Tomorrow is my last day at Autism Vox—-this blog was nominated for the Best Medical/Heatlh Issues Blog in the 2008 Weblog Awards and voting began on January 5th. And hey, if I’d have known that would have happened…….no, it’s been a good change over at Change.org where I’ve been blogging, though I confess to be still adjusting. If you’re so inclined, a vote for my old blog-home here is greatly appreciated. I will be gone from here by the time voting is over, but this blog will continue.

So the December 17th New York Times refers to the DSM, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, now in its fifth revision. Will Asperger Syndrome and “high-functioning autism” be merged? Will sensory processing disorder enter the DSM?

The revision, it’s noted, “will have consequences for insurance reimbursement, research and individuals’ psychological identity for years to come,” and, too, for our cultural understanding of what “autism” is. Perhaps it’d be more accurate to call the DSm (whatever revision), the book of being human, all too human.

So yesterday I wrote “what comes around, comes around.” Siliconmom commented about this sentence, the last one in the post:

Is that one of the stages of being an autistic parent - that at some point you realize and accept that life is what it is?

For me, I would say, yes, very much, and that, too, hope starts with acceptance.

Charlie was around 5 years old when I let go of feeling I had to save him from, and fight against, and do the warrior mom thing. I’m not saying I don’t have moments when a shadow of the old “fightin’ spirit” passes through me (pre-IEP meeting, for instance, or when you get The Stare-’n'-Shakes-Head Combo in the supermarket). Being Charlie’s mom is not about doing everything I can to “take the autism out of him,” but rather of loving him as he is, for who is, no matter what.

Just over a year ago I wrote down some thoughts on recovery while grocery shopping. Kev at Left Brain/Right Brain blogged recently about some claims on Age of Autism about “‘‘hundreds of case reports’ of recovered children’”; these children’s “recoveries” was said to have occurred thanks to doctors following the Defeat Autism Now! protocol.

I have a xerox of the original DAN! protocol in a box of files, a rather dusty box of files, as Charlie was 2 1/2 years old when we were “doing our research” about those sorts of biomedical treatments. (In fact, I was paging through that xerox of the original DAN! protocol—we’d given the original booklet to Charlie’s pediatrician in Minnesota, where we were living when Charlie was diagnosed—when I was seen sitting on the porch of our house on this show.) While numerous other diets, supplements, treatment practices have been suggested as methods to “defeat autism” since I sent away for the DAN! protocol in 1999, the motivation of parents today in using such treatments is, I would think, unchanged. We all just really, really, really want to help our children do their best in this life, especially in their life when we are not around to help them, that they can. Biomedical treatments hold out immediate, visible results; education and teaching plod along and produce small gains that can get lost in the data collection and then it’s back to square one as programs get put on hold.

And who doesn’t want to see the progress, to get it quick, not to have to see their child go to “more special ed” instead of “kindergarten without an aide”?

I mean, we do really rely too much on the microwave oven.

Middle school, self-contained classroom, all special ed and one-on-one with the teacher:student ratio: That’s not the scenario that parents get promised when they sign the contract for intensive in-home therapy for a just-diagnosed 2-year-old.

it is the scenario for Charlie, my middle school, self-contained classroom, all special ed, son. I started the week with a pained reflection on Charlie’s middle school blues. The week (and the school year) are not over but, after a Tuesday home visit and long conversation with Charlie’s teacher, the blue is looking more like blue sky blue. Why and how, I’ll go into more detail later—suffice it to say, figuring out Charlie’s learning style take trial and error, and time. Teaching Charlie requires adapting one’s teaching style to him and his way of learning.

What comes around, comes around.

Fitting, then, to end this post about recovery by noting a few more thoughts about the topic, also while in the grocery store. For a variety of reasons that involved a lot of hot- showering in a relatively short period of time, Charlie and I ended up at the grocery store as it was nearing 7.30pm, rather late. Charlie got a shopping basket and went to look for sushi and into the bakery section, and then I saw that he had stopped, and was leaning forward to examine a display of DVDs, one by one.

That is to examine the purple cases—purple, the New York Times informs us, being the new pink—of certain DVDs with great care. You guessed it: They were Barney DVDs. Charlie went through each one, and walked around the case, and ignored my requests to look for otheritems. He circled round to the front and sifted through the Pilates DVDs, just in case there was some hidden DVD treasure. And when he’d looked his full, walking away backwards, eyes still locked on those purple plastic cases—-he picked up the shopping basket and we continued our tour of the grocery store.

No fuss, no muss, just peaceful Wednesday evening shopping, Mom and Charlie-style, with a bit of Barney to boot.

Recovery from autism is something we shouldn’t be worrying about. My son is autistic and the good times that we have — no way can we let thoughts about irrealities distract us from the goodness of every day together.

This past June, a 16-year-old with autism is punched in the face and bullied by a teenager who attends the same high school—-and the whole attack is videotaped and posted on YouTube. The 16-year-old’s family saw the video and was able to identify the attacked. WSBT (South Bend, Indiana) interviewed Joyce Vermillion and Amber Fairchild, the mother and sister of the boy who was attacked:

“First it was bad enough that they did it. Then they videotaped it. Then they made it into a joke. They did it in slow motion and they replayed it frame by frame,” Fairchild said. “It hurts my feelings so bad, it hurts my heart.”

The family says the boy’s face was swollen after the attack, but since then he has been doing well.

The video helped the family identify his attacker, who attends the same high school.

Mishawaka police said the police report was filed Tuesday and officers are on the case.

The telltale video is no longer on YouTube; Fairchild was able to download it.

And you really have to wonder, what were the teenagers who did the bullying it thinking. Or not.

It was not a fairy-tale start to Charlie’s school year as a fifth grader: Due to our recent, and rather sudden, move of our household, Charlie is not able to take the yellow schoolbus until next week. In the meantime, Jim is driving him (and my parents, who are visiting, are picking Charlie up). Today being the first day of school, Jim and Charlie encountered monster traffic en route to the school parking lot (the lines of cars snaked far past the school parking lots and off towards a main road). When they finally parked in an adjacent parking lot and made their way to a certain door, Charlie was all smiles to see familiar faces: His teacher was an aide last year and a few of the aides are the same. He had a great first day, incluing soccer in the gym for my sportsminded boy.

I’ve learned a great, great deal from reading what many of you have described as your dream autism school. Education of autistic students is the main focus of “autism advocacy” for me (along with education of those who are not autistic, or who do not live with an autistic person, about what autism is, versus autism mythology). I have a lot more to say on this topic as commentary to your comments, and all the more so as it is September and “back to school” is in the air. Thanks to Lisa Jo Rudy for her post about building a dream school for children with autism.

Right now, I would have to say that Charlie’s school situation is our dream, and I would move farther, and live wherever, to make it possible for him to have what he needs. He is in a public school autism program that is housed in a public school in our town. Charlie is in a self-contained autism classroom that uses ABA; he receives speech therapy, occupational therapy, and daily Adaptive Physical Education (and he is fond of A.P.E., and quite good at it). He has only occasional direct interaction with the other children, at rainy day recesses and in planned moments, and this has seemed most helpful to Charlie, for right now. Today he was tired after his first day back but in constant, easy smiles, through practicing the piano and Charlie pacing on the sidewalk of the condo complex with his ears phones around his neck and his iPod up at full volume. He has been talking much more today, repeating my calling “Jim!” and saying “good boy!” and many short phrases, and singing full verses and choruses of songs. Charlie put himself to bed, his iPod on the floor, his big blue blanket wrapped over and around him.

Perhaps it could be said that one criteria for my dream autism school is that it gives Charlie sweet dreams, and me a little less worry.

• MacGyver Tip: Hang Bubble Wrap as Temporary Curtains
  Charlie has often enjoyed the sensory pleasure of popping those plastic bubbles but I hadn’t thought of making curtains out of the bubbly stuff.

• All work, now play in Ventnor
  Right next to Atlantic City, an amusement of another kind, a playground for all children, disabled and not-disabled
• Kindergartners stressed by school
  A UK study also finds that children with a a more shy, fearful personality appeared less stressed than their more extrovert peers.

• Mahopac aides who raised allegations will return to classrooms
  The aides, who accused a special ed teacher, a speech therapist, and 2 aides, of wrongdoing, had been on administrative leave. The 4 accused educators will stand trial in November.
• Number of students with special needs increases every year in Kearney, MO
  According to the Kearney Courier, in the the state of Missouri 0.4 percent of the student population is autistic or has a traumatic brain injury, but in Kearney the total is 0.5 percent. Might this be due to the quality of its services?
• Face Space
  A new study finds that 14 children with autism don’t experience the “face identity aftereffect” to the same degree that normal children do. Children with autism don’t adapt as readily to unfamiliar faces.

• What Works for Troubled Teens?
  To parents: Beware of program that promise TOO much.
• Dog Training Program For Autistic Children (Westchester County, NY, NBC News)
  The skills that these dogs are taught include the ability to stay with an autistic child when he or she wanders, and to press their weight against a child in the midst of a tantrum in order to calm the child and diffuse the situation.
• As autism diagnoses grow, so do number of fad treatments
  James Mulick on “Outrageous Developmental Disabilities Treatments.”

• 9-year-old boy with autism was rescued from ocean in Pacific Beach, police said
  From the North County Times (San Diego)—a reminder that, when it coes to swimming in the ocean, you never can be too safe.
• Autistic Traits in Non-Autistic Japanese Populations:
  Relationships with Personality Traits and Cognitive Ability: from the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disabilities. Is this study suggesting that certain cultures have persons with more “autistic-like” traits?
• ScienceDaily: Is Ultrasound As Useful As We Think?
  A scientist argues that the usefulness of foetal ‘nuchal thickness’ as a technique for attempting to diagnose Down’s syndrome in obstetric ultrasound is overstated.