Dispatches from the sunburned wastelands

Between the time of our first visit to the developmental paediatrician, and the time of the scheduled psychological assessment, we started reading everything we could find about autism. I mean, apart from the movie Rainman, who knew anything about autism, anyway? We certainly didn’t. So we waited, and read, and grew ever more anxious, because some of the stuff we were digging up on the internet were harrowing. This is (some) of what we learned:

• There is no “cure” for autism. Ever.
• Most autistic people with communication problems never learn to speak.
• Despite several extremely crackpot ideas out there, nobody knows what causes autism. A few decades ago, people thought it was caused by bad parenting (some still do). Now it’s thought to be genetic.
• The medical term is Autistic Spectrum Disrorder, or ASD, not autism.
• Even though the symptoms of ASD are mostly behavioural, it is now thought to be a neurological disability.

We also came across something called “applied behavioural modification” or ABA and “early intervention” , which sounded to us like a treatment...

Posted by HannesB at 2:34 PM Comments