But then again, so is ‘love’.
Do you know what? I’m tired of fighting with people. I’m coming off the worst flu I’ve had for nearly 6 years, my wife’s had it, our kids have all had it and I’m physically, emotionally and motivationally drained.
All I wanted when I started this was to document my autistic daughters progress, make the odd little web development post here and there and stand up for what I believe is right. What I believe is right is that autistic people should be respected. I believe society should change to accommodate difference. In the same way that women are equal to men, people of different cultures and creeds are equal to the dominant population in whichever country you live in, senior citizens are as important as young people, homosexuality is as normal (whatever the hell that is) as heterosexuality – people with a different neurology *irrespective of its cause* are just as valid and deserving of rights, consideration and an equal voice as those of us with a typical neurology.
_Is that really so difficult to deal with?_
Autism is not a childhood condition. It first _occurs_ in childhood. Take a look around you. Read the reports. Study the science. Examineour history.
Look, I’ll give you this – its entirely possible autism could be caused by mercury. In some cases. But please try and _think_. All the Amish in the world don’t add up to an autism/vaccine epidemic. All the recovered children in JB’s PDF’s and Erik’s AVI’s don’t add up to a cure.
Why? What is it you think you are curing? If your child doesn’t smear, or headbutt or have constipation – does that mean they are not autistic? _No_. It means they’re not constipated or headbutting or smearing anymore. If thats your child then I offer you my sincere congratulations. I don’t want your child to be in pain any more than I want my child in pain. But I would urge you to be very careful – your child almost certainly still thinks and interacts in ways that are very different than you do. Would that be enough justification for you to carry on ‘curing’? If so, why?
Ginger presents the best argument of all. She says that if a child is likely to grow into an adult that cannot communicate their needs – especially when that person is in danger – then it is worth it to attempt a ‘cure’. And she certainly has a lot of very good evidence that autistic people are routinely abused.
I have no easy answer to this argument. When I read it, I’ll freely admit it, I want to remove everything that threatens my daughter. But is that right? In one way its absolutely right – every parent has a duty to keep their kids safe.
But, I agree with Susan Senator who said:
The “must eradicate” attitude drives parents to be nothing but nutritionists, behaviorists, and therapists, for their children. These parents, however motivated by doing their children good, end up spending most of their parenting time trying to subjugate aspects of their children.
No child – of any neurology – can be kept 100% safe unless you want to take them and wrap them up in cotton wool. Pre-empting Ginger, I think she’d say that this isn’t a case of wrapping them up but of giving them every chance to be independent enough to recognise danger and be able to do something about it. Certainly when I read some of what Amanda Baggs has had to endure at the hands of ‘carers’ my blood boils and my heart quails.
But. I believe that autism is not the cause of this misery. Attitude is. Institutionalised and abusive staff are. The non-recognition of autistic people as having a valid existence causes these attitudes to grow. When someone says ‘all autism is mercury poisoning’, that is essentially taking someones existence and traducing it as poison and invalidating it as viable. As can be seen from the links provided – thiomersal cannot be responsible for all cases of autism. Autism existed before thiomersal. Thats simply a fact. To deny it is not only bizarre it is akin to taking someone by the scruff of the neck and telling them that because they are ill, they are not fit to make decisions and thus abuse is legitamised and around and around we go.
I don’t expect anyone who believes autism is mercury poisoning to give up on their idea. What I am asking is that you can try and at least meet those of us on the ‘other side’ halfway. Try and understand that painting everyone with one brush is tantamount to little more than bigotry. I asked JB once to recant just one aspect of his belief – that all autism is mercury poisoning now and forever. I ask him again, with all respect. If you are an advocate for autism then please try and see that in this one respect you are wrong. All autism is _not_ caused by thiomersal. This isn’t a game. Nobody’s keeping score. I’m more than happy to entertain the possibility that for some children who have become autistic that there is an environmental trigger. If there is ever science that conclusively demonstrates a causative link I swear to you that I will be as vocal in going after the guilty as I am now in going after people like Rashid Buttar. As I say, what I ask in return is that you _see_ that you truly look at the world of autism beyond your child. Look without melodrama and look without preconception. I am deathly afraid that one of the things you are doing is making the world for autistic people less safe. You’ve seen some of the things that a certain Rescue Angel of our mutual acquaintance has written here. JB himself expressed unease at what this person had said. Do you think that such a person is interested in advocating _for_ autistics?
Some people think that if you can communicate you cease to be autistic. Again, I see that as a willful and purposeful denigration of people who’s crime seems to be that they can communicate – the punishment is excommunication from who they are. Invalidated people. And for what? Why would anyone think such a thing? As Tolkein said: “what can we do against such reckless hate?”.
At the core of who I am is a belief in personal responsibility. I take responsibility for who I am and what I do. I believe its the cornerstone of what makes us free people. I will do everything I can to ensure that my kids all have that same belief. We have a duty to our society as well as our children. And society has a duty to us and them. Everything in life works better when its driven by reciprocality. I say society must change for the good of all our children _and_ adults as well. I reciprocate by doing my best to raise self-aware, self-confident children to adulthood. I cannot do that if who they are is withdrawn from them on the basis of political need. I don’t try and stop you from curing (if thats the word you choose to use) your kids. All I ask in return is that you stop insulting mine. If you are right and thiomersal causes autism then I will fight beside you. Will you fight beside me if I ask you to advocate _for_ autistics, instead of _against_ autism? Can you turn some of that energy and anger I see in chatrooms and blogs directed into action to enhance the lives of adult autistics? Can you do it without talking about mercury?
I’m not asking you to change your beliefs. We both know you don’t agree with mine and I don’t agree with yours. But there should be lots we can agree on. Can we?
Left Brain Right Brain 
Sad thing is…. she can’t answer. She’s not here to discuss. She’s not here to learn anything and she don’t think we have anything that would help her kid….
And she thinks I’m a piece of shit, that much is obvious.
Not that I care….
🙂
Clone-
So, I see that you have been trying to check out who I am and you want everyone to know where I live. That is pathetic. I am embarrassed for you. Kev, I will leave this blog with a very bad taste in my mouth. I admit to getting testy at times. I apologize if that has offended people. I think that Clone needs a bit of a kick in the ass here.
So, Clone, did you find anything else about me? How about all those lawyers I am meeting with (NOT). How about any other names that I go by to confuse you (NOT). Any other good pieces of info. you want to share with the group? Pathetic, Clone.
-Sue M.
Sue, if the mercury-in-vaccines argument is so persuasive, why is no one in the UK buying into it?
Evidence of Harm is the most-hyped (loadsa money paid in advance for media interest) and lowest-selling hyped book in UK history ( we don’t believe you, because we don’t have your vaccination program)
End of.
Now take your arguments to somewhere where people are brain-dead. Please. Leave the UK. OK? You haven’t got a cat in hell’s.
Sue M.
Clone just wanted you to think that he knew who you were. Or was is that he did know, but wanted you to think that he didn’t, so that he probably did. It’s all very confusing.
/fan of vizzini
PS – Given your comment about nobody here knowing what they’re talking about – should you want to dissect a paper in public let me know. Any experimental data paper. I’m sure Kev will let us threadjack for a bit (this thread was supposed to be about being open to alternative theories). But here we go again – it has predictably dissolved into the typical ‘either you accept my exact take on life or you’re stupid’ nonsense.
Is she gone? (snicker)
I think she got mad at clone and confused him/her with me, but clone didn’t ask if her real name was “Sue”.
It’s a fair question. If “sue m” had been intended to be a pun on “sue them”, then that would say buckets about her personality.
Her offensive mouth said buckets about her personality, too. Barbara, I hope that the publishers learn a lesson from trying to spread their toxic lies in the UK.
Interesting that Sue assumed we haven’t looked closely at the “science” that is supposed to back up their lousy light-weight opinions on autism and “mercury toxiciity”.
What’s the Shakespearean quote?
—–
//The dead hypothesis is but a walking shadow,
a poor player
That struts and frets its hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.//
——
Wow, that Will Shakespeare sure was brilliant for a man whose brain probably “didn’t work right” (giggling)
SueM is a delphimerchant- so when you call it what it is, she fucks off.
I don’t mind.
I have seen “mercury-parents” who are prepared to be reasonable and engage in dialogue. She’s not one of them. I’m autistic so I can’t have a valid opinion, because that invalidates her whole position – that EVERY autistic kid is poisoned and therefore has a brain that doesn’t work right: and I am a practitioner, which needs a brain that works at least reasonably well. So that is probably why me and my kind fuck her and her kind off so immensely.
Tough titty.
🙂
“…this thread was supposed to be about being open to alternative theories.”
That was my understanding as well. The comments seem to prove that Kev might be the only one who actually keeps that open mind.
Dunno, Wade…
I’m open to theories… but when people start being dogmatic to the point of being obnoxious, I turn off… and start to take the piss, since there’s bugger all left to do.
However… somebody comes in with a mercury hypothesis and says, “but if you haev anything else to add that might help…” I don’t mind trying.
SueM wasn’t such a person. You might be, I dunno; but she wasn’t.
I’m autistic so I can’t have a valid opinion
David, how many times do you have to be told to get back in your closet and stop bothering the normals?! 😉
bonni: “David, how many times do you have to be told to get back in your closet and stop bothering the normals?! ;-)”
Nearly said “fuck them” but then I thought….
… who’d wanna? 😛
Never met a normal….
Bonni: “David, how many times do you have to be told to get back in your closet and stop bothering the normals?!”
Poor David accidentally took a wrong turn leaving the pub, stepped into Bloom County and walked into Opus’ Anxiety Closet, and he’s been closet-shy ever since. Dunno if he found Thatcher or Bush in there, or both.
Just hope he doesn’t accidentally open up *my* Anxiety Closet, brr.
andrea
andrea: “Poor David accidentally took a wrong turn leaving the pub, stepped into Bloom County and walked into Opus’ Anxiety Closet, and he’s been closet-shy ever since.”
This always happens after two or more RBs…..
😦
Wade Rankin,
You don’t know the science. I really wish you would admit that.
You have several scientists and a few very well read and educated people here. Barbara has an IQ or 40,000 or something. 🙂 Go ahead, defend the thimerosal causes autism theory. You’re a lawyer should be easy. (just don’t pound the table when you can’t pound an argument).
I double dare you to hold up a scientific discussion on thimerosal. No one has done it yet.
Start with this. They took the thimerosal out of vaccines in Denmark and England and the rate of autism did NOT go DOWN. The rate of autism is the same in the US, UK, Australia, the Neterhlands, and Canada, but the thimerosal usage is has been different in all 5 places.
No one in the UK is buying the mercury gambit, not a bit. (except Abubakar’s parents, did)
No one has shown that autistic brains have more mercury in them than normal brains (all brains are likely to have mercury in them, since mercury is ubiquitous).
The brain structure of autistics is laid down long before birth.
Regressions can be preprogrammed by genes (see Rett syndrome and CDD).
Autistics have special talents and have a higher IQ than normals if the Raven progressive matrices is used.
Chelation in no way can allow a lead damaged brain to become normal again, why should it be different for mercury damaged brains.
Do you ever read the research on brain structure or function in autism?
Do you understand that there has been no epidemic? Go ahead and uphold the epidemic with some good numbers. You can’t. No one can.
So sad, here people. Kev has such a lovely post and it has really touched me. But these comments make me feel like I want to take a shower. Sick people – quit fighting!! Listen to Kev’s post and control yourselves for once.
Ken Wickiser you are a professional and your behavior is reprehensible. I wonder if the Chief Information Officer for Rockefeller would like to see your posts here. Rockefeller acceptable use policy states: _Policy Violations involve the use of electronic communications to: harass, threaten, or otherwise cause harm, insult, or knowing offense to a specific individual(s), whether by direct or indirect reference; impede, interfere with, impair, or otherwise cause harm to the activities of others; harass or threaten classes of individuals._ I for one was certainly insulted by your posts.
You all need to have a little dignity people!! You are talking to other HUMANS who have FEELINGS. The only one here with any couth is Kev. Show him a little respect and have some MANNERS. For God’s sake people, Kev’s post was great. He really had some awesome things to say! Did anyone read it or did you all just decide to come here and use his web space to argue?
Lord help these people.
MsC: “Autistics have special talents and have a higher IQ than normals if the Raven progressive matrices is used.”
Nice comeback there but this bit of it I should take issue with.
Not all autistics have special talents (at least, observable ones). That said, there are areas of ability which tend to be too hard to assess, where autistics’ skills are concerned. For example, WISC (in any of its revisions) may well pull up ridiculously low numbers purely because the examinee has not understood the nature of the task, and the administration is strictly standardised. This means that it is sometimes impossible to gain an accurate estimate of an autistic child’s intellectual functioning with it.
RPM is a non-verbal intelligence test which has served as the model for the matrix reasoning subtest in the WASI and the WAIS, and this type of non-verbal reasoning test has its place in the testing of autistics’ abilities. Problem is that – again – the examinee has to understand the nature of the task in order to arrive at results which are meaningful. Even the TONI-3 (one of those in my current battery) is of limited usefulness here, if the examinee cannot latch onto the pantomiming done by the examiner as the means of explaining the task involved in the test.
Sweeping statements such as the above don’t help in the end, because people will inevitably get the wrong idea and this can bugger up clinical/educational/occupational practice when assessments are done. For example, the autism-&-block-design thing a few years ago: it was thought that this subtest could, on the basis of Frith’s book, clinch a diagnosis if the score was high. Now, true, one does find that many autistics can achieve high scores in this subtest; and true, this subtest is least susceptible to practice/learning effects, but not all autistics gain such high scores on it (and not all those who get high scores are autistic). In practice, only supporting evidence can be gained from tests such as these.
Another thing… although research has demonstrated that autistics can obtain higher IQ scores on RPM (compared to overall Wechsler FSIQ scores), this effect may well be due to the nature of the test itself. For example, one of teh issues that comes to light with the psychometric aspects of Lovaas’ ‘research’ in the 70s and 80s is that (because of no alternative forms in most IQ tests) one may have to use two different tests. In some cases, I understand that the two used have been the Merrill-Palmer and the Bayley Scales for children under about 5 yrs of age. Herein lies a problem: the order of administration of these tests can affect the outcome (in terms of IQ gain/loss)… do them in one of the two possible orders and the IQ score will be elevated and, in the other order, this score will be depressed. This effect is due to the differences between the tests.
Tme for my shower and then time to pick up the next Billy Connolly video…. yes!
Gretchen… “You all need to have a little dignity people!! You are talking to other HUMANS who have FEELINGS. The only one here with any couth is Kev. Show him a little respect and have some MANNERS. For God’s sake people, Kev’s post was great. He really had some awesome things to say! Did anyone read it or did you all just decide to come here and use his web space to argue?”
I will be civil with anyone who is civil with me. Most who come here know this of me from other places. If, however, people decide to come on here and have a go at me in order to disparage, etc, I no longer see that peson as having the right to expect civility from me (e.g., JBJr and possibly SueM). I am always civil to Kev, and he to me; likewise most others here. Wade R represents an opposing view here and – because he has not berated me for anything – I am on very civil tems with him. I don’t see in his posts the antagonism that comes from many who hold his views, and so I do not think we should worry there. The only people who do get short shtrift from me have been the ones I mention in parentheses… and for good reason.
You said: “Sick people – quit fighting!”
I’m sick, I’m sick alright… I’m sick of me and my feelings/abilities/etc being disregarded on account that I am autistic. I am sick of the way in which people treat autistics as if we are entirely unable to do anything right. I am sick of the way in which we get sidelined as being persona non grata in a world which is becoming increasingly hostile towards difference (look at Lenny Schafer’s, JBJr’s and many others’ ideas about autistics). You come here talking about dignity, and how we need to have it. Many who post here are autistic and have been shown precious little dignity by many other posters on this blog and posters elsewhere on the net, and indeed in the news. If you are thinking that the autistics here are lacking in dignity, you might wish to reflect on why that might be. Look at the way in which JBJr has referred to autistics in other threads… that type of behaviour is quite commonplace towards us.
Maybe you could have worded your own post with some dignity too, eh?
Clone that was out of order!!! And everyone else using personal details and insults to score points are too
Lets keep THIS blog at least free from such things otherwise we dont have ANY right whatsoever to criticise the tactics of the mercury brigade… right? And I do have BIG problems with some of their tactics. Kinda makes it difficult to say so though with threads like this.
Fair enough Elisabeth and all. I didn’t mean any harm and I certainly don’t mean any disrespect to Kev or his blog. I too was touched by the sentiment of Kev’s original post and, if you read through the comments, I made every effort to be polite and civil. Sue M. in contrast was combative from the start. Her whole visit to this blog, and her plan to attack Kev over his earlier posts on DTaP, was premeditated and well documented on the EoH list. How hard was it to make the connection? I spent all of 5 minutes sleuthing it. So her home town was mentioned. I didn’t see her complaining when the Hg thugs published personal info about other parents. So Kev, please feel free to delete any or all of my posts and I sincerely apologize to you and to and to your readers.
clone3g:
“Sue M. in contrast was combative from the start.”
True. As was JBJr.
“Her whole visit to this blog, and her plan to attack Kev over his earlier posts on DTaP, was premeditated and well documented on the EoH list.”
As was JBJr’s.
“How hard was it to make the connection? I spent all of 5 minutes sleuthing it. So her home town was mentioned.”
Big deal. We all know that JBJr lives there too… it’s on his Yahoo! profile. Public domain…
“I didn’t see her complaining when the Hg thugs published personal info about other parents.”
Nor did I see her giving a shit about how abusive JBJr was to me, but that in fact it was *my* behaviour towards him that she was taking issue with… obviously not a very objective person at all.
“So Kev, please feel free to delete any or all of my posts and I sincerely apologize to you and to and to your readers.”
Nah, not offended here, pal.
If autistics didn’t have consistent, measurable strengths, we would have no significant results to report. To the contrary, autistic strengths are the most reliable and replicated results in the science, across all ages and supposed “levels” of functioning.
Raven matrices are a general, complex, and central test of intelligence (and RPM is in fact considered to be the most general, most complex, and most central intelligence test). It is incorrect to characterize Raven matrices as “non-verbal”, because, for non-autistics at least, language is required in order to perform Raven matrices successfully.
While not all autistics have a peak in block design, relative peaks in block design in non-autistics are very rare, whereas in autistics they are characteristic (trying to match autistics with non-autistics on block design reveals this problem: the non-autistics will have much higher FSIQs). Recent work by our group (Caron, Mottron & Berthiaume, submitted; also described in Mottron et al., in press) provides evidence showing what exactly about block design performance unites autistics (and yeah, this is a strength).
yawn, someone’s upset and incoherent… again.
Gretchen
Let me draft a complaint letter for you:
Ken, in between coloring, dressing the kids, making lunches, and running back to the schools because he forgot the field trip money (Mom out of town is never fun), attempted to discuss the experimental details of the papers behind the autism-mercury connection with some people who are A) anti-government extremists (US mostly but UK as well it seems); B) largely anti-vaccination extremists; and C) vulgar (ask Kev for Mr. Rescue Angel incognito’s deleted posts).
Ken also brought up the movies Groundhog Day and the Princess Bride.
Shame on him for A) using his real name, B) discussing science about which he’s knowledgeable, and C) steering away from science that which he’s not an expert (epidemiology – I leave that to Jonathan et al).
Gretchen, there is a reason you don’t put your full name on this site. There is a reason I do. You are a hypocrite.
I am a parent of a boy on the spectrum.
I am a scientist who is keenly interested in discovering the secrets of how the brain works.
You want to get offended by my comments criticizing the research of others? Send the complaint. They’ll be waiting for you. What, you think that you’re the first anti-government extremist to contact me and send me a howler? Although, I guess you are the first to not have the intestinal fortitude to email me directly.
PS – I don’t think that your threat, yes threat, escaped the attention of anyone here. You do not scare me.
Kev- delete one if I double post please
Clone, I know your posts are respectful and considered 🙂 I enjoy reading them very much.
Dont think for a moment that I support either Sue M, her aims or her views- I dont!!
PS – for those at home watching…
This is how autism-mercury extremists work:
Attack the entire government.
Attack the entire pharma industry.
Attack anyone who questions the validity of research supporting the autism-mercury theory.
They thrive on creating a binary situation – a typical ‘either you’re for us or against us’ attitude.
This thread was supposed to be about the grays. Gretchen and others go out of their way to compliment Kev but then smack his thread in the nose with close-minded vengance.
Still waiting, Gretchen.
David said:
_I’m sick, I’m sick alright… I’m sick of me and my feelings/abilities/etc being disregarded on account that I am autistic._
David, me too – but how can anyone try to change that by being mean and nasty? It only makes autistics look bad.
Ken said:
_Gretchen, there is a reason you don’t put your full name on this site. There is a reason I do. You are a hypocrite._
Alot of people who have posted here haven’t used their last names. I have no intention of contacting Rockefeller. I am expressing my disappointment in the way you are conducting yourself. You are a scientist, not some half-arsed huckster.
Ken said:
_This is how autism-mercury extremists work:
Attack the entire government.
Attack the entire pharma industry.
Attack anyone who questions the validity of research supporting the autism-mercury theory.
They thrive on creating a binary situation – a typical ‘either you’re for us or against us’ attitude._
How do you know if I am a mercury person or an autistic person?
Everyone needs to stop attacking each other or this situation will never get better.
Michelle: “If autistics didn’t have consistent, measurable strengths, we would have no significant results to report. To the contrary, autistic strengths are the most reliable and replicated results in the science, across all ages and supposed “levels†of functioning.”
I’m not saying that the strengths are not there. My problem is that there are difficulties measuring them. You don’t administer tests. I do. So I come up against people who do not necessarily understand the rubrics. If they don’t understand the rubric in any test, then they cannot be tested using that instrumment; and other ways of estimating ability have to be found, which may well not be so easy.
“It is incorrect to characterize Raven matrices as “non-verbalâ€, because, for non-autistics at least, language is required in order to perform Raven matrices successfully.”
There is a measure of verbal intellect involved in understanding the rubric, but the test is designed to measure ability in reasoning outside the realm of language. That is what psychologists mean when we talk about a non-verbal test of intellectual ability. The only true non-verbal test of intellectual ability that I know of is actually called the Test Of Non-verbal Intelligence (3rd Ed)… the instructions to which are pantomimed. Incidentally, the publishers of the RPM refer to it as a measure of non-verbal ability. And language is not required to perform in this test reasonably well… instructions can be pantomimed (although this may affect the validity of the test results). In fact, this is why I use the TONI-3… it was standardised with pantomimed instructions.
Raven saw this test (and this is how the publishers see it) as a measure of ability to educe relationships, which has its basis in Spearman’s ‘g’. The idea is that it should not require language in order to perform well in it.
Oh, and in standardised tests such as this, any performance is ‘successful’, such as this can be defined for a test which does not carry a ‘pass’ mark; standardised tests do not carry pass marks… they provide a comparison between an individual’s performance and the distributed scores of a group of individuals. No pass mark. No ‘failure’.
Gretchen: “Everyone needs to stop attacking each other or this situation will never get better.”
I’ll talk in civil fashion with *any*one who first does so to me. As people on here do actually know. But berating and disparaging me isn’t going to get anyone my respect. That’s how it is. I’ve had too much in my life where I have had to do the respecting and other people have been able to quite without blame treat me (put bluntly) like shite.
So, ABA lot stop attacking me, I’ll be civil (actually managed to do this with one many moons ago). Mercury lot… ditto.
I don’t mind debate. I love it. But bulldozing is going to piss me off. If people refrain from bulldozing me, I’m happy to discuss. Simple as that.
Gretchen wrote, “How do you know if I am a mercury person or an autistic person?”
What? There more people here than just mercury people and autistics. I’m neither. And I’m against neither. I am against junk science, the overinterpretation of valid science, and extremists. That is all.
If your post was designed to throw some cold water on those “outing” others on this site, those invoking Nazis, those invoking Hilter – so be it. But you’re using me, someone who has done none of these things, to do it by making a vague threat.
Your lesson here is to not use one’s real name. Congratulations, if I were JB I’d be patting you on the back.
Regarding the behavior of scientists. You’re in a thread where many have questioned the integrity of not only all of pharma, not only the entire government, but much of the “scientific establishment”. One Rescue Angel has even called for the hanging of those responsible for thimerosal (see Kathleen’s site).
And then you accuse me of “reprehensible” behavior. You didn’t even have the courtesy of specifying said behavior. You made a vague threat.
And you can do that since you’re fairly anonymous. Others who don’t use their full names here aren’t making threats. What clone did got him a knuckle rap from what I can see – and I didn’t detect him intimating that her employer was to be contacted. Andrea, Jane, Jack and other fairly anonymous posters who aren’t making threats are ok with me – even Sue M. despite her claim that no one here understands the science (right before disapparated).
Again, I’m not afraid. Gretchen, I’ve dealt with creationist psychos when I was in an evolution lab and now I’ll deal with the anti-govt/anti-vax/anti-thimerosal crowd.
The only fear I have is that threats like your’s will squash true debate and an honest assessment of the science.
The autistic strengths I referred to are not in intelligence tests. If they are hard to measure, then a lot of research groups have accomplished and replicated this difficult task.
The research and research group I’m involved with both entail a lot of intelligence testing. So we are not entirely ignorant in this area (we’ve published a few papers on the subject), even if we are not educational psychologists. We have to pass peer review, etc.
There is published science re language and the Raven matrices. It was this science I was referring to, as well as the science showing what the Raven matrices measure in typical people.
Arghh, I meant “are not necessarily in intelligence tests”.
Michelle,
“If they are hard to measure, then a lot of research groups have accomplished and replicated this difficult task.”
Doesn’t stop it being difficult.
“So we are not entirely ignorant in this area (we’ve published a few papers on the subject), even if we are not educational psychologists.”
Not that I am claiming that you are entirely ignorant…
“The autistic strengths I referred to are not in intelligence tests.”
Maybe not. But I was referring to those that were. I was specifically addressing MsC’s generalised remark on “(m)any Autistics have special talents and have a higher IQ than normals if the Raven progressive matrices is used.”
Personally, I do not disagree that there are particular strengths found predominantly in autistic people’s ranges of ability. My comment was about the difficulties involved in using ability tests to assess them.
Question: has there ever been *anything* that you have ever agreed with me on?
MD: “Arghh, I meant “are not necessarily in intelligence testsâ€.”
Okay. But my point still stands.
Going to watch the Hip now.
Autistic strengths exuberantly emerge from numerous paradigms designed entirely to make autistics fail. So yeah, I disagree.
MD: “Autistic strengths exuberantly emerge from numerous paradigms designed entirely to make autistics fail. So yeah, I disagree.”
You *never* tell me why.
And who says that they’re all *designed* to make us fail?
I may not be able to support it empirically, but I think *all* autistics have special talents… it’s just that my definition of “special talents” is not the one used to define “savant” abilities and so forth. My child has “savant” abilities in knowing how to love everyone, and maybe some in seeing certain patterns… Such a statement is laughable to those who want to talk about calendar calculating and painting, watch repair, whatever… it seems that “savant” abilities are only those that are potentially worth money.
My child remembers names and people to an incredible degree, so did my boyfriend Jimmy (low functioning, MR, Frag X, for people who don’t know the story).
Michelle says (if I understand correctly) that one of the big needs in the autism community is for “low functioning” autistics to have access to materials or whatever they need to pursue and build on or build with their special skills, and that could include someone who seems to be totally “nothing” from a normal point of view.
As for Gretchen, I understand your point, “People. People! Can’t we all just get along”
The answer is, if you don’t understand the history of this argument you might judge us as being this or that, but you obviously don’t understandt he history of the argument.
It’s like walking in on the Watt’s riots and saying, “now if you people would only realize this simple point of etiquette, we wouldn’t be having this riot now, woudl we?”
I would hope that you would realize that you might have been hit in the head with a flying brick at that point.
Ken didn’t say anything worth reporting to anyone.
Your complaint about his posts and referring to Rockefeller U. was *childish* and *snotty*
like you are some prissy little neighbor girl coming along, seeing a tussle and saying “I’m gonna go tell my mommy and boy are you going to get it!”, just out of sheer snotty superiority, not out of a sense of trying to help.
I realize that Kev wanted and wants people to get along, and it should be possible, but at this point, we are all sick of the same stupid garbage from the mercury gang.
I don’t see anyone answering the points I put to Wade.
No. I don’t think anyone will answer those points, and I have more that they can’t answer, as well.
If the discussion is kept to science the mercury parents lose so quickly it’s not funny, so they have to resort to ugly inunendo and ugly insults.
make that “inuendo”
Ms Clark: “inunendo”
That is how i say it just now… allergy keeping me awake yet a-bleeding-gain.
Ms Clark: “Such a statement is laughable to those who want to talk about calendar calculating and painting, watch repair, whatever…”
To be honest, there’s too much emphasis on the so-called “worthy” talents (such as you give as examples). Thing is that – pretty much by definition – if we say that *all* autistics have special abilities, then these abilities cease to be special. This not to take away from their importance as abilities, as I’m sure you’d appreciate. In the end, it comes down to just saying… there are abilities.
Personally, I have a problem with the concept of intelligence as it has been defined over the years and decades. I use tests to assess it, and I’m acutely aware that we know basically nothing about it (despite the myriad theories, formal and informal, that grace our libraries and web pages). I would see things in terms of behaving intelligently, and – in fact – this is something anyone can do, regardless of so-called IQ. You might wish to look in Kaplan & Saccuzzo’s Psychological Testing: Principles, Applications, Issues (Wadsworth) where they discuss the effect of restricting the range of acceptable answers in WISC-R with children from differeing backgrounds. I’ll supply a page number if you’re interested.
Ms Clark: “Michelle says (if I understand correctly) that one of the big needs in the autism community is for “low functioning†autistics to have access to materials or whatever they need to pursue and build on or build with their special skills, and that could include someone who seems to be totally “nothing†from a normal point of view.”
If that is the case, then sure…. I have no problem with this. I do, however, have difficulties with notions of intellectual “superiority”, as if intelligence were a “thing”. I don’t think it is a “thing”. I don’t think personality is. I’m not even sure that aptitudes exist de facto (outside of models for working with) either. These are just models for understanding certain human attributes, and certainly need to be updated in order to take in advances in experiment and reasoning about the issue.
Ms. Clark, thanks for the words. Since she won’t answer with the offending quote, I’m still racking my brain about what could have been counted as the reprehensible comment – I guess since I’m in the open and she felt like she had to lash out at someone (anyone), it might as well be me. Oh well. Lesson learned – call me Regulus Black (and yes, I’m a cat animangus and I stole the horcrux).
The old Coke christmas commercial isn’t reality.
*Ken*, if what’s her name is anything like me she reads quickly and quickly forgets who said what, but feels an urge to respond. She may have read a comment by someone else and attributed it to you.
I’m guessing here, you wouldn’t like to teach the world to sing in per-fect harm-o-neee?
You lost me on the cat animangus, but that’s ok. I’m old.
🙂
I think what strikes me as I read the comments since Sat morning is how well John Best Jr did his job.
His 30 plus posts to this thread (all deleted/moderated/etc) were plain abuse and unfortnuately I was looking for a more refined way of banning him than I’ve had to rely on and this made me too busy to be quick enough to catch his posts before others read them. And once something is read, it can’t be unread.
That has a tendency to set the tone for a thread. People get defensive and angry (and faced with the torrent of abuse from people lke JBJr who wouldn’t get angry?) and respond in kind.
I _would_ like everyone to get along but I’m a realist, I know how stongly people feel about this issue as I feel pretty bloody strongly myself. That won’t stop me looking for common ground in everyone but conversely it won’t stop me from fighting for what I think is right either. The essence of my post was that it should be possible to see that absolutism is never pretty and usually wrong.
Or, to put to another way: the belief that all autism is mercury poisoning is stupid. Does that mean that those who support it are stupid? No. But this absolutist position is not pretty and definitely wrong.
I don’t like this culture of ‘outing’ that goes on. I don’t think clone’s outing of Sue was on the same level as that which is regularly practiced on the EoH forums (where one person had their private phone number posted) but it makes me uncomfortable and I’d rather it didn’t happen – there’s no need for apologies either publicly or personally but lets move forward saying that these are things that shouldn’t happen on a public blog and draw a line under it.
One of the things that I struggle with is the appropriateness of civility. I read a blog called Signal vs Noise (unless you’re a web developer you won’t be interested) and the name refers to the amount of good vs bad information in a given situation.
There’s an awful lot of noise in this debate and not much signal. Ms Clark describes how incredibly frustrating it is to hear what amounts to a personal attack every time a debate on the science is attempted. It always starts to sound something like: ‘It doesn’t matter how these results were obtained, David Kirby talks about them so it must be true! If you can’t see that then you’re stupid!”
I tried to explain to Sue in a seperate thread that Kirby is largely irrelevant. This is, in its essence, a scientific debate and a moral one. The science bit is: ‘does thiomersal cause autism’? The moral one is: ‘is it right to try and ‘cure’ autism?’.
To me the science is quite clear: thiomersal does not cause autism. I base this mostly on the fact that there were autistic people around before thiomersal.
The moral one gives me pause for thought. I do not believe that it is right to attempt to remove autism for an autistic person. I believe this because I believe autism is an intrinsic piece of a who a person is. In the same way I’ve got brown eyes and stupidly large feet, some people are autistic.
That said, I’m coming to see that the word ‘cure’ is not necessarily used by some as a reference to the removal of autism. If we want to be picky and pedantic over it then I would say that the word ‘cure’ in this instance is being used incorrectly but I appreciate the fact that others may be using the word to indicate their belief that curing someone centers more around the removal of some of the medical issues that may prevent their kids from progressing.
Intelligence involves a constellation of cognitive processes, just like memory, learning, and attention do. Cognitive processes are measurable. If they weren’t, cognitive scientists would be waiting tables, Skinner would still rule the world, and we would assume that locked-in people (people who have no behaviour) are actually dead.
Attaching value judgments to measureable aspects of intelligence makes no more sense than attaching value judgments to cognitive processes. We don’t say people with perfect pitch, e.g., are better than people without. But this doesn’t mean that perfect pitch should be ignored or denied, either as an ability that can contribute to society, or as a way to study why and how some brains are different from other brains.
MD: “We don’t say people with perfect pitch, e.g., are better than people without.”
Glad to hear it.
“Cognitive processes are measurable.”
Directly?!
“Intelligence involves a constellation of cognitive processes, just like memory, learning, and attention do.”
Not quite. *Being intelligent* involves… just like *remembering, learning and being attentive* do. I prefer not to reify when there is no good reason to.
Right, and there are no autistic people (say the behaviourists), just organisms emitting inadequate/inappropriate/maladaptive behaviours. Looks like cognitive scientists have to quit doing science , because the stuff we study not only can’t be measured, it doesn’t exist.
Errors of reification are a big deal in behaviourism. Very prominent behaviourists deny that autism exists. I find this as invalid as denying that memory exists. And if cognitive processes (including memory) can’t be measured, then there is no work for cognitive scientists to do.
Right, I’m closing this thread.
I’ve also deleted a few comments that I felt were getting far too threatening and abusive for my liking. No-one complained but *I* don’t like them. I’ll be emailing everyone whos comments I deleted to explain why.