Nothing to Fear About Autism
October 30, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Classics, Diagnosis, History, Holidays, Neuroscience, Parenting, Stereotypes
It is happening already: In the wake of the AAP’s call for universal screening of 18-24 month old children for autism, parents are starting to worry: A mother wrote that autism scares the hell out of me. And, the October 2007 issue of Popular Science listed autism as among the “deadly five” of the “enemies of the brain.”
Okay. It is not easy, and it can be scarey, to have a doctor tell you that your child has a “serious/severe/lifelong brain disorder,” and too hear that awful “d” word, delay. I do know that, back in the spring of 1999, after I got over my first denial and disbelief that Charlie had “something”—autism—I felt a great relief. I felt as if I had gained some knowledge and that, thus fortified, I could start moving on, start helping Charlie. “Diagnosis” is from the ancient Greek words dia, “through” and “apart,” and gignoskein, “to learn, to know”—and “to know through,” “to discern.” And it goes without saying that knowing the name for what Charlie “had” was the first step in learning how to help him, and how to learn a whole new way of seeing and understanding the sensory stimuli of the world and of why people do some things that might seem “odd.”
It being Halloween tomorrow, I figure the only thing to fear is the ghosts and their ghostly selves.
Jeff Stimpson
Jill Cornfield
When you have a child, there is always a risk of her developing some type of disorder or getting seriously ill. We as parents can only do so much - avoid the preventable diseases. So of course parents are always afraid at some level. But we can’t get overcome by fear, we can only try to make our kids healthy and safe, and hope for the best.
I was never afraid that my child would develop autism. It never crossed my mind… I was too busy being afraid of infectious diseases, choking hazards, etc. But once I found out my child had autism, then, yeah, fear set in. Luckily he seems to be pretty high functioning, but we are still worried about his future - how far will he go? Will he be happy or will he suffer too much from anxiety, depression or bullying? But then again, our life has been so much fun with him, that I try not to expect the worse and still hope for the best case scenario.
As parents, there is always reason to worry and be afraid. And reason to hope and be proud of our wonderful children.
That’s upsetting. Autism is not an “enemy of the brain”. BSE, Alzheimer’s, and Tay-Sachs are enemies of the brain. Autism may be an enemy of the pocket, but that’s a much nicer problem to have.
Upsetting, and common as grass. But it will be nice to know I might be able to scare a few more without even trying.
Cliff
I guess that having the ebil meanie-poo autism that eats babies’ souls is the one way i can be properly terrifying *yawn*.
Wonder what the next round of hysteria will be about? And WHEN? Isn’t our turn over?
Apparently, no. Nice thought, though.
Cliff
When Patrick was diagnosed I felt relief as well. We KNEW something was different about him that, btw, make him very difficult to parent. We just simply adapted to him as best we could (and no, it wasn’t easy, and still isn’t “easy” although it gets less stressful as time passes).
So the diagnosis gave a name to it and, as a result, made it a bit less scary. The first thing I thought coming out of the meeting was “thank God it’s not cancer or something more serious”. I still feel that way.
The next thing I thought was “wow, that explains a lot”. Patrick was and is so obivously autistic…we just didn’t know what to call it.
It will start with screening for autism and then it will grow towards developing a blood test that identifies autism before age 2 and then it will become a pre-natal test.
Then it will progress to a law that allows parents of ‘potential autistics’ to abort their ‘potentially autistic’ babies-in-waiting.
It won’t be long because certain flawed and skewed interest groups and organizations manage to complete their video produced mandate to “make autism a word found only in history books.”
I fear for the future of the human race with the sort of narrow mindedness that accompanies most people’s perceptions of autism and the hidden gifts therein.