Retired Fort Myers physician John R. Agnew goes a step beyond the argument attributing the increase in autism to better diagnosis and awareness in today’s News-Press—–it’s also due to families increasingly seeking “government money.” Writes Agnew, “Once the government gets involved, money follows, along with rules and some bureaucratic thinking.” He does not specify what form “government money” for autistic children might take; he references Thomas Sowell’s argument that the increase in autism is too many children who are really “late-talking” are being given an autism diagnosis.
Considering the emotional and other resources that are expended in seeking services for an …read more

Much happened over the past two weeks but I want most of all to think about Evan Kamida, who passed away on July 24, just a few days shy of his eighth birthday. Please keep his mother Vicki Forman and Evan’s family in your thoughts and prayers—-and to honor his memory, here’s a small and lovely thing to do: Please take a photo of flowers at a swingset and post it to this Flickr pool. Shannon Des Roches Rosa and Jennifer Graf Gronenberg have posted more information.
Thinking of Evan.

Not a Team Player in the Office?—-Not Necessarily
The difficulties that …read more

A July 18th editorial by conservative thinker Thomas Sowell about the false diagnosis of autism—–it’s entitled “Rush to diagnose autism causes more harm than good“—-responds to some recently announced techniques to diagnose autism earlier in children. Sowell criticizes what he sees as the over-diagnosis of autism in young children who are really late talkers (keeping in mind that Sowell is the author of a author of a book about book about late-talking children) and decries the whole notion of the autism spectrum:
Those who diagnose children by running down a checklist of “symptoms” can find many apparently “autistic” children or …read more