But if you think that your kid, or any kids seriously affected by autism have anything close to a positive future, then I suggest you think long and hard about what their possibilities are in life when you, or any of the other parents, are gone. Sorry, Kev, but its not looking too good. An individual who can’t speak, can’t dress themselves, can’t use the toilet….where are they going in terms of an independent life? Nowhere.

Right because in diane-world thats the choice isn’t it? Desperately hang on to the idea that vaccines cause autism and X treats it because then they’ll have a Better Life. Except no one’s ever seen these ‘thousands’ of recovered kids. No paper has been written about them. The best we’ve got is a few websites where about 5% are ‘undiagnosed’ and a film with (how many?) four or five ‘recovered’ kids. Wow.

Thats a zero-sum game Diane. Not one I elect to participate in.

So, back in the real world, children develop and learn. Some by 0.1% and some by 100%. Whether that person is ever fully independent or not should not dictate their happiness. If it does then we as a society have to ask ourselves some pretty hard questions about how well we are caring for our most vulnerable members. What we don’t do is throw our hands up in the air when the chelation/hbot/urine injections/shit enemas don’t work and write off our kids futures.

But really, I love how you keep switching the goalposts on our little tete a tete here.

You’d expect this should’ve increased, correct? After all, the number of autistics in the cohort has increased.

In September 2002, we see that 1321 children are reported to live outside the home. In December 2007, the number is 892.

This is a clear decrease, meaning that California is presumably spending less on 10-13 year old developmentally disabled children throughout much of the “epidemic”. How could this be? Please explain.

There’s always the distinct possibility that she will live the life that SHE wants, and it will be one that is very much dictated by her autism. Diane, you might not like your daughter being autistic, but that doesn’t mean she also won’t.

I see kids who are older than mine, who cannot do any of those things. I don’t know what’s going to happen to them, and that saddens me.

And again, the general assumption here is that these kids are developmentally stuck in time. This is simply a mistaken assumption.

It’s true that some autistics will develop more than others. But I don’t think this translates into some having a more valuable life than others or anything of the sort.

The hope that exists for those who don’t develop as much is the social model of disability. You might dislike “the neurodiverse” but, really, when you are gone, whose advocacy do you think would’ve been in your daughter’s best interest?

Why haven’t the autism ‘advocates’ of the past 10 years (or more) been working on adult issues? Why have they not been recognizing that there are very likely a huge number of unidentified adults?

Unfortunately, it appears that the reason is based largely in a short sighted view of what their children needed in the short term. People felt the need to promote—without room for question—the concept of an ‘epidemic’. Rather than work on adult issues, they actively avoided the topic.

Even now, when the idea of the vaccine-induced epidemic of autism has been abandoned by the petitioners in the Omnibus, the pseudo-journalists, lobbyists and ‘activists’ are still ignoring the very real possibility that adults with autism are underserved and mis-identified.

Keep in mind—the point is to get a better life for children and adults who need support. Limiting the discussion to ‘autism’ as in

“I believe that our governement (here in the US) is totally unprepared for what’s coming in terms of adults with autism.”

Is not helping. If we don’t push for a better life for all people with disabilities, we are going to lose.

The fact that many people (autistics included) need a lot of support and that the public at large isn’t always willing to acknowledge that is sort of the point of neurodiversity, eh? Get people to understand the value and dignity of each individual and that is a step towards acknowledging the responsiblity that society has towards its people.

Tell me how promoting an image of autistics as damaged will help, I’m open for discussion. However, if that discussion depends on playing a guilt card and trying to get money out of court settlements, keep in mind that the fact that this is based on a false concept of autism as vaccine injury will actually hurt their future.

Yes, hurt.

In terms of accuracy…I don’t know. I am not a scientist. And neither are you.

Luckily, many of us are.

As to the comparison of nastiness of this blog vs. another: if you don’t see the intense nastiness over there, take a look again with a fresh view. It is a blog that depends heavily on “bogy-man” politics, where creating an image that people and organizations are evil is the rule.

This blog doesn’t purport to be an “internet newspaper”. But, since the “internet newspaper” has such low standards of reporting, I am not surprised that they have such low standards for their character.

I’ve seen kev go to significant effort to obtain information from the source. This should be, but rarely if ever is, what an “internet newspaper” should be doing.

Please refrain from ridiculous comments about we don’t know what’s going to happen to our typical kids. Yeah, I know that…but our typical kids have every tool available to them to excel in this world, make their own choices and process information to better thier lives.

Diane, I take it you’re really not that familiar with autism research. I think you’ve bought into the unsubstantiated belief that autism is a death sentence or some such, correct?

Outcome in autism is highly variable. There’s also reason to believe that poor adult outcomes reported in the past are very much skewed by early institutionalization. Additionally, there’s some evidence that severity of symptoms is not a very good predictor of outcome, independently of non-verbal IQ.

No boo-hoo here, at least not caused by you. But if you think that your kid, or any kids seriously affected by autism have anything close to a positive future, then I suggest you think long and hard about what their possibilities are in life when you, or any of the other parents, are gone. Sorry, Kev, but its not looking too good. An individual who can’t speak, can’t dress themselves, can’t use the toilet….where are they going in terms of an independent life? Nowhere.

In terms of accuracy…I don’t know. I am not a scientist. And neither are you.

And Ms. Clark: Nope. Not me. My child was never examined by Dr. Mumper. Maybe another Diane. Sorry.