Comments on: Parenting Isn’t Easy, Period—and I’m Very Glad to Be a Mother

By: Statements to the IACC (and what happened on Monday)

Statements to the IACC (and what happened on Monday) — Wed, 14 May 2008 04:23:51 +0000

[...] and submitted it and thought I might go, and then Jim heard that the Monday event might happen. Our Mother’s Day weekend was busy and a bit intense at times and I found myself one moment looking up train tickets on [...]

By: Cliff

Cliff — Tue, 13 May 2008 02:24:05 +0000

At this point, I don’t actually test at mentally retarded, but at various points in time I did. I managed to learn (through a lot of work on my part) some of the methods that one can use on that test, but it was a long journey to that. And, really, it’s just an awful measure, especially on autistics. I mean, it doesn’t even have fully accepted use between genders, less than when talking about some fundamental differences in communication.

I wonder how people would think of me now, writing like this, when I scored so on those tests. It’d probably be an interesting reaction to see.

Cliff

By: CS

CS — Tue, 13 May 2008 00:44:25 +0000

Good grief (relief). I must say it is refreshing to read another AS person say they test out as mentally retarded on the IQ. I too have a very low IQ by standard measures. Thank god IQ was never used to disqualify me from attending a university. We need to get rid of that measurement in public schools. These tests are simply not accurate when used with autistics, and probably not accurate with anyone else either. I was assigned an aide in elementary school because of my behavior and testing scores and she never did a thing for me. The only thing I remember about her is when she called me a retard to the teacher in 1st grade after I refused to cooperate on a cut and paste assignment. To this day, I can still remember over- hearing her say to the teacher “What can you expect? He’s retarded.”

By: Cliff

Cliff — Tue, 13 May 2008 00:03:22 +0000

Heh, I have to admit that the loaded assumptions in both of those studies would involve going so far backwards in that regard as to what was “recovered”, what was “normal”, and what was “different” is so far. Unless you can produce a study which can show, distinctly, that the very mode of thought which is so central to autism was changed through the specific period of time, I simply do not have the time right now (it is finals period, after all) to go back and do a full reconstruction of the societal assumptions of behavior as related to “recovery” values and the self-fulfilling prophecies (especially related to using an IQ test based on communicated intelligence to later determine how much more one could communicate intelligence as mediated by the receptiveness of sociality). As somebody who has a “mentally retarded” IQ, I’d note that the societal constructs regarding how autism is tied to the negative behaviors ignores the general autistic substructure that is underlying the diagnostic criteria in its latent structure.

Cliff

By: RAJ

RAJ — Mon, 12 May 2008 22:34:59 +0000

Long term studies have been completed on children with a PDD diagnosis. Rutter’s group, who has the largest patient population in England did a systematic study on long term outcomes of their patient population with IQ’s > 50. 12% had ‘very good’ outcomes.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14982237

Outcomes are generally associated with IQ at an early age. Stell Chess, the reseacher who identified the ‘rubella autism’ patients also did a followup of her ‘autistic patients’ decades later and also noted that the autistic type behaviors tended to fade leading to recovery.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/x1xq336510810m61/

By: Marla

Marla — Mon, 12 May 2008 21:16:52 +0000

Happy Mother’s Day Kristina. You are an inspiring mother to me. I think we are doing our best and we take it a day at a time. I know I don’t know all the answers and that is okay.

By: Cliff

Cliff — Mon, 12 May 2008 04:00:58 +0000

Ooooh… if that sounds anything like my story, that’s going to bite them back really badly. Just ask Dad. Or me, as well. But from a parental perspective, that eventually came back with a vengeance. The expectation is pretty much that of denial; the stakes are too high; there’s either going to be some very clearly forced self-denial or a full knock-down-drag-out fight with those who are holding onto that normal conception. Given my comments here and elsewhere, you could reasonably guess what happened in my case.

Cliff

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Mon, 12 May 2008 03:55:15 +0000

Another “recovery story of two brothers, also by Deardorff. Recovery seems to be defined as:

Typical. Average. Normal. We never thought we would be so happy to describe our life this way. Max and Ty are very affectionate little boys who attend a mainstream school, have best friends, and love going to play dates and birthday parties.

In the past year, they have figured out how to ski, ice skate, swim underwater, and ride their bikes without training wheels. They are learning to read and write, and when asked what they want to be when they grow up, they both say, “a dad.”

They no longer require any behavioral therapies and are indistinguishable from their peers. In fact, we did not feel the need to tell their teachers at school about their previous diagnoses.

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Mon, 12 May 2008 03:42:41 +0000

And at what we think about “difference” in the process……

By: Cliff

Cliff — Mon, 12 May 2008 03:06:18 +0000

In distinction is identity; it’s not in and of itself an evil. But it is important to be careful in looking at what the differences are, and what they really mean. I might say more about that outside cryptic terms, but it was just today that I wrote this awesomely boring paper about judgmental traits of perception, and I really don’t want to revisit that even on more interesting terms for a bit! So… I won’t.

Cliff