Archive | 2005

Hybrid Layouts

12 May

I don’t kid myself I’m announcing anything new here but after a long fruitless Google (and Yahoo and MSN) and a search of my usual CSS haunts that also remained stubbornly fruit-free I thought that I’d better get on and build something myself.

So I did. And generous soul that I am I thought that one day, others might struggle with this same problem so I’d better document it.

What I wanted was to have a 3 column layout. Easy enough, except I didn’t want all three columns to be fixed width. I wanted 2 columns to be fixed and then a third column to spread to fill the remaining width e.g.


fixed | fixed | sttrrrrreeeetch

I also wanted something that required a minimum of hacks for IE. I guess thats pretty much what we all want all the time but I was keen to see what I could do with just plain vanilla CSS. Before we start let me clarify: its totally untested on any Mac browsers but it works in Firefox (natch), Moz, IE 6, 5.5 and 5 and Opera 7.54.

Lets start with our three columns:

Nothing unusual there apart from my frighteningly unsemantic markup. You get the idea – left and middle should have a fixed width whilst right stretches to fill the remaning width.

Having been born a rigid son-of-a-bitch I love the stability and reassuringly solid feel of a fixed width layout. Doesn’t exactly promote a feeling of adventure or trying new things though so I was determined to learn how to do this – of course it did mean pretty much starting from scratch regarding flexible (liquid, elastic, whatever) layouts.

My big challenge was understanding how to get #right to start to the right of #middle and yet still have it stretch without putting extra pixels on the screen and creating the HSOD (Horizontal Scrollbar Of Death). So, first I did the easy bits – creating the CSS for the two fixed columns:

Easy. Two columns, snug up against each other and both floated left.

Now, to add the third, liquid, column would mean I had to place it in such a way as it lined up against #middle but not actually be 100%. If I declared that element as 100% then I’d get HSOD. Either that or it’d shove the other two out the way.

Now, I could’ve gone and declared everything as position: absolute; but I hate taking elements out of the document flow unless there’s no choice so what I did was this:

The clever bit being the margin-left: 400px; which makes the element shift itself 400 pixels to the right. Nice. Quite straightforward and requiring no hacks to work across Windows browsers. Be nice if you Mac geezers out there would let me know how it works out for you.

So, there we go. Hardly earth shattering but represents a breakthrough for me moving away from fixed layouts. You can view the finished layout here.

This Is What Exhaustion Does

11 May

Call me flighty, call me unsettled but as of next week I’ll be redesigning this blog. Again. Again again. For the third time in a month.

Why? Lots of reasons.

Firstly, I realised that the last 2 incarnations of this blog suffered from something that the previous pink one – which got me nods from CSSVault and CSS Beauty – did not, they were designed by a very tired and approaching burnt out designer.

Truth be told, I never realised until I signed up for the CSSReboot just how much of a physical activity design was. Thats when I realised that being permanantely tired thanks to a daughter that thrives on lack of sleep and being overweight and being in the middle of a major design and content overhaul at my workplace had had an effect on both my ability to be creative and my ability to execute good design.

I don’t hate this design but boy is it drab. Its tired and reflects how I felt designing it. However in the last 4 weeks Megans sleep pattern is more stable, the work website is just about done and I’ve lost nearly a stone and a half in weight and switched to a high fruit/protein diet and feel much better for it.

I’m also totally knocked out by the sheer quality of recent redesigns from various others and want to bring this site up to scratch with a more vibrant design.

So – redesign number 3 will be underway in a little over a week!

Spam: On The Wane?

3 May

Is it just me or has the unremitting flood of spam, um, remitted?

I’m aware that as the proud user of one the worlds leading CMS’ I have a plethora of excellent spam fighting hacks, plug-ins and built in tools at my disposal – from centrally managed blacklists through to advanced comment moderation and server configuration tools but even so, it does seem slightly quiet on the western front.

I’m used to the odd one or two slipping through the net – where a particularly dedicated spammer has visited me in person to negotiate Gatekeeper or they’ve added my Gatekeeper keys to some evil spam database cracking system but its been zip, nada, zlich, zero, bupkis, fuck-all.

Anyone else getting this or am I extremely lucky and yet have obviously just jinxed myself?

More On Mercury/Thimerosal And Generation Rescue

2 May

An intriguing development. Checking my referrer logs (in the awesome Awstats) I came across a reference to Yahoo list server about the David Kirby book, ‘Evidence of Harm’. Interested, I followed it back and came across a thread where this post about Generation: Rescue was being discussed. Of course, when I say discussed I mean slagged off and (as you can see from the comments) my abilities as both a parent and a functional human being called into question because I disagreed with GR that autism is mercury poisoning.

I’m not going to link to the list server as I hate Yahoo lists with a passion (they’re incredibly difficult to navigate – why would anyone use a Yahoo maillist when hosting is so cheap and there are loads of free easy to setup forums?) but it shouldn’t be hard to find if you’re minded to look for it. Just go to yahoo Groups and search for Evidence of Harm. You have to join to read by the way.

Anyway, in amongst the vitriol and petty posturing were some valid points that I felt deserved further explanation. I also got a lot of emails asking me to backup and/or justify my position which is fair enough, no-one can make assertions in a vacuum and expect to be taken seriously and I’d rather do it here in one place than carry on using the dreadful, unintuitive Yahoo interface design.

So, to begin, lets start with the reason that I visited the EoH list in the first place. I made a post that stated that GR were wrong to state that autism was mercury poisoning. Lets clarify that a bit further. GR didn’t say some cases of autism were mercury poisoning. They didn’t say that some cases of mercury poisoning had been misdiagnosed as autism, they said – autism was mercury poisoning. Pure and simple, just that.

Now obviously I disagree. But why? And why does it matter so much?

Well I disagree mainly because mercury poisoning isn’t autism, its mercury poisoning. In order for me to disprove GR’s assertion that autism is solely mercury poisoning, all I have to do is prove there’s more than one basis for autism. Thats easy, researchers are certain there is a genetic component to autism:

Because of the clear evidence that idiopathic autism has a strong genetic basis, many groups are undertaking whole genome screens

Two Studies Point to Genetic Basis of Autism, Open Door to Further Research

The findings indicate that autism is under a high degree of genetic control and suggest the involvement of multiple genetic loci.

While the causes of autism still remain a mystery, it has become clear that genetic factors contribute significantly to the occurrence of the disorder.

So, thats pretty clear. Not conclusive whatsoever taken individually but when taken as a whole, the weight of evidence clearly indicates genetics at least plays a part. This is backed up by my own experience – 3 of my close relatives were on the spectrum and I don’t believe in coincedences on that scale.

But lets not forget that GR claim that autism is mercury poisoning. I’ve shown fairly conclusively that mainstream science disagrees with such a black and white interpretation but lets tackle the issue directly – what actually is autism?

…(a) lifelong developmental disability that occurs by itself or in association with other disorders that affect the function of the brain

brain disorder that begins in early childhood and persists throughout adulthood

autism is a complex developmental disability

The term means a developmental disability

(autism)….is (a) disorder which usually appears within the first three years of life

A chronic developmental disorder usually diagnosed between 18 and 30 months of age

Autism is a disorder of brain function that appears early in life, generally before the age of three

Autism is a lifelong developmental disability

A lifelong, nonprogressive neurological disorder

Autism is a form of pervasive developmental disorder with an unknown origin

a developmental disability that can cause problems with communication, social interaction and routine/repetitive behaviors

Autism is a communication and behaviour disorder

Phew, thats enough copying and pasting. All these definitions were found on Google searching for ‘define: autism’. Seems pretty clear to me. Autism is seen by the medical community as a developmental disorder. Not mercury poisoning.

What about the industry heavyweights? In the UK, the main research body is ARC (Autism Research Centre). the President of this organisation being Professor Simon Baron-Cohen:

What do you feel is the reason for the recent dramatic increase of autistic children in the United States? Do thimerosal
(mercury), environmental toxins and genetics play a role in autism?. I know it is not a very popular view, but it is possible that the dramatic increase of children with autism world-wide is due to better diagnosis, better awareness, changing diagnosis, and the growth of services. When I started in this field 20 years ago, there were only about 3 centres in the whole of the UK where one could go to get one’s child diagnosed with autism, from a specialist. Today, there are many clinics in every town that can provide this service. So, we cannot under-estimate the effect of having a lot more well trained clinicians in front-line public health services looking out for children with these possible diagnoses.

SAR.

To be fair, Professor Baron-Cohen does, as all decent scientists should, say that he maintains an open mind regarding Thimerosal. I completely agree with him. If it was proven in scientifc, peer-reviewed journals that autism was mercury poisoning then I’d be first in the queue. However, as we’ve already seen, autism is not mercury poisoning, its a disorder which is almost certainly at least partly genetic.

So lets give GR the benefit of the doubt. Lets say that what they actually meant when they said that autism was mercury poisoning was that autism is caused by mercury poisoning. I mean, lets not beat around the bush – this is not what they claim but lets be fair and assume they did. Is it true? Does mercury poisoning cause autism?

If it does we need to answer the following questions:

  • Why do only a few people (relatively speaking) ‘get’ autism? If mercury poisoning causes autism we should see a much, much greater prevelance than we do. The vast majority of children in the UK have had vaccines.
  • If mercury poisoning causes autism why, when Thimerosal was removed from US vaccines in 2000, have autism cases not dropped? (http://www.autism-watch.org/general/thio.shtml)
  • Why is there no scientifically valid, peer-reviewed evidence available to support the theory that mercury poisoning causes autism?

Here’s a few extracts from Quackwatch, the science website dedicated to exposing scientific fallacies.

A study published in 2002 of infants who were 6 months of age or younger compared the levels of mercury in the blood, hair, urine, and stool of 40 who received vaccines containing thimerosal and 20 who received vaccines without thimerosal. The study found: Mercury levels in blood and urine were low in all infants studied and in many cases too small to measure. There was no observed dose-dependent relationship between the level of thimerosal received through vaccination and the level of mercury in the body. Mercury levels in blood did not exceed, at any time, the blood levels that correspond to Environmental Protection Agency guidelines for exposure. Mercury levels in the stool of infants receiving vaccines containing thimerosal were relatively high compared to mercury levels in the stool of infants who were not exposed to thimerosal, providing evidence that mercury from thimerosal is eliminated in the stool of infants. The researchers concluded that, “Administration of vaccines containing thiomersal does not seem to raise blood concentrations of mercury above safe values in infants.”

http://www.quackwatch.org/03HealthPromotion/immu/thimerosal.html

As recently as last month (Feb 2005), the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry published a report by UK and Japanese researchers that disproved the thimerosal-autism connection in a study of 30,000 Japanese kids. The website of the Centers for Disease Control (www.cdc.gov) offers several studies that refute any linkage. The CDC’s own Institute of Medicine’s Immunization Safety Review Committee recently concluded that “neither thimerosal-containing vaccines or MMR [measles-mumps-rubella] vaccine are associated with autism” and that “the hypotheses regarding a link between autism and MMR vaccine and thimerosal-containing vaccines lack supporting evidence and are only theoretical.”

http://quackfiles.blogspot.com/2005/03/revisiting-thimerosal-autism.html

More to the point: If there were a link between thimerosal and autism, you would expect to see a sharp decrease in autism, since thimerosal has been absent from all childhood vaccines (except some flu vaccines) for five years now, On the contrary, the documented autism rate has continued to climb, proving there is no relationship between the two whatsoever.

http://quackfiles.blogspot.com/2005/03/revisiting-thimerosal-autism.html

Those who support the idea that mercury causes autism cite a wide range of researchers who’ve conducted research into the connection and found positive evidence to support the link. Particular favourites amongst believers in the link are Dr. Mark Geier, David Geier (who’s not even a Doctor) and Dr Andrew Wakefield.

Dr Mark Geier is in American parlance a ‘professional witness’, meaning one who will perform as an expert witness for you in court cases for money. Here’s an official court order regarding Mark Geier from November 2003.

He is however a professional witness in areas for which he has no training, expertise, and experience. Petitioners must seriously consider whether they want to proceed with a witness whose opinion on neurological diagnosis is unacceptable to the undersigned. When we reach the end of this case and the question of expert fees arises, there will be serious doubt whether Dr. Geier should be compensated for his time devoted to diagnosing an acute encephalopathy where none exists, and discussing (in his first supplemental affidavit) the MMR reactions of acute encephalopathy and encephalitis when neither is relevant in this case because Christopher, who was alert and in no acute distress on the 15th day after his MMR vaccination (when Dr. Geier opines his acute encephalopathy began on the 14th day, less than 24 hours earlier), could not possibly have had a Table acute encephalopathy or encephalitis. Moreover, three days later, he was also alert and in no acute distress.

And further to that,

The IOM report described two studies by Geier (6) which had reported an association between MMR and autism as “characterized by serious methodological flaws and their analytic methods were nontransparent making their results uninterpretable, and therefore non-contributory with respect to causality.” In other words, the studies by Geier could not establish a causal relation between MMR and autism because of their methods—such as using statistical measures incorrectly and omitting facts about their research approach. Similar problems were found in six other studies by Geier (7) and one study by Blaxill (8), which reported findings of an association between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism. In addition, Geier’s expertise in neurological disorders has been questioned.

And returning to the issue of Dr Geier’s ability as a professional witness:

In other vaccine cases, Dr. Geier’s testimony has similarly been accorded no weight: Thompson v. Secretary of HHS, No. 99-0436, 2003 WL 221439672 (Fed. CI. Spec. Mstr. May 23, 2003); Bruesewitz v. Secretary of HHS, No. 95-0266, 2002 WL 31965744 (Fed. Cl. Spec. Mstr. Dec. 20, 2002); Raj v. Secretary of HHS, No. 96-0294V, 2001 WL 963984, *12 (Fed. CI. Spec. Mstr. July 31, 2001); Haim v. Secretary of HHS, No. 90-1031V, 1993 WL 346392 (Fed. Cl. Spec. Mstr. Aug. 27, 1993) (“Dr Geier’s testimony is not reliable, or grounded in scientific methodology and procedure. His testimony is merely subjective belief and unsupported speculation.”); Marascalco v. Secretary of HHS, No. 90-1571V, 1993 WL 277095 (Fed. Cl. Spec. Mstr. July 9, 1993) (where the special master described Dr. Geier’s testimony as intellectually dishonest); Einspahr v. Secretary of HHS, No. 90-923V, 1992 WL 336396 (CI. Ct. Spec. Mstr. Oct. 28, 1992), aff’d, 17 F.3d 1444 (Fed. Cir. 1994); Aldridge v. Secretary of HHS, No. 90-2475V, 1992 WL 153770 (CI. Ct. Spec. Mstr. June 11, 1992); Ormechea v. Secretary of HHS, No. 90-1683V, 1992 WL 151816 (Cl. Ct. Spec. Mstr. June 10, 1992) (“Because Dr. Geier has made a profession of testifying in matters to which his professional background (obstetrics, genetics) is unrelated, his testimony is of limited value to the court.”); Daly v. Secretary of HHS, No. 90-590V, 1991 WL 15473 (Cl. Ct. Spec. Mstr. July 26, 1991) (“The court is inclined not to allow Dr. Geier to testify before it on issues of Table injuries. Dr. Geier clearly lacks the expertise to evaluate the symptomatology of the Table injuries and render an opinion thereon.”).

All above quotes taken from Quackfiles blog

And how about Andrew Wakefield? A name more familiar to a UK audience definitely.

Sir Liam Donaldson, England’s chief medical officer, accused Dr Andrew Wakefield of peddling “poor science”. He said the 1998 study was flawed and has been criticised by “independent experts around the world”. His comments came as the General Medical Council prepared to open an investigation into the way Dr Wakefield carried out his study.

BBC News

So these are part of the scientific resources the ‘mercury causes autism’ followers have to rely on to provide their science. Not a great validation in my opinion. Not only have we seen how mercury poisoning is not solely responsible for autism, or probably even responsible at all, we’ve also seen that in all valid scientific tests done so far, mercury/thimerosal has been substantially unproven to be linked to autism as a causative. We’ve also seen how their leading researchers are held in very low esteem by their countries legaslative and medical bodies.

So what reason then do people have for promoting a link between mercury/thimerosal and autism? Who gets what out of it?

…(I)n a recent web search on “thimerosal autism”, five of the first ten results link to alarmist informational sites bankrolled by law firms. Not to knock my fellow professionals, but this data point makes it easier to understand why there is still so much press on the alleged thimerosal-autism connection. The agenda of many of these sites is quite clear: to link vaccines to autism and to stimulate lawsuits by aggrieved parents. As for the media’s ongoing interest in autism, sensationalism seems to be the primary motive.

Dr. Michel Cohen.

I’m not saying Generation Rescue are in it for the money but when the evidence that supports their theory that autism is mercury poisoning is so scanty and the evidence that goes against them so strong then a large element of doubt about their authenticity is only to be expected.

And why does all this matter so much to me?

Lots of reasons. Firstly, the treatment that groups like Generation Rescue sell is at best, experimental. Its called ‘Chelation Therapy’, stripping out the mercury (and/or other heavy metals) from the body. Here’s some opinions on it:

The use of chelation therapy to treat autistic children is completely bogus. Three successful lawsuits have been filed by parents who believe they were victimized in this way.

Details of the lawsuits and the subsequent shutting down of the clinic responsible for administering these treatments can be found on Quckwatch.org. Its disturbing reading. Also pretty disturbing are the fraud claims against Chelation therapists as well as the suits filed against Chelation therapists in Australia.

You may also find a visit to Quackwatch’s Chelation page interesting. It has links to two cases of fraud and five cases of Disciplinary action against Chelation therapists as well as details of why American Insurance companies won’t cover the administration of Chelation therapy.

Please note: I’m not claiming Chelation therpay has no medical benefit (although it looks pretty doubtful). I’m claiming that it has no medical benefit when used to treat autism. It also has no medical benefit for a range of other medical issues. Taken from the American Heart Association:

What’s chelation therapy? Chelation therapy has been proposed to treat existing atherosclerosis and to prevent it from forming. After carefully reviewing all the available scientific literature on this subject, the American Heart Association has concluded that the benefits claimed for this form of therapy aren’t scientifically proven. That’s why we don’t recommend this type of treatment.

American Heart Association.

So, in essence, Chelation therapy as a treatment for autism is useless. As a treatment for lots of other conditions its also useless. It does however have one legitimate use:

…(C)helation has legitimate use for treating heavy metal poisoning.

Chelationwatch.

So what does that tell us? Well, to me it quite clearly says that any ‘autistic’ being successfuly treated with Chelation therapy wasn’t autistic – they were metal poisoned.

It matters to me that people are being fooled in their honest attempts to help their autistic children into being treated with this stuff. The more attention rubbish like this gets, the less attention valid interventions such as PECS gets and another generation of autistic kids get treated as experimental guinea pigs by well meaning parents doing their best with the information most readily to hand.

So I generally believe Generation Rescue are evil right? No. I believe they possibly do great work in detoxing kids suffering from metal poisoning and its further true to say that some autistic kids may well have metal poisoning – its not the sole province of non-autisitcs after all – but they should seriously rethink their stance on ‘autism is mercury poisoning’. Its a simplistic error and one thats shamefully calculated to play on the best intentions of parents of autistic kids. It could also have serious health implications on the children being treated. Where are the long term health studies into Chelation therapy? I’ve not seen one. Tht doesn’t mean they don’t exist of course but before I subject my child to any course of medication I want to give that method a serious investigation. It does strike me as ironic that the same parents who rush to condem a vaccine that is proven not to cause autism are happy to submit their kids to a very under-researched area of medicine.

Its also depressingly ironic that we’re now beginning to reap the consequences of our folly as a recent outbreak of Rubella in Canada shows. Rubella, of course, can cause autism.

I believe as a parent that my overriding responsibility is to the health of my children. Thats why we only use interventions that definitely help and don’t use those that are not based on valid science. I further believe that my responsibility to my kids is to raise them to be happy and confident of who they are. We don’t seek a cure as we love Megan for who she is. She’s smart, bright, confident, funny, annoying, noisy, stand-offish, loving, stimming, involved, curious and autistic. There’s nothing I’d want to change about any of that and the things that are a problem like her toileting, her lack of effective communication and sleeplesness are intervened in with varying degrees of success. But we know that our interventions are scientifically valid. They require a hell of a lot fo work and there’s no quick fix but who could possibly not want to spend more time with their kids?

NB: I’m sure people will have a lot to say and thats fine. If you keep it polite and well mannered your comments will stay. I won’t tolerate abusive tone or language and I’d appreciate it if you used the ‘textile’ tool (see link next to comment box) to properly create links if you cite them. Anyone who does lapse into abuse will be reported to their ISP and their IP address will be banned from here. I have 2 (soon to be 3) kids to parent, I don’t have time to parent you too.

“Autism Epidemic” reaches UK

28 Apr

Its with a heavy heart that I note the rhetoric of North America being used in this country to whip up hysteria and fear about autism.

In a recent article in The Scotsman, the news that autisitc schoolchildren now number over 3,000 has been seen as immediate proof of the ‘autism epidemic’.

Bill Welsh, director of Action Against Autism, said: “Despite claims that the increase is due to the widening of diagnostic criteria, recent studies suggest that this would account for less than 25% of the increase and that we have a genuine autism epidemic.”

I’ve never heard of Bill Welsh or AAA but Its rather depressing to see someone who claims to be an autism actioneer in this country using such ridiculous language. Note that he refers to ‘recent studies’ without ever referencing to them. Hell, if this is how campaigners take their arguments forward then I’d like to say that due to ‘recent studies’ I believe that the Earth is indeed flat. There, easy eh?

It does make you wonder why people are so reluctant to quote their sources. Maybe becasue they don’t stand up to scrutiny?

Just to reiterate – there is no autism epidemic. Diagnostic criteria have widened and reporting methods have vastly improved. There may well be an increase in actual case percentage but epidemic? Hardly.

Ruby, Rails – WAMP!

27 Apr

There was a big buzz around Ruby on Rails awhile ago so I thought I’d give it a go. Bearing in mind I’m primarily a design/scripting person I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to learn some object oriented programming. Its touted as being excellent for a web environment so it seemed a good thing for me to learn.

I used the excellent ONLamp tutorials and was up and running in 20 minutes on my Windows XP machine. Within an hour I’d completed the first two tutorials. I won’t pretend to have understood all the concepts but I could see what it was doing even if I wasn’t 100% sure of how it was doing it – and that sort of stuff is easy to pick up via online tutorials/manuals etc.

So, excitidely I contacted my host and asked if they would be so good as to set it up on my web server so I could test it on a live environment. My excellent host agreed and set it up – and thats where the problems started. Trouble is, neither my host nor I really knew what we were doing and from his end it seems to be installed correctly and from my end I can’t make it work at all. In fact I have no idea how to start.

There’s absolutely zero documentation that I can find that tells a host how to set RoR up, integrate it with Apache and make it available for shared hosting clients. There’s lots of links to Textdrive that allow you to purchase a RoR package but not a lot else.

If the creators want this to become as ubiqutous as LAMP or WAMP (Linux/Windows Apache, MySQL, PHP) then they’re going to have to put a bit of effort in. I’m sure its a doddle to make this happen but I don’t know how and I can’t find a way to find out for myself. Seems like RoR is a great package let down by poor support.

A Little Good, A Little Sad

26 Apr

A couple of things happened over the last few days, both unexpected but with entirely differing perspectives.

Firstly the sad stuff. When Meg finally got her Statement (see archives 2004 for the horror story in full) she was allocated 32 and one half hours per week with an LSA (learning support assistant) whilst at school. The school in question wisely decided to split that over two people each doing 16 and a bit hours a week each.

The two people the school employed were (are) fantastic with and for Megan. I can’t tell you how much Megan has gained in confidence and ability since being under their care. Naomi and I totally trust them and most importantly, so does Megan. It wasn’t easy and there was a rocky period – Megans not so good with change and her lack of ability to communicate easily made it hard going for awhile but we all persevered and Megan benefitted.

Sadly, one of Megans LSA’s has had to hand in her notice (her husband is in the services and has been re-posted to Cyprus). Its very sad and I don’t think she’s especially happy about it herself but for Meggy its going to be tough. It means getting used to another LSA and more disruption. Totally unavoidable and nobody’s fault but a bit sad all the same.

However, on Sunday my faith in human nature was restored somewhat. I’d taken Meg for a walk down to Sainsburys and we were on our way back when we were approached by a gaggle of 8-9 year old chavs-in-training (Burberry/Hoodies/Bling) and I girded myself: these are the usual sort who see fit to take the piss out of Meg. However as they approached, one by one they strolled nonchalantly past us each nodding at us and saying “Alright Megan?”

Once I’d got my jaw up off my chest I managed to ask them how they knew Meggy and they said “we go to school with her”, looking at me like I was a nutter.

This may seem like nothing to you but for us and for all parents of disabled kids one of the hardest things about your child going off to school is coming to terms with the certainty your child will be ostracized and bullied. To have my fears exposed and so lazily thrown aside was a great, great feeling. These kids weren’t judging, or patronising, or sneering, they were just saying hi to someone they went to school with. Let me tell you – that felt great. I don’t mind saying that I was a bit teary on the way home and Naomi and I had a bit of a cry. Stupid probably but this meant so, so much to us.

Autism Myths

26 Apr

Hopefully I’ve shown over the last few posts in the advocacy section that there is a lot of misinformation generated by those who wish to debunk the idea that autistics can self-advocate.

Recently a new site has sprung up that seeks once and for all to debunk the idea of self advocacy for autistics – indeed, they claim that the advocacy movement are frauds. Here’s their opening statement:

In stark contrast to the widely recognized medical opinion that autism is a debilitating neurological disease, a small, (yet noisy!) group of individuals in Canada and elsewhere has become very vocal and active in the autism public policy debates and struggles. They have become forceful advocates for the bizarre fringe notion that autism is a misunderstood “culture” rather than what science knows it to be – a very serious disease of the brain.

They back this up with a quote from their arch-nemesis, Michelle Dawson talking about autistics:

We are not a plague. We are people who have a culture: a large published literature, art, music, architecture, design, technology, science, and engineering.

Anyone seen it yet?

Michelle Dawson quite categorically says that ‘We are people who have a culture’ whereas what this site claims is that the autism advocacy movement says is that autism is a culture as oppose to a medical condition.

This very basic error lies at the heart of the misinformation peddled at this site. All through it, they make claims which are pretty much all based on their premise that the advocacy movement claim autism IS a culture. Lets be clear – they do not. None of the big websites reflecting the advocacy movement claim anything of the sort. That doesn’t stop this site though – they have misinformation to peddle and the go to it with glee:

The “autism is a culture” fringe has repeatedly sent messages to those who support autism treatment suggesting that autism treatment is symptomatic of intolerance and cruelty. Nothing could be further from the truth, yet their messages have become increasingly accusatory and offensive. Many have complained of being harassed by frequent intimidating messages from this group. They have even made public personal attacks against individual parents accusing them of being “liars.” While some consider this fringe group as truly being from another planet, others have requested that a website be created to help people unfamiliar with autism issues put them in their proper context and perspective.

Although we live in a free society where everyone, including frauds, have the right to express themselves, every opinion expressed in public, especially if presented as a fact, should be subjected to critical analysis. The misguided and misleading arguments of the “autism is a culture” fringe are most deserving of such analysis.

See what I mean – they’re wilfully building a very large strawman. Its easy to prove something when your opponent has never claimed otherwise – the argument this website puts forward is like a creationist saying that because monkey’s don’t give birth to humans evolution is false. But hey, don’t take my word for it – here’s three of the biggest advocay websites on the planet (the Yahoo one requires registration). Have a good nose around. If you can come up with a sizeable concerted group on these sites claiming that autism is a culture then I’ll concede the argument immediately.

Before I go on, you may want to have a look at this website I’m referring to. Go have a good read and bear in mind what I’ve said about who’s claiming what about culture.

Back already? OK. In the quote above, the authoress of this site says that:

messages have become increasingly accusatory and offensive. Many have complained of being harassed by frequent intimidating messages from this group. They have even made public personal attacks against individual parents accusing them of being “liars.”

Firstly, this is an easy thing to claim and should be very easy to back up – so where are all these harassed, intimidated people? They certainly don’t seem to be present on that website. Of course the bit that made me laugh out loud was the bit that said people had been accused of being liars. This on a site peddling a basic lie – that autism is being advocated as a culture. Maybe if you don’t want to be accused of being a liar you should um….stop lying?

Moving on through the site, I note the ‘Professional Opinion’ section. I click it and lo and behold – its a section about Lenny Schafer! My joy is practically unconfined!

The authoritative Schafer Autism Report is a regular internet periodical that has a circulation of approximately 20,000.

Mr Schafer must be in heaven – at last someone thinks he’s an authority! He’s not. He’s one man with an opinion. His high circulation isn’t solely made up of his supporters (I’m signed up for example) and thus his claim of authority (and authority on what exactly?) is suspect to say the least.

Actually, its not really about Schafer its more about ABA. And again, its full of assumptions and misdirection.

Firstly, not all in the advocacy movement oppose ABA. A lot oppose the Lovass style of ABA and with good reason but a lot of people in the advocacy movement are receptive to the idea of ABA in its more progressive and less abusive modern form. No mention of that seems to be made on this site and nor was it made in the articles Schafer solicited to back up his view. Again, if you disbelieve me, go browse the sites I list above. You’ll find contributions from ABA practitioners in several places.

Secondly, the attacks listed in this page are all centred on Michelle Dawson. Thats fine, she’s eminently capable of fighting her corner but Schafer (and this site) made the schoolboy error of associating everything Michelle says as being ‘the law’ for the advocacy movement. Let me assure you that she herself doesn’t feel this way. Lots of people in the advocacy movement disagree with Michelle on lots of points. Attacking her is in no way equal to attacking autism advocacy and its pretty silly to think it is.

And now we come to the very epicentre of bullshit – the centre of this site: Myths & Facts about Autism.

When I first read this page I must admit I started to snigger somewhat childishly. Its at this point that i realised how very desperate the pro-cure autism crowd had become. Its basically one giant strawman. A lot of the stuff on this page has never been claimed by the advocacy movement as a whole. Lets go through them.

They say:

MYTH: Autism is a Culture: Autism is a culture, unlike cancer which is a disease.

FACT: Autism is a Disease, not a Culture: Despite the arguments of people who have adopted autism as their affliction, autism is the most serious childhood neurological condition a child can be diagnosed with. There is clear consensus on this point.

I say: The advocacy movement has never claimed that autism is a culture. Never. Your facts aren’t wrong, they were simply never disputed. Why are you arguing with yourself?

They say:

MYTH: Autistics are Victims of Intolerance: Past intolerance toward homosexuals, blacks and women from the political and academic community indicate that our society is doing the same thing to people with autism, not accepting their ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation.

FACT: People with Autism are Victims of Ignorance and Political Correctness: The existence of political intolerance of other groups in history is irrelevant to the plight of autistic children who are denied treatment by people who do not understand the consequences of not providing treatment. Chemically lobotomizing people with autism by giving them drugs to control symptoms or strapping them to wheel-chairs so they can live in the community is unethical, yet is the misguided, politically correct alternative to ABA treatment.

Autistics and the advocacy movement have never denied that autistics need help. In fact in several papers at autistics.org the authors make a clear point of requesting it. Some people may be against some forms of treatment but ascribing a unified set of beliefs to a whole subset of people is inaccurate – wilfully so. If you have MD’s who’ve suggested your only alternative is ‘chemical lobotomisation’ or ‘strapping them to wheelchairs’ then I strongly suggest a second opinion. As it is, I don’t believe for a moment you included those alternates for any other reason than to provoke emotional reactions. Again, its simply untrue to suggest these are the only alternatives to ABA. And don’t forget that the advocacy movement is not against ABA, they are against some implementations of ABA having either witnessed or received abuse thought its use.

They say:

MYTH: Parents Can’t Accept Their Children’s Autism: This is all about parents making their children conform to neurotypical people because these parents can’t come to terms with the fact that their children are different.

FACT: Parents Love their Children, Not Their Disorder: It is as absurd a notion for a parent to love the child’s autism as it is for a parent to love the child’s cancer. Autism is not part of the child, it is the disorder with which the child is afflicted.

Simply wrong. Autism is part of the child. My daughter is autistic, she doesn’t have autism. However, thats my opinion. Neither of us can be proven right. But consider this – your childs autism permeates everything that they see, hear, touch, think, dream, experience etc. It can’t be removed (which is what makes comparisons to cancer so facile) and it can’t be completely negated. Knowing all that, how can you realistically think that the way your child functions is anything other than autistic? And if so, how can you hate that? Lets not forget that homosexuality was once classed as a medical condition requiring treatment.

(The next few are about ABA specifically and I think (hope!) readers are getting why these points are unnecessary for me to cover again).

They say:

MYTH: Autistic People Need Understanding, not Treatment: Autistic people without treatment would do fine if we were just more understanding. The majority of people with autism would end up living fine lives independently if we would only understand them and change the world to accommodate them.

FACT: People with Autism Need Treatment: Those closest to their children with autism, and the medical community, understand that treatment is the only hope for children to live independently. The concept that “understanding” will cure all is cruel since understanding will not help a person suffering with autism learn to communicate, stop self-injury (among other deficits and excesses characteristic to autism). In addition, there are many self-stimulatory behaviors, such as self-mutilation and masturbation, which will not be accepted in public and will cause people with autism to end up in incarcerated, or as life-long wards of the state, in large or small institutions. Changing community standards to accommodate these sometimes dangerous behaviours is a pipe dream.

I say: The autism advocacy movement has never said that autistics don’t require treatment. Go have a look on autistics.org and you will find articles detailing the sort of help autistics themselves say they need. Its really very easy to check these things – why do you continue to argue cases that no-one in the autism advocacy movement is? What the autism advocacy movement is opposed to is the idea of a cure. Treatments are both necessary and vital. No one claims otherwise.

They say:

MYTH: Autistic people are uniquely qualified to study and understand autism: Only people with autism can understand what it’s like to have autism; therefore, they are uniquely qualified to study autism and decide how all people with autism should be treated.

FACT: Academic Researchers are Qualified to Study Autism: Researchers study disease. A person need not have cancer in order to study cancer and develop a treatment or cure. Having a disease does not qualify one to be researcher or expert for that disease. It qualifies one to be studied by researchers.

I say: That assertion is entirely illogical. Firstly, autistics are the only people who can understand what its like to have autism. Thats simple common sense. Logically then this means they are indeed uniquely qualified to study autism. The advocacy movement has no strong unified position on whether they should decide on treatments. If they do, I’ve never heard it expressed. Thirdly, lots of autistics are also academics. The two thing aren’t mutually exclusive.

They say:

MYTH: People With Autism Are Eloquent Self-Advocates: The eloquent spokespeople who claim autism is a culture are not, in fact, autistic with evidence from an independent medical examination.

FACT: Autism is Characterized by Serious Communication Deficits: One of the characteristics of autism is a marked difficulty to communicate. These self-proclaimed autistics would not be diagnosed with autism by any independent medical examiner based solely on their eloquence and critical thinking capabilities.

I say: Again, simply untrue. Its very easy to claim these things as facts but not so easy to back them up and is entire supposition on your part. One of the characteristics of autism is indeed a marked difficulty in communication. But not an impossibility. A sudden ability to communicate is not indicative of a miracle cure or other sudden lack of autism. if it was every child who uses PECS would lose their diagnosis immediately. Once again, its lazy, facile thinking thats not backed up by anyone with any pretension at a medical background as far as I can see.

In fact, there have been numerous instances of world leading researchers such as Simon Baron-Cohen (Professor of Developmental Psychopathology and Director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University. Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge), Tony Attwood (Honours degree in Psychology from the University of Hull, Masters degree in Clinical Psychology from the University of Surrey, and Ph.D. from the University of London) etc communicating messages of support to the autism advocacy movement. Surely if they believed that communication entirely cancelled out autism their messages of support would be messages of denouncement?

They say:

MYTH: Adults with Autism Need to Protect Autistic Children: Adult self-proclaimed autistics have the right to make decisions for autistic children rather than their parents (their legal guardians).

FACT: Parents are Their Children’s Rightful Guardians: In western constitutional democracies, the judicial system gives parents the legal guardianship of their children, disabled or typically developing. The belief is that parents are most motivated to look out for their off springs’ best interests and have the legal right to provide care and medical treatments.

More Strawmen (what a shame I’m not planning a remake of The Wizard of Oz). Whilst its true to say that adult autistics do feel a responsibility to the younger members of their community, the advocacy movement that I know does not think that parents should be removed from the decision making process in any way. They seek to educate, not confiscate.

Overall, I’m left with an overwhelming feeling that the pro-cure camp are getting increasingly desperate. Just about every statement on that site is incorrect either factually or by omission. Its in fact so bad that I started to wonder if it was indeed misinformation as I originally thought – maybe it was just simple ignorance? I’m still undecided but I hope that if you’ve found this site (I doubt I’ll get a link back somehow!) that your eyes are open to the dangers of such wilful misleading of people in such a shabby, grubby and underhand way.

Cutting Edge – Why?

25 Apr

Like most of us in this line of work/hobby I stop by the four main CSS galleries every few days to see whats new and make the odd comment if I particularly like a design.

I’ve noticed a trend over the last few months on all these sites in a few of the commenters remarking that a showcased site isn’t using ‘cutting edge’ CSS techniques or that there’s nothing new to see aesthetically and without fail it always puzzles me who is making these comments and why – some of these commenters even say a design isn’t ‘worthy’ of the gallery its been submitted to.

What is the big deal about using cutting edge techniques? Lets not forget that all the designs showcased at these sites are in live production, often serving a commercial purpose. It strikes me as incredibly dangerous to use cutting edge techniques (CSS or otherwise) on clients live sites. The reason these techniques are cutting edge is that they are new, unproven and possibly unstable. The only place I personally would consider utilising cutting edge techniques is on a designated experimentation area. I can’t imagne paying customers being overjoyed to find designs failing due to unstable techniques coming apart in unforseen ways due to lack of testing. Its really very unfair to base judgement on a showcased design on its lack of cutting edge technique – by not using cutting edge technique the designer has proven themselves not only a good designer but also responsible.

And what about all those ‘seen it all before’ comments? What exactly are people unhappy with when they make these comments? If one site is a carbon copy of another then fair enough but if a site merely happens to use a similar information design then I don’t see the issue. One example of this is the amount of complaints that come in when a blog is posted: ‘it just looks like a blog’ is the recurring comment – well no shit, Sherlock – guess what? thats because it is a blog! Blogs are structured the way they are because over time thats how the user goals have shaped the design. At bottom all e-commece sites look pretty much the same too – not aesthetically, but in terms of flow. Why? Because this is how the design of an e-commerce has evolved with the needs of the site user to the fore as oppose to the needs of the site designer to showcase their skillset.

So, does this mean I think all designs should be the same – no way. We need cutting edge technique, we need innovation and we need people to push the boundries but we also need to realise that there is a time and a place to do these things. We also need to realise that a good design is much more than a cutting edge style sheet and lots of graphics.

What sort of site am I talking about? What sort of site is great looking but doesn’t use anything which might impact negatively on user experience – well, John’s recent redesign of Joshuaink is a perfect example. It looks fantastic but at heart, its a very simple, solid blog design. Its beauty is not only skin deep, it goes beyond into the semantics, usability and flow of information. Another is Garrett Dimon’s recent design. In terms of aesthetics its nowhere near the same as Joshuaink but look at the semantics and look at the information flow and its plain to see that what we have here is ‘just another blog’ but just like John’s redesign it has a beauty and style that can be appreciated for what it is – a great design, executed perfectly.

Lets not get caught up in a need to be cutting edge merely for the sake of being cutting edge. Instead lets appreciate good design for what it is. If it doesn’t float your boat then fine but don’t fault a good design merely because its not using cutting edge technique.

Redesign Redux

23 Apr

Whereas the previous design was brash, over-heavy and looked bad in certain situations, hopefully this design is the antithesis of that.

What I hoped to do with this design is bring my content to the fore and improve usability but at the same time create an aesthetic that promoted a feeling of calmness and willingness to continue as well as evoking trust.

The previous design was basically trying too hard. I forgot that the primary role of a blog was not to use every CSS trick in the book and ‘force’ a design on people but rather to make it easy for users to read the content.

To that end the body text is the darkest colour on the screen, I’ve set the ‘skip’ link to be viewable at all times rather than hidden via CSS. Links are unobtrusive rather than disrupting the flow of the content and external links are all shown and grouped better rather than hiding some away.

The ‘suggest’ feature whilst a nifty trick was hardly used so I’ve dropped that – it made me uncomfortable that it invalidated the markup anyway – and behind the scenes I’ve started introducing more categories in order to make finding things easier. Lastly, I’ve also tidied up the comments and reduced them to something less hard on the eyes – I think (hope!) I’ve made better use of Gravatars this time too.

So, thats it. I still couldn’t hang on for the CSS Reboot but I’m happier with this design than I was before. For now anyway ;o)

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