that, and are aware that it is an impediment. But what if, instead, you were oblivious to the entire notion of reading?

If I know who you are, I believe you have a blog of your own, which I ran into once or twice. You were looking for a job, or having problems with boys or paying bills, if I remember correctly. All normal stuff; but again, indicative of an entire suite of complementary basic living skills that many people with autism simply do not have. The ability to understand numbers, to be sign your name on a lease or utility billing agreement, or that the sound on the other end of the telephone is a person.

These skills are very useful, in ways that that are only apparent if you try to imagine surviving without any of them; and even then, with just imagination, it is difficult to understand the true depth and breadth of the problems of people who have none of the skills I mentioned above.

I’m sure you’ve got problems, but again, it is about the heirarchy of needs; and there is a big difference between having something to write on your blog versus not understanding that letters can be used to comprise words. Big difference.

- pD

Whose opinion do I give a damn about?
My daughter’s, since she is the one most immediately concerned.

As far as Autism Speaks goes, what is their mission statement?
As far as self-advocates serving on boards, I might present the I might suggest the National Down Syndrome Congress and other DD groups, in addition to those already mentioned as models for inclusion of first-hand advocates, even those who have challenges.

“You have to keep in mind those who are “high functioning”, even if you don’t count those will [potentially] become so through concerted help and intervention, does outnumber those that are not” Why are you telling this lie?

I know Autism Speaks is worthless and why they won’t really look for a cure. I bet within a year or two they’ll have some anti-cure high-functioning autistic on their board or something. I don’t see why it wouldn’t happen since someone anti-cure wouldn’t be going against the organization’s do nothing approach.

If your view on guaranteeing independence is how you stated it, then I can only consider you a defeatist who is out to demoralize anyone trying to keep the low-functioning from being permanently dependent. You don’t want any independence to be granted outside of current conditions, in which minimal interventions can only help some on the spectrum to a limited extent.

You don’t want intensive medical techniques to be devised to bring the abilities to the low-functioning that the non-disabled high-functioning ones enjoy. You should not be credited for favoring independence if you only advocate ways of achieving independence that will leave some with it and many more without it.

Who are you to say what is unrealistic? Why should it be kept that way when it doesn’t have to? Who should believe you when you insult any possibility of a dramatic therapy?