This Week’s Top Posts

Some will remember last week for June 4th and “Green Our Vaccines” rally.

I remember it as Charlie’s last full week of elementary school.

• Low Birth Weight and Preterm Birth: Autism Risk Factors?
  A new study in Pediatrics links low birth weight (less than 5.5 pounds) and preterm birth to an increased risk for autism in infants by about twofold, and more so in girls than in boys.
• “The issue here for me is did our teacher behave as alleged?”
  An editorial in the June 3rd Palm Beach Post about 5-year-old Alex Barton being voted out of his kindergarten class quotes Michael Lannon, Superintendent of Port St. Lucie, along with more details from the police report.
• An Argument about “Difference” and “Deviance”
  Professor Stanley Fish of Florida International University, in Miami and dean emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, opens a post about “norms and deviations” on his New York Times blog by citing a letter published in Time magazine.
• How Invisible is Autism in Women?
  Is female “invisibility” in the autistic spectrum a feminist issue?
• The Rallying of the Green
  The “green vaccine thing” is but another instance of rebranding.
• No Wonder It’s So Expensive to Be a Parent
  The average mother of a child under 15 spends more on fast food per year than on books, music, movies, and video games combined, the June 2nd New York Times reports.
• Change the Schedule!
  “Change the schedule!” That was apparently the rallying cry of the June 4th Green Our Vaccines rally.
• Boy Dies During Nap, Possibly From Secondary Drowning
  10-year-old Johnny Jackson died last week while taking a nap in his house from “asphyxiation due to drowning”—-according to today’s ABC News, Johnny may have died from secondary drowning.
• Needed: Good Communication Between Parents and Schools
  It’s always struck me as a sad irony that, when it comes to parents trying to make sure that an autistic child succeeds at school, communication can pose some of the greatest obstacles. Too often I’ve found it just very hard to let teachers, therapists, and staff know what is going on with Charlie and what our goals are, and I know the reverse has occurred.
• 1500
  That’s journalist Arthur Allen’s estimate of how many people were at Wednesday’s Green Our Vaccines rally; a bit smaller of a number than the “close to 10,000” elsewhere noted.
• Recovered or Not?
  In article after article about the “Green Our Vaccines” rally, it is said that that her son is “autistic” and “has autism”—contrary to what was said at the publication of her book last September.