Archive | Autism RSS feed for this section

Splitting AJAX Returned Data

21 Oct

I’m working on a new product site for the company I work for at the moment and am trying to utilise as much sensible AJAX as possible in order to enhance the usability of the pages without destroying the IA or accessibility.

One of the intriguing challenges I came across today was using innerHTML in a more refined way.

Lets say I have data I need to return from a PHP script that I need to funnel into separate markup elements when they’re returned to the page. How to do this perplexed me for awhile – my experiences of innerHTML was that results are returned in a big chunk.

First lets have a look at the PHP:

$type = $_GET['type'];

if($type == "1"){
	echo "Vat No";
        echo "";
}

And the markup I wanted to receive each of these two strings was as follows:

<p id="label"></p>
<p id="inputElem"></p>

*NB: No, I didn’t really put my form elements into p tags, this is a smaller example of what I did.*

Obvious what I want to do isn’t it? I want the phrase to go in the ‘label’ id element and the field to go in the ‘inputElem’ element. Here’s the Javascript I started with. First we set up the AJAX connection:

// 'xmlhttp' variable will hold the XMLHttpRequest object
var xmlhttp = false;
        
// If the user is using Mozilla/Firefox/Safari/etc
if (window.XMLHttpRequest) {
        xmlhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
        xmlhttp.overrideMimeType('text/xml');
}

// If the user is using IE
else if (window.ActiveXObject) {
        xmlhttp = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
}

And after that I declare a function that can be called onclick later:


function getUK() {
	var lB = document.getElementById("label");
	var iE = document.getElementById("inputElem"); 
 
	var url = "_inc/vat.php?type=1";    
	xmlhttp.open("GET", url, true);
    
	xmlhttp.onreadystatechange = function() {
		if(xmlhttp.readyState == 4) {

			var r = xmlhttp.responseText
			lB.innerHTML = r;

		}else{
			lB.innerHTML = "Error";
		}				
	};
	xmlhttp.send(null);  
}

Which is crap. I can’t get both elements in and seperate them. So what we need to do is make our string passed through from PHP to actually be an array object that we can split. So we change the above PHP to this:

$type = $_GET['type'];

if($type == "1"){
	echo "Vat No|";
}

Now we can refer to the responseText as an array like so:


function getUK() {
	var lB = document.getElementById("label");
	var iE = document.getElementById("inputElem"); 
 
	var url = "_inc/vat.php?type=1";    
	xmlhttp.open("GET", url, true);
    
	xmlhttp.onreadystatechange = function() {
		if(xmlhttp.readyState == 4) {

			var r= xmlhttp.responseText.split("|");
			lB.innerHTML = r[0];
			iE.innerHTML =  r[1];

		}else{
			lB.innerHTML = "Error";
		}				
	};
	xmlhttp.send(null);  
}

The important lines are:

var r= xmlhttp.responseText.split("|");
lB.innerHTML = r[0];
iE.innerHTML =  r[1];

in which we split the string on the ‘|’ character (or any other character you care to use yourself) and then refer to individual elements in the array in the appropriate place.

What Am I Missing?

13 Oct

JB Handley, golden boy of Generation Rescue recently spoke to another newspaper. I thought the reporter did a very good job of showing both sides of the issue (Kirby, Olmsted take note).

I did however, have to read the article a few times until it sunk in. These were the passages that confused me.

Jamie’s moods progress fluidly from joy to concentration to panic. He has full run of his parents’ sprawling home, a hypoallergenic realm with wool carpets, insulation made from blue jeans and HEPA filters to clean the air.

One afternoon this summer, Jamie dragged his father by the finger to a mattress in the middle of the basement floor and, holding onto both of his hands, began jumping up and down, lofting higher and higher with each leap. The game was an autistic obsession. The blond boy sprang up again and again, never tiring, his face frozen in an expression of total joy.

Jamie eventually moved from the mattress to his train set, another obsession, and later to the table, where he covered reams of paper with spiraling circles, using his teeth to uncap each pen in the box until all the lids and pens lay on the floor where he cast them aside. All the while, he didn’t speak a word.

Three months later, Jamie had learned to point at things he wanted and to wave goodbye. He still screamed shrilly, ran back and forth, and didn’t speak in front of a reporter. His parents have augmented the biomedical regimen with other treatments—speech and occupational therapy and applied behavioral analysis, an intensive program that teaches autistic children to mimic “normal” behaviors, like waving goodbye.

So what am I confused about? Well, Jamie sounds exactly like my child. She does all the things Jamie is listed as doing above. In fact, in terms of her progress, she sounds ‘further along’ than Jamie. She has a few words now and the beginnings of a sentence or two although of course, like Jamie she has setbacks and meltdowns.

In fact the only appreciable difference between them as far as I can tell is that JB and Lisa chelate Jamie and we don’t chelate our daughter.

As I say, I’m totally confused. I thought chelation was supposed to ‘cure’ or ‘reverse’ autism? I was expecting to read about a Son-Rise style reversal where Jamie is verbal, engages constantly with the reporter etc. What I’m reading here is the normal progression of an autistic child. Now, granted I don’t know the exact program that Jamie is on but I know he must’ve been on it for a few months now. I’m also aware that he’s on TD DMPS. Read into that what you will.

I don’t mind admitting I’m a bit shocked by this. I was curious as to what a ‘recovered’ autistic child would be like and now it seems I have my answer – they’re just like an autistic child but without the sometimes painful comorbidities. If the Handley’s have removed those painful comorbidities then they’re to be congratulated. I am, however, at a loss to explain their statement that:

evidence that their cure is working can be seen in Jamie’s behavior

Cure for what? Mercury poisoning? Possibly. Autism? I really don’t think so. I didn’t before but I’m even less convinced after reading this.

The End

10 Oct

This is the last post that I’ll be making concerning Megan directly.

It seems that there are a lot of people who don’t appreciate the fact that I write honestly and openly (within reason) about my daughter and some aspects of our life together. That takes on a variety of forms. From some people it manifests itself as invective against me or (incredibly) against Megan herself. This has become increasingly hard to bear.

For others it seems that this takes the form of seeing what I write as a personal attack on them. To a large extent thats their issue. I say nothing on here that I haven’t said in the appropriate places. However, its becoming increasingly apparent that what I talk about on here in respect to Megan could have serious repercussions for certain aspects of her life. I don’t want, either directly nor indirectly, to jeapordise these vital aspects of her development so I choose to remain silent on these issues where they affect Megan directly from this point on.

This blog first started as a personal account of Megan’s development. It was my personal wailing wall and we hoped it would be (in times to come) our scrapbook of the various things in Megan’s development we could look back on and relive.

I have recieved the greatest amount of feedback of any of the subjects I talk about on this site on issues regarding Megan. People want to know how she’s doing and for far flung relatives the blog served its primary function of an online diary. For friends and colleagues made online I know that discussing Megan’s issues provided a mechanism to express thoughts, fears, hopes and opinions regarding their own autistic children. By and large my posts on this subject were positive and people saw them in that light. I received on average 4 to 5 emails a day asking how Megan was doing with (for example) Melatonin or if her huge progress at school last year was being maintained. Sometimes people felt they ‘know’ Megan well enough to see aspects of their own kids mannerisms or behaviours and this encouraged them to talk about things either in the comments or via email that they might not have otherwise asked. A lot of my web developer colleagues have professed that they knew nothing about autism until they read about it on here and feel that through coming to know Megan – albeit in an abstract way – they have a greater understanding of the nature of autism.

To all these people – I’m sorry. It gave me as much pleasure to write about Megan and her progress as it did for you to read about it. Unfortunately, we live in a world where these things can be used as weapons against you and I can’t expose Megan’s developmental progress to such a risk.

Where Are All The Adult Autistics?

5 Oct

Anyone remember David Kirby?

Citizen Cain who had a dialogue going with Kirby for awhile probably does. Unfortunately, since CC showed Kirby how wrong he was Kirby’s gone very very quiet on that front.

One of the big – if not the biggest – dependencies that the whole autism = thiomersal poisoning rests on is the existence of the so-called ‘autism epidemic’. Without the ‘epidemic’ there is no rise in prevalence and without a rise in prevalence there is no mystery surrounding the causes of autism. In fact, if there’s no epidemic then this refutes the idea that thiomersal causes autism as the amount of thiomersal (before its removal) in vaccines rose sharply. Without a corresponding ‘epidemic’ the whole shebang is dead in the water.

One of the key points then become the existence of adults on the spectrum. If they exist in large numbers then there can be no real rise in prevalence and hence no epidemic. As David Kirby himself said:

When it comes to autism, here is one of the key questions we should be asking: if autism…..has always been prevalent at the same constant rate, then where are the 1-in-166 autistic 25-year-olds (those born in 1980)? Where are the 1-in-166 autistic 55-year-olds? Why can’t we find them?

David Kirby

Firstly, lets note that the 1 in 166 figure is in hot dispute and based on the California DDS numbers which California themselves say are not reliable for tracking autism prevalence (see Citizen Cain link above).

The big problem with answering Kirby’s question is that these people are not tracked and recorded accurately – or at all in some places. However, thats not the point. Kirby is saying they don’t exist in high enough numbers. Whilst its impossible to prove or disprove that exact point its easy to demonstrate that there are a _lot_ of adult autistics.

A 2004 audit on ASD in Scotland tried to present on overall report on the ‘state of ASD knowledge’ in Scotland. Most striking to me as I read the report was the comments that each local authority/NHS partnership had regarding an answer to the following question:

Research tells us that prevalence rates of autistic spectrum disorder represent an underestimate. To what extent do you consider the numbers above to be an accurate reflection of all those who live in your area?

Argyll & Bute Council
It is believed that the figures represent a significant under-representation of those with ASD in Argyll and Bute. This was thought to be due to a historical under-diagnosis and the absence of clearly defined referral pathways and multi-agency assessment processes for adults.

East Renfrewshire Council, NHS A&C and Greater Glasgow NHS
…as a result of changing patterns of diagnosis over recent years there are likely to be substantial numbers of adults with ASD who are not known to services and are not diagnosed as having ASDs.

AYRSHIRE AND ARRAN
It is apparent that information collection and collation for adults is almost non existent.

DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY
There is little doubt that this number is far short of the actual number of adults in Dumfries & Galloway with ASD.

GRAMPIAN
There is low diagnosis for longstanding clients, whom workers are aware have autism as well as a learning disability.

HIGHLAND
It is believed that these figures comprise a significant underestimate due to the lack of a diagnostic process particularly for adults. It is believed that the figures for younger children are accurate due to the development of diagnostic tools for children are accurate due to the development of diagnostic tools for children and the establishment of multi-disciplinary partnerships which include education.

LANARKSHIRE
The estimated numbers provided for the pre-school and primary school ages are thought to be a reasonably accurate reflection of the true picture. However the estimated number of secondary school children is less accurate and the estimated number of adults with ASD is likely to be a considerable underestimate of the true prevalence.

ORKNEY
Figures for children are an accurate representation of needs. One or two children may yet be diagnosed. Figures for adults are under estimated as diagnosis has not been made and access to specialists is variable.

Perth & Kinross Council
Figures for adults reflect the national findings that the numbers known to services/diagnosed represent a significant underestimate of those individuals likely to be affected. For example day centre managers locally consider a number of people to be on the spectrum who have had no formal diagnosis.

Pretty interesting stuff I think you’ll agree. This means that about 45% of the areas questioned said that the prevalence for adults was grossly underestimated, badly reported and that a lot of these adults exist without diagnosis.

A secondary question also of note asked:

What changes are there in demand in the last 5 years? Are there increased numbers? If so, what do you attribute this to?

Just about every area reported an increase and all areas attributed to either, reclassification of some people (especially adults) from Learning Difficulties to ASD, increased awareness of ASD generally and in medical circles and improved diagnosis. Perhaps the most amusing answer came from whomever compiled the reports for Shetland who said:

Demand for diagnosis, therapy, respite and alternative treatments. Any increase in numbers is attributed to jungle/grape vine, internet, parent support group and media.

Maybe David Kirby should pack the second revised draft of Evidence of Harm into his Sporran and come and find some decent research. That would make a nice change for him.

The Answer To Autism?

4 Oct

Yesterday, the Herald published a story about how they may have ‘the answer to autism’.

It turned out that it was a story about an upcoming conference in October run by the charmingly named Action Against Autism. My US readers may be very familiar with the speaker list.

The Herald article came out with some choice quotes such as:

…in fact, that American ASD specialists have described it as an “epidemic”. That term may have the ring of hyperbole about it but the facts do appear to substantiate it.

and

According to McCandless, one of autism’s primary triggers is a direct injury to the gastrointestinal system through over-vaccination and use of antibiotics

So I decided to write them an email detailing the _actual_ facts as oppose to the _respun_ facts:

Sir,

I would like to respond to your very unbalanced and misrepresentative article regarding autism, its status as an ‘epidemic’ and the likely causes and treatments of autism.

In your article you state that:

In other countries, most notably the US, the situation is even worse, so much worse, in fact, that American ASD specialists have described it as an “epidemic”. That term may have the ring of hyperbole about it
but the facts do appear to substantiate it.

You are actually in error. The facts (by which I mean scientific, peer reviewed evidence) indicate there is *no* epidemic of autism. There is an increase in numbers but that does not indicate an increase in prevalence. A recent article in New Scientist provided a good overview of the situation including the results of the latest research into the subject but I wish to quote from it below:

One team, however, is ahead of the game. Back in July 1998, Fombonne and Suniti Chakrabarti of the Child Development Centre in Stafford, UK, started screening every child born in a four-year window (1992 to 1995) who lived in a defined area of Staffordshire, 15,500 children in total. As a result, they established baseline figures for autistic spectrum disorders – about 62 per 10,000. Then they did it again, in exactly the same place and exactly the same way, this time with all the children born between 1996 and 1998. In June this year, they reported that the prevalence of autism was unchanged (American Journal of Psychiatry, vol 162, page 1133). “This study suggests that epidemic concerns are unfounded,” concludes Fombonne.

The use of the term ‘epidemic’ to describe autism is an insulting and derogatory term to apply to a whole subsection of people. It has connotations way beyond its literal meaning and can only add to the misinformation and hysteria which already surrounds autism.

Some other speakers at the AAA conference include Boyd Haley, who once infamously referred to autistic children as suffering from ‘mad child disease’. On the back of the subsequent uproar, Haley claimed he had invented an acronym based on his belief that autism is in fact mercury poisoning. He said he was referring to *M*ercury *A*quired *D*isease when saying ‘mad’. Obviously a poor linguist, he failed to spot that when lengthened out, his phrase would read ‘mercury acquired disease child disease’.

The hidden agenda of AAA (and the vast majority of the invited speakers) is that autism is in fact mercury poisoning, received in the form of thiomersal in vaccines. They say that the thiomersal (used as a preservative in vaccines a few years ago) has somehow caused autism. They say this has given rise to an epidemic of autism. The science in no way whatsoever supports their position and in fact refutes it. No science has been done that indicates a causative link between thiomersal and autism and these ‘scientists’ inhabit the same murky world of quackery as Andrew Wakefield of recent MMR scandal infamy.

The reason I say this is that not only do these ‘scientists’ believe (in the total absence of proof) that autism is mercury poisoning, they also believe that a very controversial type of treatment – chelation (pronounced ‘key-lay-shun’) can ‘cure’ or ‘reverse’ autism. Again, they have no evidence for this belief – no science has been done on its efficacy. In fact, one ‘renowned’ chelationist Dr Rashid Buttar peddles a trans dermal form of chelation that come in the form of a skin cream. This cream has also never been tested for safety or efficacy. It is in fact highly unlikely to ever pass through the skin. Dr Buttar charge $800 for a consultation. He also believes he can cure cancer and reverse old age.

Recently, another form of chelation called EDTA-IV chelation killed a 5 year old autistic boy in the US . This procedure was carried out despite there being no link between autism and thiomersal, no real similarity between the symptoms of autism and the symptoms of mercury poisoning and no research conducted on either the safety of, not the efficacy of, chelation as a treatment for autism. One of the speakers at the AAA conference, Anju Usman, was the close colleague of Roy Kerry, the Doctor who administered th dose of EDTA to the five year old boy above.

On the other hand, research into valid, respectful and non-dangerous interventions has dwindled in this country. The figure for monies related to autism dedicated to this research is 8%. From that article:

UK research into the causes and treatment of autism is seriously behind that of other countries, a report says. It says the row over a possible link with the MMR jab has over-shadowed the fact that little is known about the behavioural disorder.

What I fear is two-fold. By pandering to this continuing association with vaccines, autism research risks getting sucked into a biomedical dead end. Its tempting to follow that path (and as Dad to an autistic child I did indeed follow that path for awhile) but it offers no answers and as evidenced above, that path can lead to some very nasty places. People lie in wait like predators, ready to take advantage of your ignorance and charge you to the hilt for the pleasure. I urge all parents to question the motives of anyone linked to the non-scientific treatment of autism. There is often a heavy financial price to pay and sometimes a heart breaking non-financial one.

My other fear is that by allowing people like this to discard our autistic children as the results of an ‘epidemic’ or a ‘living hell’
or to describe our kids as ‘lost’ (my daughter is right where I left her!) we create even more negativity about a condition that already carries a heavy load of stigmatising misinformation. What I would hope for my daughter is that she remains free from people attempting to ‘cure’ her and that we as a society can progress to a point where people like my daughter can be free to be who they are, receive treatment for the debilitating accompanying conditions that sometimes come with autism and that autism can be seen as a difference more than a disability.

Thanks for your time.

###ends###

They mailed me back thanking me for my email and asking for my postal address so they could consider it for publication so I’m hopeful someone somewhere will read it and think twice.

Blogoposium I: Web 2.0

26 Sep

Ken over at Technosight will be hosting the inaug, inagru first ever Blogoposium this Wednesday and will be discussing a subject I blogged about fairly recently: the phenomenon of Web 2.0. Ken mailed me saying:

I think you could really add something to the conversation, especially because you are not necessarily drinking the ‘cool-aid’ of Web 2.0 (which is one question I am asking people to address).

Well, I’m as open to flattery and delusions of being a maverick as anyone else so I thought – ‘hey, I’m a designer (big ego) _and_ I’m a blogger (also big ego) therefore I must really _really_ believe what I say is worth listening to – so, what the hell.’

So I mailed Ken back saying I’d love to be involved. The idea reminds me a little bit of the various blog carnivals that my good friend Orac runs/hosts/gets involved in and I think its an attempt to utilise the power of blogs in a coordinated and semantic manner – which is always a good thing.

Ken is looking for lots of involvement on this and as I think its a great idea (and lets face it, the design/development blogosphere talks about these things in a meme-like fashion anyway so it may as well be formalised and organised) I also think it would be a good idea for lots of people to get involved.

Ken has a few incentives to offer to the first 30 people to trackback on the day itself (Wed 28th Sept – thats this Wed fact fans):

The first 30 trackbacks will receive a complimentary copy of the advanced uncorrected proof of Seth Godin’s The Big Moo (the book doesn’t come out till October).

which is jolly decent of him.

Now, a lot of the design/dev bloggers _I_ know are as egotistical and opinionated as I am – so ladies and gentlemen – have at it.

Unobtrusive, Accessible Collapsible Content

19 Sep

I’m stretching my Javascript legs a bit at the moment and am beginning to really enjoy the freedom that decent DOM support across the major browsers offers.

I recently had occasion to create an ‘events’ page which will be inserted into an upcoming project. As there will be a lot of events being added to this page I wanted to create it as a collapsible unordered list. But as a Javascript ‘workout’ for myself I resolved that I would only use Javascript that was unobtrusive, degraded gracefully and was accessible as possible. that meant no onclick attributes, no ‘#’ in href attributes and code that was valid and clean.

Here’s the markup:

<h1>Events Listing</h1>	
	
<p>Browse the listing for upcoming events</p>
			
<ul class="open">
	
<li>
		
<h2>4th Annual &ndash; Summit</h2>
			
<ul id="ul_item1" class="opensub">
<li id="item1_1">
<h3>22nd September 2005, Main Campus</h3>
<p>blah blah blah....</p>
</li>
</ul>
		
</li>
					
<li>
		
<h2>Managing the Market Or Some Such Bollocks</h2>
			
<ul id="ul_item2" class="opensub">
<li id="item2_1">
<h3>24th November 2005. The Conference Centre</h3>		
<p>etc etc etc...</p>
</li>
</ul>					                             
		
</li>
	
</ul>

Fairly self-explanatory markup. The sublists hold the content but users with Javascript and CSS enabled will get a clickable link (not shown in this markup – patience my precious…) whilst those without will just get this.

I then wrote three fairly simple javascript codeblocks (two functions and one class). Function number one I called ‘toggle’ and thats what it does. When a specific link is clicked, it either shows or hides an element. Like so:

function toggle(id){
var ul = "ul_" + id;
var img = "img_" + id;
var ulElement = document.getElementById(ul);
var imgElement = document.getElementById(img);
if (ulElement){
 if (ulElement.className == "closed"){
  ulElement.className = "opensub";
  imgElement.src = "opened.gif";
  }else{
  ulElement.className = "closed";
  imgElement.src = "closed.gif";
  }
 }
}

So, the function is passed a value referenced as ‘id’ (more on that later). It then appends that passed value onto the end of two elements and applies a class of ‘closed’ or ‘opensub’ as appropriate.

What I wanted to do next was ensure that if the user didn’t have Javascript then the ‘opensub’ CSS class was applied (as we need to present the whole page to them) and if they do have Javascript then we need to apply the ‘closed’ class to the element.

I also wanted to ensure that if the user did have Javascript then he existing markup above was annotated with markup that will make each heading a clickable link and provide a little feedback in the form of an image. Hence:

function initState () {
var lists = document.getElementsByTagName("ul");
for (var j=0; j<lists.length; j++) {
 if(lists[j].className == "opensub") {
  lists[j].className = "closed";
 }
}	
var subHeads = document.getElementsByTagName("h2");
for (var k=0; k<subHeads.length; k++) {
 var arrImg = document.createElement("img");
 arrImg.src="closed.gif";
 arrImg.id="img_item" + [k+1];
 subHeads[k].appendChild(arrImg);
 var holdText = subHeads[k].firstChild.data;
 subHeads[k].firstChild.data = "";
 var placeAnchor = document.createElement("a");
 placeAnchor.href = "test.htm";
 placeAnchor.id = "item" + [k+1];
 placeAnchor.className = "ddown";
 placeAnchor.appendChild(document.createTextNode(holdText));
 subHeads[k].appendChild(placeAnchor);
 }
}

This function has two main parts. The first part (knowing that the user does have javascript installed – we'll see how later) turns all instances of 'opensub' (which displays to the page by default) to 'closed' – meaning a user with Javascript gets the 'rolled up' items. The second part hunts for all h2 elements and creates the markup for both the image and the clickable text in the heading element. These two lines:

var holdText = subHeads[k].firstChild.data;
subHeads[k].firstChild.data = "";

firstly, get the value of the text in the

element, stores it for later use and then gets rid of it – if it didn’t we’d have both the existing text plus the clickable text. Which would be crap.

Once all this is coded we need a way to fire this whole process. I did this in the class below:

window.onload = function() {
  if (!document.getElementsByTagName) return false;
  initState();
  var lnks = document.getElementsByTagName("a");
  for (var i=0; i<lnks.length; i++) {
    if(lnks[i].className == "ddown"){
      lnks[i].onclick = function() {
        toggle(this.getAttribute("id"));
        return false;
      }
    }
  }
}

The crucial line is line 2:

if (!document.getElementsByTagName) return false;

This says that if the browser doesn't support the prerequisite method then the whole things off, the extra markup doesn't get created and everything appears on the page all at once.

This function also passes the 'id' value to the 'toggle' function by getting the id attribute value of the link thats been clicked.

To complete this whole thing we lastly need to create the CSS that will do the actual showing and hiding:

h2 a {
display: inline;
}

.open {
display: block;
}

.closed {
display: none;
}

ul li,
ul {
list-style-type: none;
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
}

.open li img {
vertical-align: middle;
}

And thats that – job done. See it in action or download the whole thing here.

Amended

I thought it might be nice to see if we could close every other entry when one entry is clicked – this means only one entry is ever displayed which might be preferable for some. All this needs is some minor tweaks to the Javascript.

For the function initState() I added the line:

arrImg.className="ddImg";

Immediately below this one:

arrImg.id="img_item" + [k+1];

So I have a class to hook myself into in the next function – toggle(id).

I’ve added two new if statements here that firstly close up all the ul elements with the class name ‘opensub’ and then closed all the img elements with the (see above) class name ‘ddImg’. What’ll happen later in this function is that the selected id will be passed in exactly the same manner as it was before thus opening the correct list and image. Here’s the annotated code for toggle(id)

var allLists = document.getElementsByTagName("ul");
for (var x=0; x<allLists.length; x++) {
if(allLists[x].className == "opensub") {
 allLists[x].className = "closed";
 }
}
var allListImg = document.getElementsByTagName("img");
 for (var y=0; y<allListImg.length; y++) {
 if(allListImg[y].className == "ddImg") {
  allListImg[y].src = "closed.gif";
 }
}

I put this code right at the very start of the function.

And thats that. Whenever you click on an entry, all other open entries will shut automatically.

The example’s here and the download is here.

Amendement No II

And its only now of course that I remember that screenreader users invariably _do_ have Javascript turned on and that display: none hides things from the screenreader.

One frantic search later, I find the answer in the Off-Left technique. So the code for the closed class now reads:

.closed {
 position: absolute;
 left: -999px;
 width: 990px;
}

A More Accurate Neurodiversity FAQ

17 Sep

*Proviso: I am not a spokesperson for any other person and/or group. The term ‘neurodiversity’ did not originate with me. What follows is my personal opinion and what I believe the concept of neurodiversity represents. I believe I voice opinions common to many in the neurodiversity group but I may well be wrong. Sometimes I refer to ‘we’ and sometimes ‘I’. When I refer to ‘we’ I think I am repeating the consensus of neurodiversitiy opinion but bear in mind I could well be wrong.*

*1) Neurodiversity proponents are anti-parent.*

False. I’m a parent. I’m parent to 3 kids of whom one is NT, one is autistic and one is too young to tell. I’ve never felt anyone in the ‘neurodiversity crowd’ is anti me. Kathleen is a parent. Camille is a parent. Anne is a parent.

*2) AutAdvo makes up the entire population of Neurodiversity proponents.*

False. There are literally hundreds of websites with thousands of participating autistics of all ‘levels’. The vast majority advocate acceptance. There are also a very large number of NT parents who advocate Neurodiversity. The desire to cure autism is heavily weighted towards North America. Look among your own group for evidence of that.

*3) Neurodiversity proponents say we should not treat our kids.*

False. This is one of the biggest points of contention. The issue is one of autism (the main point) versus comorbidities (side points). See the WikiPedia definition of comorbidity. What are some comorbidities? Gastric problems, ADHD, ADD, Depression, migrane. Why would you imagine we don’t want you to treat these things? These things are not autism. They are comorbidities of autism. They cannot be used to illustrate or define autism as they are not common to every autistic.

Don’t take my word for it. Go ask the Doctor who diagnosed your child.

We see your error as the failure to differentiate between the comorbidity and the autism. To us, one is treatable. The other is not. We do not fight for your childs right to have gastric issues.

You see our error as trying to prevent your child being treated. My own daughter receives PECS and Speech Therapy. I would not stand in any parents way who wanted to alleviate the suffering of their kids. Having terrible constipation is suffering. Having a different kind of thought process is not.

_Please note: It is worth reading Amanda’s thoughts on autism/comorbidities as they differ slightly from what I’ve written here. My own understanding of how this process pans out is altering as a result of this exchange with Amanda but I write here what is my most complete belief as of this minute._

*4) Neurodiversity proponents who are autistic are different than my child.*

True. They are mostly adults. Your kids are kids. However I don’t think thats your point. You believe that all autistic Neurodiversity proponents are ‘high functioning’. This is untrue, both now and historically. The facts are that for a lot of the autistic adults in the Neurodiversity movement their diagnosis was ‘low functioning’ when they were kids. But people grow and progress. Autism doesn’t stop progress, it just sets a different timetable for it. These adults are living breathing proof.

*5) Neurodiversity proponents are full of hate and/or racism.*

False. Just like you, we get angry and say stupid things. What Jerry Newport said was not on. Simple as that. It was, in my opinion, unacceptable. I am though totally bewildered how the words of one man apparently speak for everyone else. I’ve seen the posts from the other members of AutAdvo following Jerry Newport’s post. People were angry and disappointed with him. Not one person defended his position.

I was bemused to read posts by newer members of the EoH list (and one founding member) that castigated us for hate speech. Here’s an excerpt from an email I was sent earlier in the year from someone who hid their identity. This person (who had a Bellsouth IP address) had an in-depth knowledge of Evidence of Harm and although they never said so, that they came from EoH is beyond doubt – I received this email to my Yahoo spam account immediately after making a few posts myself on EoH.

Your retard daughter should just be fucking put down – shes no autist. Little bitch.

And racism? A member of Generation Rescue (or so they claimed) told me to:

…sit next to the nearest Arab with a backpack.

Alluding, of course, to the recent London suicide bombings, this person makes racist generalisations about Arabs (one of the ironies being that Rashid Buttar is himself of Arabic descent I understand) as well as wishing death on me.

Generation Rescue Bigwig John Best Jr has said that all parents of autistics who don’t chelate their kids are child abusers. Lujene Clarke of NoMercury told me that I was mentally ill because I said I had autistic relatives. My EoH debut was preceded by EoH list members referring to me as an idiot. I’ve been told I’m in the pay of Pharma companies, that I’m stupid, that I’ll go to Hell, that I’m in denial. My autistic friends have been told they are sociopath, that they have personality disorders, that they aren’t really autistic.

All of you who who rightly condemned Jerry Newport’s words – I urge you to denounce these examples of bigotry and hate too.

*6) Neurodiversity proponents say we don’t love our kids or want whats best for them.*

False. I have no doubt that you all love your kids just as much as I love mine. I’ve not seen any neurodiversity proponent claim you hate your kids.

What we say is that we think your love for your kids has blinded you to the reality that autism itself is not a problem to overcome but a reality to share with your child. We think that in your honest desire to do the best for your child you are desperate to treat the wrong thing. We also feel that some of the things you use to treat your kids are dangerous. Chelation for example. I’m on record as saying that its no-ones place to tell others what they can and cannot do to treat their kids but by that same token, I feel obliged to point the very real dangers to both your children’s health, your own bank balance and the very future of autism treatment research.

I believe the world should change for the good of my child. I don’t believe my child should meekly inherit the mantle of ‘second class citizen’. I see it as part of my job to fight for her right to get the help she needs and at the same time, be who she is.

There are so many better fights than this one you’re on. Better education, better care, better interventions, more rights, more respect. These are the things your child (and mine) will need as they continue to grow.

We’d like you to respect your child’s autism as something unique. We’d like you to treat your child with the medical interventions for their comorbidities that they may need to progress. We’d like you to realise that your children will grow up and if they were autistic then they still will be. We’d like you to think about the strong possibility that one day the autistic adults on AutAdvo might be your kids and another set of parents who believe something passionately will be insulting them by denigrating their worth and their neurology.

You believe thiomersal did your kids harm. You may be right. I doubt it, but you may be. What it definitely didn’t do though is cause autism. This is at the heart of what makes some of us angry in respect of this issue – treat your kids if they are mercury poisoned but please stop propagating so much negative stigma with constant references to autism being mercury poisoning.

*7) So autism is definitely not mercury poisoning?*

Definitely’s a very strong word. The consensus of opinion is that that is very unlikely to be true. In my daughters case, its definitely not true. Autism is a spectrum, its not an ‘either/or’ scenario. I think its likely that some people have a genetic predisposition for autism which may be triggered by an environmental insult and that that trigger may even be mercury in some cases but ‘trigger’ does not equal ’cause’. Even if what I believe is 100% accurate (which is doubtful, who is ever 100% accurate?) that would still mean the vast majority of autistics are autistic for reasons other than mercury.

*8) So why do neurodiversity proponents say they speak for my child?*

The way I see it is like this – I and my wife know our daughter better than anyone else alive. Whilst she is a child, we speak for her in all matters. But the fact is that she is autistic. It therefore is simple common sense that other autistics have thought processes closer to those of my daughter than any NT does. They think in similar ways. Its not a case of speaking *for*, its more like having a shared reality. If one or more of my kids were gay than I would still speak for them in all matters whilst they were children but not being gay I could not share that reality in the same way as other gay people could. By virtue of their shared reality of autism our kids and autistic adults share an area of being that NT parents can never share. Like it or not, that does give them a commonality and communal existence. With that community sometimes comes a voice. Can you really say, as NT parents, that you are closer in thought process to your kids than autistic adults? When it comes to what makes autistics tick can you really say that you as NT’s know better than other autistics?

Compare The Rhetoric

15 Sep

Its no secret. I’m firmly of the opinion that Lenny Schafer is a borderline bigot. He recently wrote an open letter to his Evidence of Harm list mates which I repeat below:

I should like to provide a summary to this encirculing (sic) discussion. The autistics condemnation of those who seek a cure for autism rely on two rhetorical devices to do so. First, is their special, cultural and vague definition of autism. The other is a cynical definition of “cure”. The autistic movement indeed condemns parents who do not agree with their creed. They have joined legal efforts to restrict the funding of ABA programs in Canada and often engage the media to attack parents who seek cures for their children.

Let there be no mistaking it, the “don’t cure autism” rhetoric is little more than a vehicle for parent bashing. This is both irrational and unjust. It may not be Stephen Shore’s intent to condemn anyone, but the movement for which he attempts to apologizes for does; it is not so easy to weasel away one’s personal support of such efforts with platitudes about helping people. This is not just about honest differences of opinion; this is about a creed who intends to interfere with the quest of parents to relieve their children from the misery of clinical autism.

Its the same old stuff from Schafer. Clinical autism. Yeah. Parent bashing. Right. He acts out of fear and a closed mind. By contrast, here’s a recent post from Wade Rankin. Its a long post which needs to be read in full but the last two paragraphs spoke to me:

In the biomedical community, we often throw around the word “cure.” When I use that word, I know what I mean and most other people who practice biomedical know what I mean. We are seeking to alleviate the dysfunctional aspects of ASD in our children. We will never alter the genetic makeup of our children, and to the extent genes make them autistic, they will remain autistic. I can live with that. But I believe that one or more environmental insults has acted in concert with my son’s genetic makeup to create stumbling blocks that keep him from using all of this gifts. I cannot believe I am wrong in trying to reduce the effects of those environmental insults.

On the other hand, when I am confronted with the eloquence of Kathleen Seidel or the extraordinary testimony of an adult with autism who wants no “cure,” I have to realize that the issues surrounding ASD are not easily addressed by one-size-fits-all answers. Could the “cure” we seek help other people who reject biomedical interventions? Perhaps, but that’s not a necessary given. More importantly, that’s not my choice to make.

Wade Rankin.

How refreshing. Someone at least prepared to question and look. I know I’ve thought differently of some of the people involved in the Biomedical camp since encountering Wade online. I don’t agree with his use of the word ‘cure’ and I wonder if he were autistic himself whether or not he would see enough of his behaviour as dysfunctional enough to _require_ a cure but I also believe he acts out of a genuine desire to help his children. I genuinely do not know what desires move a man like Lenny Schafer. All I know that reading what he writes is like feeling a cold wind on one’s spine. He’s become the poster boy for intolerance.

The best thing about Wade is that he is obviously a man who understands the power that words carry. Unlike Schafer who uses his words as a blunt weapon, Wade is often reflective to the point of hesitancy when trying to explain his thoughts. Its so refreshing to hear someone from the Biomed camp describe gettingthetruthout.org as ‘extraordinary’. I shudder to think what Schafer would describe that site as and I genuinely have no desire to hear his thoughts on the matter.

The Evidence of Harm maillist recently ‘outed’ Orac. They published his real name, contact info including tel number on EoH. Various hangers on repeated the information on their own sites. Schafer did nothing to prevent this although he recently become apoplectic when Jerry Newport of AutAdvo apparently did the same to him. maybe he thought it was just revenge.

However, a lot of EoH members protested this stupidity and questioned the motives of the EoH attack dogs like Ashleigh Anderson, who did the ‘outing’. A few people left expressing disgust with what the list had become.

EoH maillist is crumbling. I hope when it does crumble that out of the rubble steps a man like Wade to create a group that is capable of thinking instead of blindly lashing out. He is an honourable man with honourable intent. A lot of people on EoH would benefit from a leader less prone to bigotry and more prone to reflection. I sincerely hope they get it.

Microsoft IE/DOM Naming Conventions

13 Sep

I’ve recently had occasion to get more heavily into DOM and AJAX scripting and I have to say I’m quite enjoying it. I’ve ordered Jermey Keith’s new book on the subject but In true impatient style have got on with it a bit.

The last time I really used Javascript consistently was when we didn’t care how we used onclick attributes or cluttering our markup with frightening amounts of functions in links. It always vaguely annoyed me back then but I didn’t have the Javascript expertise to address my concerns and besides, a lot of the stuff I really wanted to do wasn’t implemented in various browsers or was too haphazard.

Javascript has undergone something of a redemption of late – and why not? As Jeremy keith and others show, its fairly easy to make Javascript unobtrusive, accessible and as an interface enhancement as oppose to something thats just ‘cool’ with no real purpose.

The MagpieRSS/AJAX parser on the home page of this site is not very well coded but it enabled me to get to terms with the basics of doing and at some point I can revisit it and concentrate on doing it well.

But already I’ve run across an amusing throwback to the dear old days of browser sniffing because of a (ahem) certain browser.

Consider the following code:

if(subLinks[i].getAttribute("class") == "ddown")

I know the double equals signs are missing. I have no idea why but they just won’t render.

Its part of a larger object but I’ve taken it out so we can look at it in isolation. Its a fairly easy piece of code. Its saying, if the value of the ‘class’ attribute of the elements I’ve isolated is ‘ddown’….then go on to do something later in the code. Simple eh?

Except life’s never like that with IE is it? Try as I might, this line of code was tripping me up in IE. It worked fine in Moz, FFox and the latest version of Opera but no joy in IE. After a search I turned up this:

When retrieving the CLASS attribute using this method, set the sAttrName to be “className”, which is the corresponding Dynamic HTML (DHTML) property.

MSDN.

So is it? Are MS doing it right and everyone else doing it wrong? This seems highly unlikely.

Anyway, I now had to use a way of setting the right value for the right client. Luckily, because I was using AJAX I already had this:

if (window.XMLHttpRequest) {	  
	 .....
  }else if (window.ActiveXObject) {
      ......
  }

to name my request object,so I modified it slightly to add:

if (window.XMLHttpRequest) {	  
	  var classFix ="class";
  }else if (window.ActiveXObject) {
         var classFix ="className";
  }

And changed the offending line of code to:

if(subLinks[i.]getAttribute(classFix) == "ddown")

Now I’m not enough of an AJAX whiz to know if this is the right or wrong way or if this is a known issue or if I’ve missed something simpler. Please let me know if I have.

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →