Parent Thread

Utnayan_sl said:

Yes there are other combinations of therapy and whatever else. But where there is a pill? There is a panic attack to cause parents to "Medicate" their kids and bring in some of that needed revenue to the pharmecuticals. Either way, after watching some of those "Signs and Symptoms" 100% of American kids go through one or the other. Give me a break. I am not saying Autism doesn't exist. I am saying it is not 1 in 12 kids. BUt hey, that sure sells a lot of therapy and anti psychotics.

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As someone who is likely on the spectrum (as a child, I exhibited much of the same behaviour that my daughter does), and the parent of an autistic child, I have done a great deal of research. I agree with you on one thing only: Many children go through some of these signs and symptoms, and not all of them are autistic. Correlation is not causation.

I'm not thrilled that my child is on the spectrum. I'm also not medicating her for it, because that isn't the answer. Education is key, for the parents as well as for the child, because the predominant effect of autism (at least, at the high-functioning end of the spectrum) is a lack of motivation to behave a certain way. We've managed to teach our daughter to be motivated by various things that she just wasn't aware existed. She's much better off now.

Could it be 1 in 12 kids? Absolutely, because we know a lot more about autism than we did when (for example) I was a child, displaying many of these traits that my daughter displays now, and there was no diagnosis, treatment, or even a thought in anyone's mind that something might be wrong with me. By the same token, parents overreact at the slightest sign of non-conformity, and there is no way that every 1 or 2 year old will behave the same way. There are important, telltale signs of autistic behaviour in children. Your kid doesn't point at anything by age 2? Probably not a good thing. Your kid doesn't look anyone in the eyes, at all, by age 2? Very much a sign of a lack of social behaviour. Your kid doesn't mimic you (and I'm not talking speech, I'm talking any actions at all)? Again, it's social behaviour that most children pick up reasonably early, because as a parent, you are generally their first guideline in the world and the first example of social interaction that they will try to emulate.

Look, I get what you're saying, but throwing a drug name at me is irrelevant. There are people out there who take antibiotics for the common cold. It's frankly irrelevant that doctors are attempting to push meds to counter autism as though it can be "cured". There is no cure. It's just the way some people are wired, and education is key to understanding that and coping, for everyone involved. That won't stop crooked people (and ignorant consumers) from looking for and/or pushing a "wonder drug". That also doesn't correlate to the rising number of kids being diagnosed with autism.

Exactly. A better understanding of the disorder, enabling us to spot it well in advance, does not an epidemic make.

The other important takeaway here, in my opinion, is that too many people leave the "spectrum disorder" part out of ASD. It's a spectrum. That means that there are plenty of cases where the behaviours are almost nonexistent. That doesn't mean those people aren't on the spectrum: They're just high-functioning. If we're diagnosing more and more children with high-functioning ASD, that doesn't immediately translate to "OMG THERE'S AUTISM IN THE WATER".

Yeah, there are a lot of shitty doctors out there. I don't think that the sampling of those misdiagnosing autism is any greater than those who would mislead parents in any other way they could, though. Some doctors are truly shitty human beings, though, for sure.

Noodlemod_sl said:

Everytime I say it his face immediately turns into a huge frown, tears start pouring out and he cries and whines. No idea what I did wrong but I experimented and 6/6 for tears over 2 days.

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It's nothing. It happens.

My dad makes an elephant noise that I used to find hilarious as a kid. He did it for my daughter a couple years back and she burst into tears, every single time. I tried it, and she cried when I did it too. Now she loves it and laughs every time, and even asks me to make the noise sometimes. Infants don't have any ability to be sophisticated about their responses. He just isn't capable of telling you what he wants to tell you at this point.