Autism bullshit on NPR...

I began working with autistic boys in 1963. Back then, Bettleheim
developed a treatment protocol based on the idea that erratic
mothering caused autism. I still wince thinking of the guilt tripping
of hapless mothers that went on.

Why are we still listening to these jackasses?
I saw a UCTV researcher report that there are 24 DNA markers
associated with autism, and that if a kid as 12, there's a high
probability of it developing. But she also said there were cases where
it went into remission.

She also noted that the proclivity is sometimes triggered by exposure
to vaccines and/or pathogens.

The TV says that 1 in 166 kids are now autistic. The risk is lower
with hispanic and black kids.
I called a school nurse in the Ozarks, and old friend. She didnt know
any autistic kids, said that there may be one in a district of 4000.
Posted on the net is the data that Amish kids have a 1:15,000 rate.
In both the Amish and the Ozarks, we're looking at cultured of small
family farms where kids have very little exposure to junkfood, sugar
cereals, and soda.

One of the characteristics of autism, is that the kid does not pay
attention to what is going on around them. One of the standard
treatments to that on the farm is the proverbial trip to the woodshed.
Kids pay attention after that.

Mark Probert

2007-08-17 03:26:54 UTC

Post by Day Brown
I began working with autistic boys in 1963. Back then, Bettleheim
developed a treatment protocol based on the idea that erratic
mothering caused autism. I still wince thinking of the guilt tripping
of hapless mothers that went on.
Why are we still listening to these jackasses?
I saw a UCTV researcher report that there are 24 DNA markers
associated with autism, and that if a kid as 12, there's a high
probability of it developing. But she also said there were cases where
it went into remission.

You may be interested in this:

http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-hsauti125331613aug14,0,1913106.story

Note the resumes of these researchers at one of the top research only
institutions in the US.

Post by Day Brown
She also noted that the proclivity is sometimes triggered by exposure
to vaccines and/or pathogens.

As for the vaccines, the quality evidence says otherwise. No link.

Post by Day Brown
The TV says that 1 in 166 kids are now autistic. The risk is lower
with hispanic and black kids.
I called a school nurse in the Ozarks, and old friend. She didnt know
any autistic kids, said that there may be one in a district of 4000.
Posted on the net is the data that Amish kids have a 1:15,000 rate.
In both the Amish and the Ozarks, we're looking at cultured of small
family farms where kids have very little exposure to junkfood, sugar
cereals, and soda.

No proof whatsoever of a food link.

Post by Day Brown
One of the characteristics of autism, is that the kid does not pay
attention to what is going on around them.

Depends on the severity.

One of the standard

Post by Day Brown
treatments to that on the farm is the proverbial trip to the woodshed.
Kids pay attention after that.

You would love aversive therapy....

-Phil Clemence

2007-08-17 05:08:16 UTC

http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-hsauti125331613aug14,0,1913106.story
Note the resumes of these researchers at one of the top research only
institutions in the US.

Post by Day Brown
She also noted that the proclivity is sometimes triggered by exposure
to vaccines and/or pathogens.

As for the vaccines, the quality evidence says otherwise. No link.

No proof whatsoever of a food link.

Post by Day Brown
One of the characteristics of autism, is that the kid does not pay
attention to what is going on around them.

Depends on the severity.
One of the standard

Post by Day Brown
treatments to that on the farm is the proverbial trip to the woodshed.
Kids pay attention after that.

You would love aversive therapy....

It seems most people show some of the behaviors of autism ... or is it that
autism simply makes the behaviors more obvious?
Hugging oneself and rocking, watching things that go round and round .. so
many psychological problems seem to be about repetitive behavior (as I post
this same thought again ;). Is it the inability to ignore certain things
most of us do? Obsession, habit, compulsion, fixation, addiction ... it is
all normal until it is repeated too much, then it is a problem?

#1 Fan

2007-08-17 15:11:01 UTC

-Phil Clemence wrote...

Post by -Phil Clemence
It seems most people show some of the behaviors of autism ... or is it that
autism simply makes the behaviors more obvious?
Hugging oneself and rocking, watching things that go round and round .. so
many psychological problems seem to be about repetitive behavior (as I post
this same thought again ;). Is it the inability to ignore certain things
most of us do? Obsession, habit, compulsion, fixation, addiction ... it is
all normal until it is repeated too much, then it is a problem?

It is only ever a problem if it interferes with someone's productivity.
If rocking back and forth all day was useful on a factory assembly line,
then the behavior would be defined as normal and encouraged, and workers
who didn't exhibit it would be forcibly treated and drugged to cure them.

Day Brown

2007-08-17 17:47:24 UTC

Thanx for the link:
http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-hsauti125331613aug14,0,1913106.story
Given that there are, so far, 24 DNA markers often found in autistic
kids, I dont think mercury, or virus exposure, or anything else can be
nailed down as the cause.

But if you know anything at all about statistics, the mere *fact* that
small Ozark hill towns and the Amish have such low rates should ring
loud alarm bells about a cultural effect. In both cases, the schools
are small, the attendance rates are high, and the rate of contagious
pathogens is a lot lower because bugs dont have time to mutate thru
enough kids before it runs out of new victims.

In both cases, the kids have far lower levels of sugar cereals, junk
food, & soda. Back in the 1960's Hippies began moving in to the Ozarks
because the land was cheap and the climate was clean. Even when I
moved in in 1975, land was 200$/acre. Both the Hippies and the Amish
kept their kids away from chemicals, candy, junkfood, and- the TV
remote.

I expect you'll find similar results in parts of the Appalachian and
Western Mountains that still have lotsa small farms & small towns,
with small schools. Nobody dials up Pizza hut for dinner.

We know as well, that because of DNA, the autism rate varies among
gene pools. And likewise, ADD, ADHD, ICD, and whatever diagnosis they
will come up with next week. And we know that because of group think,
and corporate control of the media, nobody really wants to get into
this. Consider the economic impact of a rapid increase in the shift
that has already started away from agribusiness junkfood. What happens
to TV if nobody responds to the ads for candy and fast food anymore?
Autism is just the most obvious tip of the ice burg because it happens
to smart kids so much more often, and smart kids have, of all things,
smart parents... who know how to make a stink about it.

But for instance, get out an Atlas, look up the small Ozark hill towns
like Alread, Bee Branch, Cllinton, Deer, Eureka Springs, Greer's
Ferry, Heber Springs, and so on thru the alphabet. and then look at
how these small town schools are doing compared to yours:
http://normessasweb.uark.edu/reportcards/select.php

*AGAIN*, you dont need no scientific double blind study if you know
anything about statistics and demographics; the numbers just jump
right out at you. ZERO RATES OF VIOLENCE. Dropout rates in the single
digits. Attendance rates near 95%. Graduation rates near 90%. Hello?

And this done with school systems that spend about 20% of what CA and
NY does. And pay teachers at the 2nd lowest rate in the US. And
teachers keep wanting to come here if they really like to teach. The
kids really want to learn.

ANd what is the result of all this? Robert Kaplan, in his study of the
military, "Imperial Grunts" reports that half the Green Berets grew up
on family farms. This is but 1% of the population providing 50% of the
nation's most competent soldiers. So- why hasnt the Pentagon figured
this out? Watch PBS news tonite. Then come back here and post what you
see. I'll tell you what I've been seeing:
1- major metro areas, which are 80% of the population, have, at best,
30% of the casualities.
2- small towns and rural areas nobody ever heard of, 2% of the
population, have at least, 20% of the casualties.

Dont tell me the kids on the farm dont have opportunity, and therefore
sign up for the military. Kids dont have opportunity in lots of rust
belt big cities either. But they aint in the military cause they aint
competent enough to make the cut. Lookit the ages too. The army is not
kids anymore.

NW Arkansas, where the U of AR has been exporting engineers and
professionals to both coasts for decades, is now seeing a net
*immigration*, not only from the coasts, but high tech centers all
over the world. The Salaries are not at Silicon Valley levels, but the
smart parents look for areas of schools that work, and accept lower
pay along the I-540 corridor on that account.

There are other links raving about the value of small schools. And no
doubt that collating the data would be useful if you have kids. But as
for getting study published, lotsa luck. This all runs into too many
powerful entrenched interests and would expose the blind sided group
think of the academic communities that *should* be on top of this.

Mister Superstar

2007-08-29 19:20:38 UTC

Day Brown wrote...

Post by Day Brown
But if you know anything at all about statistics, the mere *fact* that
small Ozark hill towns and the Amish have such low rates should ring
loud alarm bells about a cultural effect. In both cases, the schools
are small, the attendance rates are high, and the rate of contagious
pathogens is a lot lower because bugs dont have time to mutate thru
enough kids before it runs out of new victims.

I was listening to yet another NPR segment on autism last week and the
person they interviewed pointed out the very large in ADHD diagnoses
around 1991 when a federal law allowed "special needs" kids to be
exempted from standardized testing, and I think the schools also got
extra money for such kids.

My local newspaper always covers the test results for area schools,
along with the occassional story on teachers and administraters helping
the kids cheat so as to increase the school's scores and avoid being
penalized. Autistic kids don't have to take the test, so isn't is
possible that one ore more kids who were diagnosed autistic aren't
really autistic at all?

Day Brown

2007-08-30 01:26:59 UTC

Post by Mister Superstar
Day Brown wrote...

I was listening to yet another NPR segment on autism last week and the
person they interviewed pointed out the very large in ADHD diagnoses
around 1991 when a federal law allowed "special needs" kids to be
exempted from standardized testing, and I think the schools also got
extra money for such kids.
My local newspaper always covers the test results for area schools,
along with the occassional story on teachers and administraters helping
the kids cheat so as to increase the school's scores and avoid being
penalized. Autistic kids don't have to take the test, so isn't is
possible that one ore more kids who were diagnosed autistic aren't
really autistic at all?

As you see with the thread with Mark, having data we can agree on is a
problem. It has always been a problem with psychology. The track
record of group think and political correct, or in this case useful,
positions makes policy agreement difficult.

i developed ulcers back when I was working with autistic kids. At the
time, Bettleheim's opinion that it was caused by erratic mothering had
nearly universal acceptance, and anyone who doubted that was regarded
as a nut case. I sought counseling and group therapy because everyone
in psychology knew that ulcers was caused by stress.

I am frankly grateful that the treatment helped me to think more
clearly, but we all now know that ulcers are caused by a bacteria.
Which I didnt find out until long after I left the profession and
began as a vehicle mechanic. which granted, was less stressful. the
results were more reliable.

But autistic kids in particular have a peculiar body language. Quite
often you will see them running about with their forearms raised and
hands hung in the air like a surgeon who just scrubbed up before an
operation. FRONTLINE's "YAQUI VALLEY" study is most informative
because here we see indian village boys who are so autistic they cant
play soccer. Throw a soccer ball down in any village in Latin America,
and the boys will be kicking it about in a minute or two; when you
have a dozen boys in an Indian village who cant play soccer, and run
about the playground uninterested in each other, you dont have an
"anecdotal" report, you have a sociological study, especially when it
is seen in several villages.

ADD, ADHD, ICD, are all very different phenomena, certainly amenable
to the testing system you report. Sorting one from the other is much
more difficult. A few points are very common. The inability to pay
attention to instruction. the inability to stay focused on a task long
enuf to get it done, and a resistant, aggressive attitude to the
authority which wants it done.

Nobody talks about the fact, that like autism, there is a genetic
component. Low seratonin and dopamine levels are related to drug and
alcohol abuse. Some gene pools have more boys with this than others,
and therefore higher abuse and violent crime rates. Last month, 60
minutes repeated a clip where DNA evidence was compared and found a
dude in VA who *almost* matched. The natural inclination would be to
look at other men in the same Y chromosome line to find the rapist.
Federal law would not permit this, but in this case, the crime sample
and the closest target were both in VA, so state authorities could
look thru the samples they already had from other criminals in the
area, and thereby found the rapist who had all 20, not just 16 DNA
markers. A cousin.

Course, they were black men. which has the social scientists with
their panties in a wad. Not that there are not a sufficient supply of
white men with similar sets of DNA markers. If the social scientists
would admit the truth, then they'd look at the markers, and warn the
parents of the boys that are at risk of becoming social predators.
There is some work suggesting that dopamine and seratonin supplements,
especially begun at puberty when testosterone magnifies the effect,
would lesson the symptomology and then the boy would be better able to
perform in school.

But let me bring in a primate field study of the Mandrill, the ones
where the alpha males have the blue nose from all the testosterone in
the blood. At some point, the females figure out they've had enuf of
his genes in the pool, and begin to run away. The beta males pick up
on this, and begin to take him on, one at a time. Eventually, he gets
tired, one of the betas gets in a lucky shot, and he gets the living
shit kicked out of him.

Within a few days, he's become beta, his nose is red, and the beta who
beat him is now alpha. The aggressiveness the alpha had is all gone.
He's had an *attitude* adjustment. In my neck of Ozark woods, which is
still full of old fashioned farm families, this kind of attitude
adjustment still goes on behind the woodsheds. And the ADD rate?
insignificant.

Get out an atlas, and look up the small hill towns like Alread, Bee
Branch, Calico Rock, Deer, Eureka Springs, Greer's Ferry, Heber
Springs, and so on thru the alpha bet. Then go to look at the school
report:
http://normessasweb.uark.edu/reportcards/select.php
Repeatedly we see 95% or more of the kids are tested.

One school was in the news recently because they had taken the paddle
down off the office wall, but when school performance fell, decided to
put it back up again. A parent can sign a form that the paddle shall
not be used on their kid, but no bully would dare let his mom do that,
and after a trip to the principle's office to get his ass whipped, he
quits picking on little kids.

So- there is no ICD, the rate of violence hovers near *zero*, in
school after school. But note, these are all small schools, with less
than a few hundred kids. The teachers can recognize every single kid
on the playground, so nobody can steal anything, or make a hit and
then run into a crowd to escape punishment. There is no anonymity.

Going all the way back to the Stoics. Justice must be swift, and it
must be carried out by those who can do so dispassionately. That is
what the "rule of law" basically boils down to. When there's only a
few hundred kids in the school, they cant run away. And they dont fall
thru the cracks either. When a kid shows signs of being abused, the
parents are in court right quick.

This has skewed the results. A lotta the meth heads and drunks have
moved out to the city where they live they way they want, and abuse
their kids as they want, without anyone picking up on it. Conversely,
parents looking for schools that still work are moving in. That
includes teachers, even tho the pay is the 2nd lowest in the nation.

but they get to work in schools that are quiet and orderly. Moreover,
they know that former gov. Clinton instituted a testing program....
for the *TEACHERS*. the incompetent friends and family of the school
boards had to go to work for a living. Teachers accept lower pay to
work with faculty that is effective. They dont havta apply to teach at
schools where corporal punishment is still used, but they *do*.

When my son, who had his own fair share of attitude adjustments in the
principle's office, graduated from Leslie high in 1996, he, and 25% of
the class scored above the 95th percentile on the ACT. Repeatedly we
see these small town schools with classes that *average* from the 55th
to the 65th percentile. If this was just one small town school, you
could dismiss it. but it is going on at dozens of them. You mite look
to see what the small town schools in your region are doing. Mark does
not regard the posted data on the Arkansas schools as valid, so I dont
see where we can find a common basis for discourse.

If your schools want to adjust attitudes with Ritaliln or whatever,
I'd appreciate the report in the out years.

-Phil Clemence

2007-08-31 23:17:03 UTC

Post by Mister Superstar
Day Brown wrote...

I was listening to yet another NPR segment on autism last week and the
person they interviewed pointed out the very large in ADHD diagnoses
around 1991 when a federal law allowed "special needs" kids to be
exempted from standardized testing, and I think the schools also got
extra money for such kids.
My local newspaper always covers the test results for area schools,
along with the occassional story on teachers and administraters helping
the kids cheat so as to increase the school's scores and avoid being
penalized. Autistic kids don't have to take the test, so isn't is
possible that one ore more kids who were diagnosed autistic aren't
really autistic at all?

As you see with the thread with Mark, having data we can agree on is a
problem. It has always been a problem with psychology. The track
record of group think and political correct, or in this case useful,
positions makes policy agreement difficult.
i developed ulcers back when I was working with autistic kids. At the
time, Bettleheim's opinion that it was caused by erratic mothering had
nearly universal acceptance, and anyone who doubted that was regarded
as a nut case. I sought counseling and group therapy because everyone
in psychology knew that ulcers was caused by stress.
I am frankly grateful that the treatment helped me to think more
clearly, but we all now know that ulcers are caused by a bacteria.
Which I didnt find out until long after I left the profession and
began as a vehicle mechanic. which granted, was less stressful. the
results were more reliable.
But autistic kids in particular have a peculiar body language. Quite
often you will see them running about with their forearms raised and
hands hung in the air like a surgeon who just scrubbed up before an
operation. FRONTLINE's "YAQUI VALLEY" study is most informative
because here we see indian village boys who are so autistic they cant
play soccer. Throw a soccer ball down in any village in Latin America,
and the boys will be kicking it about in a minute or two; when you
have a dozen boys in an Indian village who cant play soccer, and run
about the playground uninterested in each other, you dont have an
"anecdotal" report, you have a sociological study, especially when it
is seen in several villages.
ADD, ADHD, ICD, are all very different phenomena, certainly amenable
to the testing system you report. Sorting one from the other is much
more difficult. A few points are very common. The inability to pay
attention to instruction. the inability to stay focused on a task long
enuf to get it done, and a resistant, aggressive attitude to the
authority which wants it done.
Nobody talks about the fact, that like autism, there is a genetic
component. Low seratonin and dopamine levels are related to drug and
alcohol abuse. Some gene pools have more boys with this than others,
and therefore higher abuse and violent crime rates. Last month, 60
minutes repeated a clip where DNA evidence was compared and found a
dude in VA who *almost* matched. The natural inclination would be to
look at other men in the same Y chromosome line to find the rapist.
Federal law would not permit this, but in this case, the crime sample
and the closest target were both in VA, so state authorities could
look thru the samples they already had from other criminals in the
area, and thereby found the rapist who had all 20, not just 16 DNA
markers. A cousin.
Course, they were black men. which has the social scientists with
their panties in a wad. Not that there are not a sufficient supply of
white men with similar sets of DNA markers. If the social scientists
would admit the truth, then they'd look at the markers, and warn the
parents of the boys that are at risk of becoming social predators.
There is some work suggesting that dopamine and seratonin supplements,
especially begun at puberty when testosterone magnifies the effect,
would lesson the symptomology and then the boy would be better able to
perform in school.
But let me bring in a primate field study of the Mandrill, the ones
where the alpha males have the blue nose from all the testosterone in
the blood. At some point, the females figure out they've had enuf of
his genes in the pool, and begin to run away. The beta males pick up
on this, and begin to take him on, one at a time. Eventually, he gets
tired, one of the betas gets in a lucky shot, and he gets the living
shit kicked out of him.
Within a few days, he's become beta, his nose is red, and the beta who
beat him is now alpha. The aggressiveness the alpha had is all gone.
He's had an *attitude* adjustment. In my neck of Ozark woods, which is
still full of old fashioned farm families, this kind of attitude
adjustment still goes on behind the woodsheds. And the ADD rate?
insignificant.
Get out an atlas, and look up the small hill towns like Alread, Bee
Branch, Calico Rock, Deer, Eureka Springs, Greer's Ferry, Heber
Springs, and so on thru the alpha bet. Then go to look at the school
http://normessasweb.uark.edu/reportcards/select.php
Repeatedly we see 95% or more of the kids are tested.
One school was in the news recently because they had taken the paddle
down off the office wall, but when school performance fell, decided to
put it back up again. A parent can sign a form that the paddle shall
not be used on their kid, but no bully would dare let his mom do that,
and after a trip to the principle's office to get his ass whipped, he
quits picking on little kids.
So- there is no ICD, the rate of violence hovers near *zero*, in
school after school. But note, these are all small schools, with less
than a few hundred kids. The teachers can recognize every single kid
on the playground, so nobody can steal anything, or make a hit and
then run into a crowd to escape punishment. There is no anonymity.
Going all the way back to the Stoics. Justice must be swift, and it
must be carried out by those who can do so dispassionately. That is
what the "rule of law" basically boils down to. When there's only a
few hundred kids in the school, they cant run away. And they dont fall
thru the cracks either. When a kid shows signs of being abused, the
parents are in court right quick.
This has skewed the results. A lotta the meth heads and drunks have
moved out to the city where they live they way they want, and abuse
their kids as they want, without anyone picking up on it. Conversely,
parents looking for schools that still work are moving in. That
includes teachers, even tho the pay is the 2nd lowest in the nation.
but they get to work in schools that are quiet and orderly. Moreover,
they know that former gov. Clinton instituted a testing program....
for the *TEACHERS*. the incompetent friends and family of the school
boards had to go to work for a living. Teachers accept lower pay to
work with faculty that is effective. They dont havta apply to teach at
schools where corporal punishment is still used, but they *do*.
When my son, who had his own fair share of attitude adjustments in the
principle's office, graduated from Leslie high in 1996, he, and 25% of
the class scored above the 95th percentile on the ACT. Repeatedly we
see these small town schools with classes that *average* from the 55th
to the 65th percentile. If this was just one small town school, you
could dismiss it. but it is going on at dozens of them. You mite look
to see what the small town schools in your region are doing. Mark does
not regard the posted data on the Arkansas schools as valid, so I dont
see where we can find a common basis for discourse.
If your schools want to adjust attitudes with Ritaliln or whatever,
I'd appreciate the report in the out years.

I guess it goes towards the idea that we have tendencies towards behaviors
and it can be the environment that brings them out.
It seems that we are not so adaptable, physically, but mentally we have a
rich and varied bunch of tendencies to be manifested judiciously when needed
, or accidentally, even when we know the behavior and try to prevent it. The
roots of all behavior lies in our predispositions through our evolution?
(That seems straightforward and true, but I don't know about it - just
guessing)

Mister Superstar

2007-09-01 22:05:17 UTC

Day Brown wrote...

Post by Day Brown
ADD, ADHD, ICD, are all very different phenomena, certainly amenable
to the testing system you report. Sorting one from the other is much
more difficult. A few points are very common. The inability to pay
attention to instruction. the inability to stay focused on a task long
enuf to get it done, and a resistant, aggressive attitude to the
authority which wants it done.

That sounds like a personality type, albeit an obnoxious one. But what
gives you the right to define that particular personality type as a
mental disorder in need of $500/hour therapy? The world is full of
people who grate on my nerves, including you, but that doesn't mean they
all have mental disorders. The personality traits you describe are so
common that it would mean that a quarter of more of the population has
one of these "disorders."

The famous Unabomber criticized psychology as a tool to control human
behavior to suit the needs of the evil technological-industrial system.
If rocking back and forth and grunting was somehow useful on a factory
assembly line, autistics would be considered "normal" and humans
deviating from that behavior would be drugged and subjected to $500/hr
counseling sessions to induce it.

Mark Probert

2007-09-01 01:30:25 UTC

Post by Mister Superstar
Day Brown wrote...

Incorrect. IDEA predated 1991. However, in 1991, the Federal Department
of Education told Local Education Authorities that they had better get
with the program and start looking as why Johnny cannot read.

A memo was issued wherein they said that AD/HD could be classified under
"Other Health Impaired" IF it was interfering with a child's learning.
Testing exemptions were NOT addressed, but could be addressed under IEPs.

What ensured was school districts actually began testing and referring
students, but very grudgingly.

and I think the schools also got

Post by Mister Superstar
extra money for such kids.

The only "extra" money was to cover the "extra" costs of resource rooms,
aids, etc. There was no windfall for school districts, and, many wound
up spending more than they were reimbursed.

Post by Mister Superstar
My local newspaper always covers the test results for area schools,
along with the occassional story on teachers and administraters helping
the kids cheat so as to increase the school's scores and avoid being
penalized. Autistic kids don't have to take the test, so isn't is
possible that one ore more kids who were diagnosed autistic aren't
really autistic at all?

Hopefully not. Schools do not diagnose.

Mark Probert

2007-08-18 03:37:46 UTC

Post by -Phil Clemence

http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-hsauti125331613aug14,0,1913106.story
Note the resumes of these researchers at one of the top research only
institutions in the US.

Post by Day Brown
She also noted that the proclivity is sometimes triggered by exposure
to vaccines and/or pathogens.

As for the vaccines, the quality evidence says otherwise. No link.

No proof whatsoever of a food link.

Post by Day Brown
One of the characteristics of autism, is that the kid does not pay
attention to what is going on around them.

Depends on the severity.
One of the standard

Post by Day Brown
treatments to that on the farm is the proverbial trip to the woodshed.
Kids pay attention after that.

You would love aversive therapy....

Go learn what autism is all about. Volunteer to work with autistics. You
may find a clue.

#1 Fan

2007-08-19 04:09:00 UTC

Someone wrote...

Post by Day Brown
The TV says that 1 in 166 kids are now autistic. The risk is lower
with hispanic and black kids...

I've always suspected that the current "epidemic" of autism is similar to
the previous epidemics of ADD and teen suicide that came before. Ten
years ago almost every boy was diagnosed as having attention deficit
disorder and forcibly treated with Ritalin, and today the same boys are
diagnosed as autistic and forcibly treated with whatever drug and
expensive psychotherapy.

Evidence of my theory can be found in the lower rates of autism among
blacks and Mexican kids. Since the parents of those children tend to be
poor and can't afford tens of thousands of dollars a year on therapy for
their kids, their kids manage to avoid being diagnosed autistic like
their kids' more affluent white peers. Wealthy white parents don't
hesitate to ship their kids off to a psychiatrist every time he acts
like a brat, so it is not surprising that this is the group that gets
slapped with the autism label. Since black kids and Mexican kids
especially tend to be uninsured and since psychologists don't work for
free, the epidemic of autism is less serious among those groups.

Mark Probert

2007-08-19 23:22:17 UTC

Post by #1 Fan
Someone wrote...

Post by Day Brown
The TV says that 1 in 166 kids are now autistic. The risk is lower
with hispanic and black kids...

I've always suspected that the current "epidemic" of autism is similar to
the previous epidemics of ADD and teen suicide that came before.

Demonstrably nottrue. The so-called "epidemic" is the result of
diagnositc re-assignment, the expansion of the diagnosis, and the
expansion of special education.

Ten

Post by #1 Fan
years ago almost every boy was diagnosed as having attention deficit
disorder and forcibly treated with Ritalin,

Can you say, "Flat out lie?

and today the same boys are

Post by #1 Fan
diagnosed as autistic and forcibly treated with whatever drug and
expensive psychotherapy.

Hamm..can you say "Flat out lie?"

Post by #1 Fan
Evidence of my theory can be found in the lower rates of autism among
blacks and Mexican kids. Since the parents of those children tend to be
poor and can't afford tens of thousands of dollars a year on therapy for
their kids, their kids manage to avoid being diagnosed autistic like
their kids' more affluent white peers. Wealthy white parents don't
hesitate to ship their kids off to a psychiatrist every time he acts
like a brat, so it is not surprising that this is the group that gets
slapped with the autism label. Since black kids and Mexican kids
especially tend to be uninsured and since psychologists don't work for
free, the epidemic of autism is less serious among those groups.

This person is in dire need of a clue.

Mister Superstar

2007-08-20 21:07:34 UTC

Mark Probert wrote...

This person is in dire need of a clue.

How much income do you derive from autism-related services?

HCN

2007-08-21 16:23:47 UTC

Post by Mister Superstar
Mark Probert wrote...

This person is in dire need of a clue.

How much income do you derive from autism-related services?

None, which is very much less than the Geiers, Yasko (RNA drops!), Buttar,
Wakefield, Kerry (who became a DAN! doctor after he killed a kid with
chelation), Bradstreet. Krigsman and others like Boris in this article
"Autism "Cures" Can be Deadly":
http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-hsauti215340114aug21,0,7750405.story

Why do you ask?

Day Brown

2007-08-22 09:19:30 UTC

I got polio at age 7 in 1946, and was immediately placed in a hospital
with 600 kids, including all kindsa freaks and mental cases. I later
on, in 1963, began working with autistic kids. There were *NO*
autistic kids among all those I saw in the hospital in 1946, 48, 50, &
55. Nor did I see any at the special camps I went to most summers.

The body language of an autistic kids is so obvious I can spot it
across a playground. In just a few seconds of video, when I saw Chief
Justice Roberts introduce his family, I knew his boy was autistic.

A UCTV researcher says she has identified 24 DNA markers for
susceptability to the syndrome. It sometimes corrects itself. I do not
believe they have found an effective treatment.

However, as with ADD, there is a problem the kids have paying
attention. I was born on a farm and remember the solution. The
proverbial trip to the woodshed. You know, you can really make a kid
pay attention if you blister his ass?

Last year, I asked a school nurse how many autistic kids she had.
"none.". Went on to say there was only 1 in the whole district of 4000
kids. But- the district is back in the Ozark hills. And when you bring
a kid to sign up for school, there's form to fill out if you do not
want them to use, if need be, the paddle that hangs prominently on the
back wall of the office.

I myself have seen the attitude adjustments that result. They dont
have a problem with bullies. if you look up the school reports-
http://normessasweb.uark.edu/reportcards/select.php
of the small hill towns that still use paddles, like Alread, Bee
Branch, Clinton, Deer, Eureka Springs, Flippin, Greer's Ferry, Heber
Springs... so on thru the alphabet, you find ZERO rates of violence,
drop out rates in the single digits, attendance rates of 95%, and
graduation rates near 90%.

Special ed courses for autism, ADD, ADHD, etc are diddly squat. These
kids do well in school, performing ahead of the grade level despite
having the 2nd lowest paid teachers in the nation. But if you visit
the schools, you find the halls orderly and quiet. look at the class
photos, and see 1/3 the usual rate of obesity. They dont have candy or
junk food vending machines in the schools, and the towns are too small
for fast food outlets. The kids dont have much homework cause farm
kids have chores to do when they get home. And what is the result?

One clue is Robert Kaplan's study of the military, "Imperial Grunts"
in which he reports that half the Green Berets grew up on family
farms. This is just 1% of the total population providing 50% of the
nation's most competent soldiers. It is still what it has been since
Pliny; Discipline & diet.

HCN

2007-08-22 13:35:46 UTC

Post by Day Brown
I got polio at age 7 in 1946, and was immediately placed in a hospital
with 600 kids, including all kindsa freaks and mental cases. I later
on, in 1963, began working with autistic kids. There were *NO*
autistic kids among all those I saw in the hospital in 1946, 48, 50, &
55. Nor did I see any at the special camps I went to most summers.

How would you know? If you had polio you had limited mobility, and would
have been in a special ward... plus you were only 7 years old, and later up
to 16 years old.

Did you know autism even existed when you were 16 years old?

How has the definition of autism changed in the various DSMs from 1963 to
1997? (Remember this is the same document that once classified
homosexualility as a mental disease).

Post by Day Brown
The body language of an autistic kids is so obvious I can spot it
across a playground. In just a few seconds of video, when I saw Chief
Justice Roberts introduce his family, I knew his boy was autistic.
A UCTV

"University of California, TV"? What?

researcher says she has identified 24 DNA markers for

Post by Day Brown
susceptability to the syndrome. It sometimes corrects itself. I do not
believe they have found an effective treatment.
However, as with ADD, there is a problem the kids have paying
attention. I was born on a farm and remember the solution. The
proverbial trip to the woodshed. You know, you can really make a kid
pay attention if you blister his ass?

So from the time you were 7 years old in 1946 until you were 16 in 1955...
did you live on a farm or in a polio ward?

Post by Day Brown
Last year, I asked a school nurse how many autistic kids she had.
"none.". Went on to say there was only 1 in the whole district of 4000
kids. But- the district is back in the Ozark hills. And when you bring
a kid to sign up for school, there's form to fill out if you do not
want them to use, if need be, the paddle that hangs prominently on the
back wall of the office.

So this is an enlightened state you live in? From
http://www.neverhitachild.org/Arkansas/ :
"In 21.74% of times children were intentionally hurt in the name of
discipline, the students were identified as "Special Education" and entitled
by law to receive unique learning assistance... unique learning experience."

Since when was a "paddle" specified as a learning tool?

Post by Day Brown
I myself have seen the attitude adjustments that result. They dont
have a problem with bullies. if you look up the school reports-
http://normessasweb.uark.edu/reportcards/select.php
of the small hill towns that still use paddles, like Alread, Bee
Branch, Clinton, Deer, Eureka Springs, Flippin, Greer's Ferry, Heber
Springs... so on thru the alphabet, you find ZERO rates of violence,
drop out rates in the single digits, attendance rates of 95%, and
graduation rates near 90%.
Special ed courses for autism, ADD, ADHD, etc are diddly squat. These
kids do well in school, performing ahead of the grade level despite
having the 2nd lowest paid teachers in the nation. But if you visit
the schools, you find the halls orderly and quiet. look at the class
photos, and see 1/3 the usual rate of obesity. They dont have candy or
junk food vending machines in the schools, and the towns are too small
for fast food outlets. The kids dont have much homework cause farm
kids have chores to do when they get home. And what is the result?
One clue is Robert Kaplan's study of the military, "Imperial Grunts"
in which he reports that half the Green Berets grew up on family
farms. This is just 1% of the total population providing 50% of the
nation's most competent soldiers. It is still what it has been since
Pliny; Discipline & diet.

The plural of anecdote is not "data".

Day Brown

2007-08-22 17:17:29 UTC

Post by HCN
How would you know? If you had polio you had limited mobility, and would
have been in a special ward... plus you were only 7 years old, and later up
to 16 years old.

No special ward. The nut cases were put in with the rest of us for the
convenience of the staff. I usta wonder about that, but then realized
that the nurses knew, that when we saw some nut case spread shit on
the walls we'd call the nurse.

Post by HCN
Did you know autism even existed when you were 16 years old?

No. But I later learned what the body language was, and *NONE* of the
kids I saw had anything like it.

Post by HCN
How has the definition of autism changed in the various DSMs from 1963 to
1997? (Remember this is the same document that once classified
homosexualility as a mental disease).

Hey look. I dont defend those jackasses. When I began working with
autistic kids in 1963, they all went along with Bettleheim, who said
it was caused by erratic mothering.

Post by HCN

"University of California, TV"? What?

UC had academics make presentations on TV of their work.

Post by HCN
researcher says she has identified 24 DNA markers for

So from the time you were 7 years old in 1946 until you were 16 in 1955...
did you live on a farm or in a polio ward?

Sometimes the farm, sometimes the city, sometimes the ward. They kept
sending me back for surgery which took months to recover from.

Post by HCN

"In 21.74% of times children were intentionally hurt in the name of
discipline, the students were identified as "Special Education" and entitled
by law to receive unique learning assistance... unique learning experience."
Since when was a "paddle" specified as a learning tool?

Since Epictetus anyway. It is, as the Stoics made perfectly clear, an
essential tool in providing discipline, but it *ONLY* works in the
hands of a master who is, himself, in control. The teachers with the
problem kids dont use the paddle. The kids are brought to the office
where the service is performed by the principle, who does not have his
blood up from an emotional confrontation. lookit the damn school
reports

Post by HCN

The plural of anecdote is not "data".

When you rely on demographics, its not anecdotal. Not only do we have
the Green Berets, go to the CNN website and look up the home towns of
the casualties from Iraq. some 3000+ now. Thats a sample size most
researchers would cry for. The major metro areas, with 80% of the
population, take less than 30% of the hits. The small towns and rural
areas nobody ever heard of, 2% of the population take ten times their
fair share.

Some have tried to suggest that this is because of no opportunity in
rural areas. as if there's lots in rust belt cities. My son and his
friends moved to a high tech strip city along I-540 on the west end of
the Ozarks. Tons of jobs. Fayetteville, with the U of A, only has
50,000 pop. In the southern Ozarks, the number of manufactuing jobs is
actually *INCREASING*.

Transnationals have apparently realized the population stays put more,
and provides more reliable workers. Yes, they get paid less than in
the city, but the cost of living is far less. As a result, their jobs
wont be outsourced.

The autism rate in these hill towns seems to be below 1 in 4000. The
rate posted on the net for the Amish, who also raise their kids on
family farms, is 1 in 15,000. That's 1% of the urban rate. That's also
a sample size that goes way beyond your characterization of
'anecdotal'. i dont claim to know what is going on, but these numbers
bear some looking into.

we see the neurological damage by lead, and we see the rise in
allergies and other physiological problems from environmental
contamination in urban areas. Why would we assume that this, dietary
deficit and contamination can only have physiological effects and not
have neurological effects that result in mental pathology? How do you
know that lead is the only compound that has neurological effects? Got
some kids for us to make the test on?

Mark Probert

2007-08-24 03:41:30 UTC

Post by Mister Superstar
Mark Probert wrote...

This person is in dire need of a clue.

How much income do you derive from autism-related services?

Why do you ask?

Day Brown

2007-08-25 01:20:29 UTC

Post by Mister Superstar
How much income do you derive from autism-related services?

i dont receive any. I got out of the business when I was diagnosed
with stomach ulcers, which all the shrinks said was due to stress. I
underwent both group and private psychotherapy.

Needless to say, it did diddly for my ulcers, altho I did learn a lot
about myself and others. Among which is a skepical view of what
shrinks and psychologists have to say. A buncha politically correct
neurotics. the blind leading the blind. they have no idea what normal
is cause they themselves are driven by their own professional
agendas.

As for autism. Part of the problem is the lack of attention to the
immediate environment. ADD & ADHD have similar kinds of problems. The
autistic kids that I knew were really smart. If you could get them to
pay attention to an IQ test, and within the parameters of what they
could figure out, just brilliant. And I recall the subtle manipulation
of the clinic staff in the residential setting.

The main thing required was how to get them to pay attention. There
have always been two ways to make hominid males pay attention: sex or
violence. Pick one. The current treatment millieu has been trying
drugs. But if you look into the studies on sex and violence, you find,
in fact, important changes in the chemistry of the brain. You dont
need Ritalin You wont need Ritalin if you have a long enuf whip, or a
deep enuf cunt. And if you are able to apply both, why then the
changes in dopamine, adrenalin, seratonin, etc will be dramatic,
rapid, and obvious.

Why havent researchers tried this? Because it offends their
*christian* sensibilities. You can only go so far with real science.

2***@gmail.com

2007-08-25 05:34:03 UTC

Post by Mister Superstar
How much income do you derive from autism-related services?

i dont receive any. I got out of the business when I was diagnosed
with stomach ulcers, which all the shrinks said was due to stress. I
underwent both group and private psychotherapy.
Needless to say, it did diddly for my ulcers, altho I did learn a lot
about myself and others. Among which is a skepical view of what
shrinks and psychologists have to say. A buncha politically correct
neurotics. the blind leading the blind. they have no idea what normal
is cause they themselves are driven by their own professional
agendas.
As for autism. Part of the problem is the lack of attention to the
immediate environment. ADD & ADHD have similar kinds of problems. The
autistic kids that I knew were really smart. If you could get them to
pay attention to an IQ test, and within the parameters of what they
could figure out, just brilliant. And I recall the subtle manipulation
of the clinic staff in the residential setting.
The main thing required was how to get them to pay attention. There
have always been two ways to make hominid males pay attention: sex or
violence. Pick one. The current treatment millieu has been trying
drugs. But if you look into the studies on sex and violence, you find,
in fact, important changes in the chemistry of the brain. You dont
need Ritalin You wont need Ritalin if you have a long enuf whip, or a
deep enuf cunt. And if you are able to apply both, why then the
changes in dopamine, adrenalin, seratonin, etc will be dramatic,
rapid, and obvious.
Why havent researchers tried this? Because it offends their
*christian* sensibilities. You can only go so far with real science.

First I would like to say that I am glad you realized that working
with Autistic people is not for you. Secondly I hope your casual
suggestion that we (society as a whole) use pornography or physical
beatings as a way to get autistic children to "pay attention" is just
an attempt to get people fired up so you can spice up your own life.

You have failed to take into account the girls diagnosed with Autism.
If you want to look at what "homonids" happen to be drawn to, make no
mistake, unless a child has been conditioned to seek erotic stimuli,
he/she will not be drawn to it--Autism or no.

As for the 1 in 166 children being Autsitic, I personally think that
the number is a little skewed. Unless the researchers who came up
with that number took into account every single state and territory
the US calls its own, this 1 in 166 number doesn't accurately reflect
the US as a whole. For example, if the number is based solely on the
number of Autistic children in Califorina, then they have greatly over
estimated the number of children with Autism--Califorina has the
largest number of Autsitic children in the nation and that is mainly
due to the fact the CA is one of the few states whose insurance
companies cover early intervention programs--things like Applied
Behavioral Analysis, which you miss named earlier. Since CA's
insurance companies help to pay for early intervention there are many
groups devoted to helping families with Autistic children. The 1 in
166 number might also be influenced by a diagnosis known as Sensory
Integration Disfunction--this is a diagnosis one may only here in the
presence of an Occupational Therapist. Since most of these children
seem to be off in their own world, have poor emotional regulation and
be quite sensitive to sensory input and/or the processing of said
input, they may be getting diagnosed as high functioningly Autsitic,
or even PD-NOS (which is shorthand for saying it walks and quacks like
Autism, but it's not quite the same).

If you are interested, and if you have time, here are some books to
checkout.
The Sensory Sensitive Child
Reweaving the Autistic Tapestry

In closing I want to say that I understand the frustration that you
are obviously feeling--working with Autisitic people is hard as hell,
and very few people are able to do it for very long. But, if you get
a chance, watch a child (under age 8) diagnosed with Autism interact
with his or her family and you will see that these children need some
kind of help and a large percentage of the research--going on since
the discription of the Autistic child, in about the 1920s--has led to
the conclusion that whether a family chooses to go with ABA, or
something like Floor Time the point is that early and intense
intervention is most helpful, and if a member of the family is will
and able to undergo the months to years of training in order to learn
how to implement the treatment for their child then they should. But
I will add that few parents or other family members have the the time,
or emotional stamina to do so. Sometimes having an outside tutor come
into the home is helpful, not just for the therapy's sake, but for the
stay-at-home parent's sanity--as you so eloquently stated before, it
is hard to work with Autistic people so you can only imagine how hard
it is to raise a child, or care for a teen or adult who will never be
as normal as you seem to be.

Day Brown

2007-08-26 01:44:17 UTC

I'm not suggesting that the whole treatment program with autistic kids
gets changed. I am suggesting that we do the same as we would with any
other clinical condition, establish trials with randomly assigned
subjects.

There are many parents of autistic kids who are not convinced that
drugs are the way to go.
There are innumerable studies to show that physical pain and sex cause
dramatic changes in brain chemistry, altho it'd be wise to establish a
base line of what the biochemistry of the brain and limbic system are
to start with.

It mite be useful to begin trials at Malta, where the age of consent
is 12. This would preclude legal difficulties.
Your charge of my erotic interest is asinine and detracts from your
own scientific dispassion on this issue, not that I'm surprised. Any
professional in the field would have to be very careful of what he
posted in a public forum. Had you not characterized my proposal in
this way, and any collegues found out, it'd make trouble for you.

I have not at all implied that I would be personally involved in any
of this. Whether a boy or girl, either way, an assessment needs to be
made of all the hormones, not just the sexual ones, but certainly
including them. I've seen anthro video of 4 or 5 year old kids mimic
the adults by trying to have sex in the long house. The adults around
pay it no attention what ever. The girl is not going to get pregnant,
and if you asked about "virginity" they dont have a word for it. I
dont see that these people grow up to be sexual predators, exploiters,
whores, or neurotics. Course, they are not Christian either.

When that Cuban grandmother masturbated her grandson in Miami, people
were just appalled. but that kind of thing has always been done in
other cultures. Are the Cubans less civilized? No, pain and pleasure
have always been used to modify behavior, and your profession has the
hubris to say that thousands of generations of hominid evolution using
it is wrong. Agreed that if the adults themselves are not self-
controlled it leads to abuse. But in these other traditions, these
activities were carried out with others watching the interaction.

What goes on in the privacy of a shrink's office?

Mark Probert

2007-08-26 05:21:53 UTC

Post by Day Brown
I'm not suggesting that the whole treatment program with autistic kids
gets changed. I am suggesting that we do the same as we would with any
other clinical condition, establish trials with randomly assigned
subjects.

Just because you do not know of trials, studies, etc. it does not mean
that they have not been done or are not being done.

Post by Day Brown
There are many parents of autistic kids who are not convinced that
drugs are the way to go.
There are innumerable studies to show that physical pain and sex cause
dramatic changes in brain chemistry, altho it'd be wise to establish a
base line of what the biochemistry of the brain and limbic system are
to start with.
It mite be useful to begin trials at Malta, where the age of consent
is 12. This would preclude legal difficulties.
Your charge of my erotic interest is asinine and detracts from your
own scientific dispassion on this issue, not that I'm surprised. Any
professional in the field would have to be very careful of what he
posted in a public forum. Had you not characterized my proposal in
this way, and any collegues found out, it'd make trouble for you.
I have not at all implied that I would be personally involved in any
of this. Whether a boy or girl, either way, an assessment needs to be
made of all the hormones, not just the sexual ones, but certainly
including them. I've seen anthro video of 4 or 5 year old kids mimic
the adults by trying to have sex in the long house. The adults around
pay it no attention what ever. The girl is not going to get pregnant,
and if you asked about "virginity" they dont have a word for it. I
dont see that these people grow up to be sexual predators, exploiters,
whores, or neurotics. Course, they are not Christian either.
When that Cuban grandmother masturbated her grandson in Miami, people
were just appalled. but that kind of thing has always been done in
other cultures. Are the Cubans less civilized? No, pain and pleasure
have always been used to modify behavior, and your profession has the
hubris to say that thousands of generations of hominid evolution using
it is wrong. Agreed that if the adults themselves are not self-
controlled it leads to abuse. But in these other traditions, these
activities were carried out with others watching the interaction.
What goes on in the privacy of a shrink's office?

Day Brown

2007-08-26 17:01:09 UTC

Just because you do not know of trials, studies, etc. it does not mean
that they have not been done or are not being done.

Because Mark, the attitude which you have presented to the ideas in
this thread so typifies the politically correct thinking of the
profession. Ozark hillbillies, Amish, and primitive tribes all have
insignificant rates of autism. Why is that?

Zimbardo, "The Lucifer Effect" reports on a group of professionally
trained people who were admitted to a psychiatric ward as a test
similar to what he had done with his famous prison experiment. The
clinic staff of the institution and shrinks were not told that these
individuals were normal rational people. Zimbardo reports that after
admission, they all acted in normal rational ways, but the
observations and reports of the clinical staff and shrinks didnt pick
up on that at all. Situational effects over rode reasonableness.

It took lawyers and outside testimony to get these *rational, normal*
individuals released from the clinical setting. Just as prison guards
react to prisoners, and if you are a prisoner, you must be guilty, so
if you are on a psychiatric ward, you must be crazy. All the
documention from the clinical settings in this experment maintained
that these subjects were psychopathic, but at best, in remission.

Mark, I am suggesting that autism professionals, just like all other
groups, are subject to group think. Once a kid is diagnosed as
autistic he remains that way because nobody treats the kid as normal.
A *normal* kid would get his butt spanked from time to time. there
would be instant reactions to obnoxious behavior from his peers that
would be painful, and in the cultures with low rates of autism I
mentioned above, this is indeed the case.

At the heart of it is the Christian value of "turn the other cheek".
Epictetus, in contrast, said that when attacked, to consider what
lesson you may teach an innocent observer by your response. If there
be none, then what you may teach your attacker. But if your attacker
be unteachable, then what you may teach yourself by your response, but
in any case, remember that you did not make your own body, the divine
did, and there may be further services you could render.

So, in the case of autistic kid acting out- can you teach any other
kids on ward by blistering his butt? I kinda think you can; peers pay
a lot of attention to what happens to other peers even tho they try to
look like they are not. This is the lesson from tribal anthropology,
the way the elders have handled kids for thousands of generations.
Kids like anyone else, have times when they are more alert to the
immediate situation, so negative re-enforcement carried out
consistently will work the same as it does in lab rats.

Course, there are people whose sensibilities are disturbed about lab
rats as well. Then too, there are others, who if they found out how
autistic kids in a clinical setting are not expected to clean up after
themselves, would be equally disturbed. They feel it is ciminal not to
make demands on kids. How else can you teach responsibility?

I'm getting on, 68 now, cant remember right off hand, but I know
there's a medical term for a condition caused by the treatment. Is
there any study of autism which shows that the kids who are not
treated for it are worse off than those which are? Seems like if you
knew of relevant studies to show the efficacy of your procedures,
you'd have cited them by now.

Lastly, have you seen the Frontline PBS "Yaqui Valley" study? I found
it particularly noteworthy in that it was not about modern urban kids.
And if the UCTV report about 24 DNA markers for autism is correct,
then we'd do well to go back to see if the Amish lack these markers,
or if there are other gene pools that have a higher rate.

Sometimes the causes are quite hidden. People usta wonder why the
polio rate was so much higher in the US than in primitive culltures,
and why it always went up every summer, when it didnt in the tropics
which were warm all the time. But now we know. In Christian cultures,
there's an inhibition against exposing the genitalia, so when a kid at
the beach hasta pee, he goes in the water to do it. When a kid in the
jungle has to, he just pees where he is, or on the bushes, in plain
view of everyone. Nobody cares.

That whole disaster was caused by Christian values. I am making
similar charges now regarding psychopathology.

2***@gmail.com

2007-08-26 23:20:03 UTC

Just because you do not know of trials, studies, etc. it does not mean
that they have not been done or are not being done.

Because Mark, the attitude which you have presented to the ideas in
this thread so typifies the politically correct thinking of the
profession. Ozark hillbillies, Amish, and primitive tribes all have
insignificant rates of autism. Why is that?
Zimbardo, "The Lucifer Effect" reports on a group of professionally
trained people who were admitted to a psychiatric ward as a test
similar to what he had done with his famous prison experiment. The
clinic staff of the institution and shrinks were not told that these
individuals were normal rational people. Zimbardo reports that after
admission, they all acted in normal rational ways, but the
observations and reports of the clinical staff and shrinks didnt pick
up on that at all. Situational effects over rode reasonableness.
It took lawyers and outside testimony to get these *rational, normal*
individuals released from the clinical setting. Just as prison guards
react to prisoners, and if you are a prisoner, you must be guilty, so
if you are on a psychiatric ward, you must be crazy. All the
documention from the clinical settings in this experment maintained
that these subjects were psychopathic, but at best, in remission.
Mark, I am suggesting that autism professionals, just like all other
groups, are subject to group think. Once a kid is diagnosed as
autistic he remains that way because nobody treats the kid as normal.
A *normal* kid would get his butt spanked from time to time. there
would be instant reactions to obnoxious behavior from his peers that
would be painful, and in the cultures with low rates of autism I
mentioned above, this is indeed the case.
At the heart of it is the Christian value of "turn the other cheek".
Epictetus, in contrast, said that when attacked, to consider what
lesson you may teach an innocent observer by your response. If there
be none, then what you may teach your attacker. But if your attacker
be unteachable, then what you may teach yourself by your response, but
in any case, remember that you did not make your own body, the divine
did, and there may be further services you could render.
So, in the case of autistic kid acting out- can you teach any other
kids on ward by blistering his butt? I kinda think you can; peers pay
a lot of attention to what happens to other peers even tho they try to
look like they are not. This is the lesson from tribal anthropology,
the way the elders have handled kids for thousands of generations.
Kids like anyone else, have times when they are more alert to the
immediate situation, so negative re-enforcement carried out
consistently will work the same as it does in lab rats.
Course, there are people whose sensibilities are disturbed about lab
rats as well. Then too, there are others, who if they found out how
autistic kids in a clinical setting are not expected to clean up after
themselves, would be equally disturbed. They feel it is ciminal not to
make demands on kids. How else can you teach responsibility?
I'm getting on, 68 now, cant remember right off hand, but I know
there's a medical term for a condition caused by the treatment. Is
there any study of autism which shows that the kids who are not
treated for it are worse off than those which are? Seems like if you
knew of relevant studies to show the efficacy of your procedures,
you'd have cited them by now.
Lastly, have you seen the Frontline PBS "Yaqui Valley" study? I found
it particularly noteworthy in that it was not about modern urban kids.
And if the UCTV report about 24 DNA markers for autism is correct,
then we'd do well to go back to see if the Amish lack these markers,
or if there are other gene pools that have a higher rate.
Sometimes the causes are quite hidden. People usta wonder why the
polio rate was so much higher in the US than in primitive culltures,
and why it always went up every summer, when it didnt in the tropics
which were warm all the time. But now we know. In Christian cultures,
there's an inhibition against exposing the genitalia, so when a kid at
the beach hasta pee, he goes in the water to do it. When a kid in the
jungle has to, he just pees where he is, or on the bushes, in plain
view of everyone. Nobody cares.
That whole disaster was caused by Christian values. I am making
similar charges now regarding psychopathology.

It is clear that you are bent on blaming christian values for all of
society's ills, let me just remind you that less than 30% of the world
is christian so I doubt that christianity is ruining everyone's life;
and anything that is wrong with christian faiths in general is the
fault of Roman stoics. (that's how christianity survived the into the
middle ages and beyond--its flexibility in conforming to stoicsm.

Anyway, as for the studies which sight the benefits to early
intervention--that was the reason I listed those two books, there are
too many studies to list and I don't think you would really be
interested.

One last thought, you said that you are 68, it is clear that you are
old school--"use the rod to beat the child". If the study of Autism
can teach us anything it is that whether a child is diagnosed with
Autism or not, we have never really understood the true nature of a
child's ability to assimilate information and apply it to what we call
"learning". It is unfortunate that people still believe that pain
should be used to elisit a desired response. In the childhood
educatial field (this is not special education) there is a theory
which continues to be proven: children can not learn when they are
physically or emotionally stressed beyond their ability to recognize
and implement coping strategies.
When a child is faced with the possibility of being punished
physically, the completion of a task is not about learning from that
task, the motivation is more about mimicry in order to avoid a
negative result.
As for your idea about pleasure--certain types of pleasure are above a
child's ability to understand and then cope with. When a 5 year old
child mimics the act of sex, it is to make sense of what they've seen
because they have no cognitive frame of reference for it. It is
better for the child's understanding to wait to introduce sexual
stimulation until the child has reached the onset of puberty--perhaps
slightly before so they understand what is about to happen. Though
the age of puberty may be different for each child, unless the child
suffers from an uncommon disorder involving premature stimulation of
the hypothalamus, that age is not 5. And the last person who should
be given permission to introduce ideas of a sexual nature to a child
(of any age) is a scientist, this is mom and dad's job.

I am curious, what made you decide to speak out against Autism in the
first place?

Day Brown

2007-08-27 00:08:06 UTC

Post by 2***@gmail.com
I am curious, what made you decide to speak out against Autism in the
first place?

Austism is the most obvious tip of the ice burg, as it Christian
dogma; neither, contrary to your characterization of my remarks, is by
any means "all" of the problem. Nor are these psychopathologies the
only problem many Christian cultures have. But whatever problems they
have, have not been improved with Christian dogma.

The Christian efforts to feed the hungry without also providing birth
control has produced population expansions so large that a culture can
no longer live in its own native lands with its own traditional
methods of resource management. Aristotle suggested to resist the
temptation to do charity lest you create what we now call a
"dependency syndrome". Rather, he said to manage your resources, so
that when the day came that you met someone able to become another
independent sentient being, you have enough to help that happen.

The failure to follow Aristotle's advice has led to the creation of a
large underclass and the demagoguery that panders to it, along with a
power elite controlling the media using, as Machiavelli said, the
manipulations of the passions of the lower class to disempower the
middle class while the elite constantly enriches itself at the expense
of everyone else.

Small farm rural cultures still use corporal punishment, and still
have low rates of autism, which unlike ADD or ADHD, is easily spotted
in just a few minutes of video from the playground. The one exception
that I've seen so far, is the Yaqui Valley of Mexico, which Frontline
reported has a remarkably high level, perhaps unprecidented anywhere
on the planet, of autism. Obvious in the video. In this case, I dont
think Christian values had much to do with it, other than that the
families were so large that the parents had to work for agribuiness,
and brought home fresh veggies from the fields that supply American
supermarkets.

the veggies responed to the presence of organo-phosphates by producing
lotsa phyto-estrogen in their tissues. Like dosing little boys with
the birth control pill. The organo-phosphate molecules are similar in
structure to natural organics which neurotransmitters use in laying
down new neural pathways during learning. Homeopathic levels of organo-
phosphates can be neurologically devastating.

The Amish and the hillbillies dont spray their home gardens with
organo phosphates. Their kids dont have nearly the exposure kids get
from the supermarket produce aisles much less the contamination in all
the sugar cereals and junkfood they eat. But again, Christian parents
dont want to think of what their parents did to them raising them on
convenience food, much less what they are doing to their own kids.
Rational discourse is not very effective.

Bog body stomachs and bone middens reveal that Native Europeans
evolved over the last 2000 generations eating over 100 different wild
plants and animals. This added a lot of trace minerals and
micronutrients plants absorbed from the biota in natural soils. Which
are present in the more natural hillbilly and Amish gardens. But
Agribusiness does the land with Nitrogen, Phosphorus, & Potash.
[that's a period] Jared Diamond, in his latest "Collapse" reports that
80% of global agribusiness grows just five crops: corn, wheat, rice,
soybeans, & cotton. And they do it on land that has all the trace
minerals leached out of it long ago. 70% of the 'food' sold in
supermarkets is made from these crops. High Fructose Corn syrup is on
lotsa labels. Feed a rat a liquid with high fructose corn syrup in it,
and he will drink as much as he can hold, and then come back as often
as possible to drink more. Feed a rat natural fruit juice, and he will
drink some, then quit. The trace minerals and micronutrients tell his
limbic system he's had enuf. Not good for corporate profits.

Very good for gastric bypass surgeons. Obesity is just another form of
psychopathology. You are never going to catch up with it. You are only
trying to treat the symptoms, and not even doing that very well.
Dietary deficit, contamination, and urban environmental pollution is
messing with the limbic system and driving the violent crime rate thru
the roof.

Young black men who move to New York City who grew up in obscure
Carribean villages dont have nearly the crime rate as African American
men with very similar DNA markers.

Mark Probert

2007-08-27 03:28:30 UTC

Just because you do not know of trials, studies, etc. it does not mean
that they have not been done or are not being done.

You have not provided any proof of that claim. Do find some, and post it.

Day Brown

2007-08-28 04:32:30 UTC

Post by Day Brown
Because Mark, the attitude which you have presented to the ideas in
this thread so typifies the politically correct thinking of the
profession. Ozark hillbillies, Amish, and primitive tribes all have
insignificant rates of autism. Why is that?

You have not provided any proof of that claim. Do find some, and post it.

You will accept the links I provide? Sure you dont want to look for
some *data* that you will accept first?

I got data off the net that was consistent with some of my local
observations. You know, since I worked with autistic kids, when I read
about the new numbers, 1 in 166 or whatever, I called a friend who was
a school nurse. You took statistics didnt you?

She told me they had one kid out of the whole district of 4000. that's
not "anecdotal" dude. Sometimes its what you see, and sometimes its
what you dont that you should that gets your attention.

http://autismdiva.blogspot.com/2005_04_01_archive.html
The numbers for the various states jump all over the place. Why is
that?
The number for Arkansas is 1:585, but the state is a very
heterogeneous place. Little Rock has the same pollution you find
everywhere else. The delta is just full of organo-phosphates in the
air from the crop dusters. But the Ozarks... are a whole different
ecosystem which has a lot to do with a low rate there. The rate is so
low there its lowered the average for the whole state.

Who getsta decide what it is? If the Ozark schools were ignoring it,
it'd show up in the average test scores for the classes. But the
school report website I already posted, dont show that. Autism, ADD,
ADHD, ICD etc result in lower attendance. But these schools average
95%. How do the schools in your area do? How the schools cope in your
area is your problem I dont see the problem here.

Mark Probert

2007-08-29 04:24:26 UTC

You have not provided any proof of that claim. Do find some, and post it.

You will accept the links I provide?

I will review any links you provide and analyze the contents.

Sure you dont want to look for

Post by Day Brown
some *data* that you will accept first?

Why should I? You made claims. You back them up.

Post by Day Brown
I got data off the net that was consistent with some of my local
observations.

Then you should have no problem posting the links.

You know, since I worked with autistic kids, when I read

Post by Day Brown
about the new numbers, 1 in 166 or whatever, I called a friend who was
a school nurse. You took statistics didnt you?

More than that.

Post by Day Brown
She told me they had one kid out of the whole district of 4000. that's
not "anecdotal" dude.

Yes, it is an anecdote. Nothing more.

Sometimes its what you see, and sometimes its

Post by Day Brown
what you dont that you should that gets your attention.

So far, the only thing I am not seeing are links to proving your
statements.

Post by Day Brown
http://autismdiva.blogspot.com/2005_04_01_archive.html

I know Camille quite well.

Post by Day Brown
The numbers for the various states jump all over the place. Why is
that?

If you knew anything about this, you would know that the various states
have different reporting systems, report different disorders in
different ways. They do not even know if the diagnoses are medical or
other.

Post by Day Brown
The number for Arkansas is 1:585, but the state is a very
heterogeneous place. Little Rock has the same pollution you find
everywhere else. The delta is just full of organo-phosphates in the
air from the crop dusters. But the Ozarks... are a whole different
ecosystem which has a lot to do with a low rate there. The rate is so
low there its lowered the average for the whole state.

So you claim. However, where's the proof? The article posted by Camille
does not support your inferences.

Post by Day Brown
Who getsta decide what it is? If the Ozark schools were ignoring it,
it'd show up in the average test scores for the classes. But the
school report website I already posted, dont show that. Autism, ADD,
ADHD, ICD etc result in lower attendance. But these schools average
95%. How do the schools in your area do? How the schools cope in your
area is your problem I dont see the problem here.

You still have not provided proof of your claims.

Mister Superstar

2007-09-04 01:34:23 UTC

Post by 2***@gmail.com
If you are interested, and if you have time, here are some books to
checkout.
The Sensory Sensitive Child
Reweaving the Autistic Tapestry
In closing I want to say that I understand the frustration that you
are obviously feeling--working with Autisitic people is hard as hell,
and very few people are able to do it for very long. But, if you get
a chance, watch a child (under age 8) diagnosed with Autism interact
with his or her family and you will see that these children need some
kind of help and a large percentage of the research--going on since
the discription of the Autistic child, in about the 1920s--has led to
the conclusion that whether a family chooses to go with ABA, or
something like Floor Time the point is that early and intense
intervention is most helpful, and if a member of the family is will
and able to undergo the months to years of training in order to learn
how to implement the treatment for their child then they should...

The one thing the psychobabble above doesn't tell us is how much the
intervention will cost, provide evidence that intervention will work,
or even whether the children are actually autistic or whether their
mentally abusive parents simply want a diagnosis after having spent
so many thousands of dollars to find out why their kid is a brat or
the school wanted the diagnosis for funding and testing exemption
purposes.

If the autistic child's abnormal behavior was useful and profitable
in some way - perhaps due to that enhanced awareness that makes
some of them good at card counting, etc. - then the psychologists
would be encouraging the behavior and even drugging normal people to
induce the unusual mental states (simply a technical refinement of a
common business practice in some countries of forcing workers to take
amphetamines to make them more productive).

Day Brown

2007-09-05 21:44:17 UTC

The line between autism and geek is pretty thin. Tribes in hominid
history always had guys who'd sit in a corner, not paying attention to
anyone, just whacking rocks together. The hunters & chiefs didnt like
them, but nobody could make such fine points.

-Phil Clemence

2007-09-07 02:01:07 UTC

Post by Day Brown
The line between autism and geek is pretty thin. Tribes in hominid
history always had guys who'd sit in a corner, not paying attention to
anyone, just whacking rocks together. The hunters & chiefs didnt like
them, but nobody could make such fine points.

Yeah ... definitely banging rocks.

Day Brown

2007-09-07 14:02:54 UTC

Post by -Phil Clemence

Yeah ... definitely banging rocks.

Hacking code is the same way. So much has been done by dudes in dark
cellars, with nobody yammering at them to be sociable, that it permits
a kind of tunnel vision of the mind to focus on a problem. Lots of the
coding geniuses have autistic traits.

Mister Superstar

2007-09-07 15:43:09 UTC

Day Brown wrote...

And who got the credit for the game killed with their arrowheads?

-Phil Clemence

2007-09-08 02:50:07 UTC

Post by Mister Superstar
Day Brown wrote...

And who got the credit for the game killed with their arrowheads?

yeah, painting caves. definitely not wearing my underwear.
gone from my home...gone for good ... counting antelopes

Mark Probert

2007-08-26 05:18:38 UTC

Post by Mister Superstar
How much income do you derive from autism-related services?

Incorrect. AD/HD is characterized by the inability to maintain attention
the task at had. They have plenty of attention.

The

Post by Day Brown
autistic kids that I knew were really smart. If you could get them to
pay attention to an IQ test, and within the parameters of what they
could figure out, just brilliant. And I recall the subtle manipulation
of the clinic staff in the residential setting.
The main thing required was how to get them to pay attention. There
have always been two ways to make hominid males pay attention: sex or
violence. Pick one. The current treatment millieu has been trying
drugs. But if you look into the studies on sex and violence, you find,
in fact, important changes in the chemistry of the brain. You dont
need Ritalin You wont need Ritalin if you have a long enuf whip, or a
deep enuf cuntBullshit. . And

Bullshit.

if you are able to apply both, why then the

Post by Day Brown
changes in dopamine, adrenalin, seratonin, etc will be dramatic,
rapid, and obvious.
Why havent researchers tried this? Because it offends their
*christian* sensibilities. You can only go so far with real science.

Researchers found that physical discipline does not work in AD/HD or may
other areas.

t***@spamgourmet.com

2007-09-28 02:34:11 UTC

x-no-archive: yes

you are on to something there.

yet again a racket has been devised to separate wealthy parents from
their money and they are paying.

nobody in the USA knows how to tell "experts" no, my kids will be
fine.

dank

2007-09-29 15:01:35 UTC

Post by t***@spamgourmet.com
x-no-archive: yes
you are on to something there.
yet again a racket has been devised to separate wealthy parents from
their money and they are paying.
nobody in the USA knows how to tell "experts" no, my kids will be
fine.

Parents who take their kids to psychologists don't want to be told
that the kid's poor behavior is the result of their poor parenting.
If the child's childlike behavior can be defined as an impressive,
medical-sounding "disorder," then the blame shifts from parent and
then from child to a no-fault mental disorder.

BTW, there was an article in this week's San Francisco Chronicle
about the biography of a man who survived a childhood lobotomy. His
mother died and instead of helping him cope, his stepmom shipped him
off to a mental hygiene facility for shock treatment and eventual
lobotomy. Today's psychiatry is so much more progressive, using
powerful psychotropic drugs to subdue the parts of the brain that
control emotion and personality and that used to be hacked away with
ice picks in less enlightened times.

Day Brown

2010-08-01 16:37:05 UTC