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Messages By: redneckwannabe
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December 20, 2007, 12:20 pm PST
 Quote From: califlori After reading this shows intro about the child's violent behavior, it worries me that many people will view others with autism as potentially violent and even fear them. Violence is unusual for a person with autism. It is not the norm but gets the most attention of course. Since my son was diagnosed in March of 2000, I've been studying this disorder and hope that the show conveys to viewers that autism does NOT look the same on every person and each person with autism has a range of mild to severe behaviors that can arise. Many behaviors come and go as the child explores his world around him, tries to assimilate into the environments we've created and tries to desensitize himself to what can be overwhelming environmental triggers due to heightened senses. We need to have compassion because the population of people with autism has exploded since the 1990's and many many families have made significant progress with children who may have seemed unteachable to many. This enormous and growing population of people WITH autism (NOT autistics - impolite term to many) will be all of our co-workers, neighbors, spouses, class mates and ultimately our greatest teachers in the next two decades and then beyond. Your future grandchildren and even future son-in-law may have autism. Please honor and respect them and if you know of a relative, friend, school mate, or neighbor with autism, please do not be afraid of getting to know them better. They will develop more acceptable ways of expressing themselves by watching your example and thrive with attention. Just try to ignore the autistic behaviors and treat them like everyone else. It may take practice. The child featured on the show can be helped a great deal if the parent has help, resources and does research. What has helped my son the most is nutrition and biomedical help such as determining trigger foods, allergens and ridding the body of toxic build ups of yeast, metals, preservatives. Also, five years completed of speech and occupational therapies. And most importantly, treating and interacting with him as we'd treat him if he was any other typical child. He is now age 10 and doing better than ever expected. If you love somebody whose life has been touched by autism, THEY may not have enough time and energy to go on-line and research from thousands of websites to learn about all of the wonderful and varied approaches to helping their child or loved one with autism to thrive. YOU can help by learning all you can, reading, printing info and sharing with them. I hope this helps inform someone and I sincerely will answer any questions posed as I care very much about these kids and this topic. I will be back on-line after the holidays though. Thank you for reading. I am a mother of a 13 year old boy with Asperger's Syndrome, " high functioning autism". You are right that in the sense that these children are not normally violent, but all of these children do react differently when frustrated. My child does scream, yell, kick, bang his head and wail loudly and will resist and fight any type of hold that is used to help protect him. These behaviors are a way for these children to let you know that they are frustrated and they can not control some of these feelings and emotions. Alot of times if you know what triggers these actions you can learn to avoid situations that are hard for someone who is living with autism. Even in the school environment you need to be sure that all of your child's teachers have a clear understanding of what your child lives with on a daily basis, so that they can also learn to help avoid situations that may arise and prevent a posssible total meltdown. My child is a very bright and intelligent boy who excels in his academic work at school, but struggles everyday with friendships and social issues. I really think that there needs to be more awareness in society about autism, because I'm sure that everyday day is a challenge for any person dealing with this neurological disorder. All I can say is for 13 years my life has been enhanced with joy since I gave birth to this intriging child, I do not know any other life and could not imagine what my life without this loving boy would be like. I often wonder what is going on in his mind, because it seems like the wheels are always spinning and I know that he struggles with many different emotions daily. I have spent many hours researching and trying to understand this diagnosis, but I don't think any of us will ever understand truly what our child or any other person with autism has to deal with. All of these children are amazing and offer many different insights into the world of autism. All I can say is give your child unconditional right and fight for your child in school and out in the community because many people do not think that people with autism should participate in the same things as what other children do. I think that they do and that is why I am behind my child 110% in anything that he wants to do. Thanks for reading and if anyone would like to know more about my son feel free to e-mail me at redneckwannabe@verizon.com. MERRY CHRISTMAS |
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