Autism Awareness My...

By
Today, April Fool's Day, marks the beginning of "autism awareness" month. How appropriate. I was composing a somewhat snarcastic post bemoaning the complete lack of awareness of autism that is consistently demonstrated during this month of awareness but I just didn't have it in me. I hate repeating myself so this will likely be the extent of my autism awareness month special blogging unless Jenny McCarthy, Andrew Wakefield and the other usual fear mongering suspects say something more foolish than usual. Long and short of it: vaccines do not cause autism no matter how fervently some believe that it must be so. All those pricey therapies that people are pedaling are worthless. Save your money for your kid's college education. Autistic individuals are not lost, stolen, poisoned, damaged, broken or any other such thing. They are people worthy of the respect and consideration due them as human beings made in the image of God.

Here's some linky love of some stuff I've read recently as a thank you for reading this far.
Random (deserved) swipes at Jenny McCarthy
When the outbreaks begin, they'll start in California
Springtime for Stupid, or: Beware, a wave of stupid is about to fall upon the nation. Again.
The vaccine debate has a real cost
Cathy Lord: Setting standards for autism diagnosis

Comments

  1. CasdokApril 04, 2009 7:47 AM

    Well said!

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownApril 10, 2009 8:05 AM

    so, yeah i agree...i have yet to even pretend to write an awareness blog this month.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Rise Up In The Darkness

By
Image
The teenager who joked with me over physics and algebra homework tonight was 6 months old the morning of September 11, 2001. He spent that day like many other 6 month olds spend their days, exploring his world and being saved from his own curiosity by mom. That morning after I got tired of hauling him back from the edge of the bed he was intent on crawling over I took him downstairs to safer level terrain. I turned on the television to check the news like I did every morning back then. At first I was horrified by what I saw. One smoldering tower. Not long after, while all the reporters and newscasters were struggling to make sense of what they were seeing, one plane, another tower, and I was pissed. At that point I understood what was happening. Why did people think, and still think, that kind of wretchedness served their cause? I didn't care what the cause was. These were arrogant fools. But the news kept coming about just how wretched humanity had been to itself that day. The ...
Read more

Treating autism as traumatic brain injury

By
I've been doing research into autism, dyspraxia, how the normal brain works, and how an autistic/dyspraxic brain works (or doesn't work). Traumatic injury to different parts of the brain can cause the same problems suffered by autistic and dyspraxic children. Compare this list of the functions of different parts of the brain and the problems caused by injuries to those areas with these descriptions of dyspraxia and autism. What is Developmental Dyspraxia? Developmental dyspraxia is a disorder characterized by an impairment in the ability to plan and carry out sensory and motor tasks. Generally, individuals with the disorder appear "out of sync" with their environment. Symptoms vary and may include poor balance and coordination, clumsiness, vision problems, perception difficulties, emotional and behavioral problems, difficulty with reading, writing, and speaking, poor social skills, poor posture, and poor short-term memory. Although individuals with the disorder may b...
Read more