I'm weak, and he works out a ton. I think it wouldn't end well.
Anyway, Gabrael, since you're dealing with people who are institutionalized, that means that the autistics you're dealing with aren't necessarily the same ones who are out in society working and wanting to get jobs that actually utilize their skills. I believe all your personal stories, but it looks like you're working with the lowest out there - even the "high functioning" (however that term is defined) that you work with don't function as well as, say, many Aspie tropers.
I'd like to know more. How did the high functioning autistics you work with get institutionalized? What are they like?
Not everyone I work with is institutionalized.
Again, I am on call with the local school district and often have people call me independently to assist with their specific issues.
I run the gambit.
A high functioning autistic who has to be institutionalized? Those are easy. They're assholes. They're abusive, destructive assholes whose parents agree to put them in a center as a way to prevent criminal charges. Or they're there because their parents/guardians can't control them and have no other choice.
"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur
It does sound like you run across a lot. I'd like to hear more of your stories. It still sounds to me like you largely encounter the worst of what autism has to offer, even on the high functioning end, and that's coloring your perspective of autism.
Coloring my perspective of autism? That's a very bold thing to say, especially when you have no reason to.
Autism is just another disorder that people have. I judge ever case by that specific person. Yeah, I get the worst of it because the best of it doesn't need my help. They're too busy being happy and healthy to be an issue.
But Autism isn't anything special. Just like if I'm called in to consult with a psychotic or a kid with dyslexia.
People are people. They should be judged as individuals not as their disorder.
edited 24th Nov '14 11:04:27 AM by Gabrael
"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur
Fandom Heretic
I agree that people are people, and I'm glad you recognize that you're only seeing the worst of it. I guess there's not much to disagree on here.
I AM NOT ONLY SEEING THE WORST OF IT.
Dude, your selective reading is getting a bit draining.
"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur
I mean that you're exposed to the really bad cases (bad enough to request government help) far more than anything else, due to the nature of your job. Should have phrased it better.
edited 24th Nov '14 11:45:43 AM by BonsaiForest
Not really. I spent a year in the institution and the schools are all borderline cases where they just need advice on what to tweak for the kid, is there enough evidence to get the kid tested or to question a diagnosis, that sort of thing. Parents are the biggest problems.
Again, I've worked with the best of them, the ones who aren't really autistic and got them off the therapy, and the ones who need to be restrained. I've worked with the whole spectrum.
I don't just work with Autistics either. Like I said I work with psychotics, physically handicapped, abuse survivors, and other people with different disabilities and/or disorders just as much. Those stories are just not pertinent to this thread.
"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur
What kind of crap do you get from parents? Insistence that their kid is autistic when they're obviously not?
A nice butterfly
Among all disorders I would wager that for autism, parents would suffer the same (provided they are actual parents, and not. You know. Assholes.)
Fear.
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
1) Arguing with the diagnosis:
- Refusing to acknowledge their kid does have (insert issue)
- Refusing to acknowledge their kid does not have (Issue)
- Confusing what their child has with something else
2) Not listening to the damn doctors:
- Refusing to be consistent in treatment
- Not acknowledging proper boundaries in child's care/the capability of the kid
- Refusing to tell the whole truth about their child's performance
- Shopping for doctors until they find one who tells them what they want to hear
3) Being shit parents:
- Dumping their kids off on the state
- Dumping their kids off on other family not capable of giving care
- Half-assing involvement in their kid's life
V
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Is it worse if the parent(s) have mental disorders themselves?
Not just the parents.
A nice butterfly
Of course not just the parents. But...the question was about parents.
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
Depends on the disorder. Sometimes, the parent having an issue themselves makes them the best parents because they know better based on their own experience.
Like sometimes parents with a disorder or a disability (again, not everything I work with is mental or emotional) are really good about spotting warning signs. They already know their genetic history and know the chances of their kids' inheriting something. They already have good medical staff on call and won't argue with the doctors without good reason.
Parents with their own issues are also much better at pushing their child to the best of their capability and not handicapping their children, in general. They know what their kids need and what they're capable of and they push them to be productive, not enabled.
"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur
Finally, a far more in-depth article on the idea that autism isn't just one condition - it's hundreds
.
The article starts out comparing two very different 16-year-old boys diagnosed with autism. One is of the "quiet genius computer nerd" type, the other is more very obviously developmentally delayed, and acts child-like. Both have autism, but they're very different.
Raphael Bernier, a leader of the clinical side of the study at the University of Washington, knew things were on the right track when he saw two children with the same mutation in the span of about a week. He was struck by their similarities, such as wide-set eyes, a large head, or macrocephaly, and difficulty falling asleep. They were so alike that they could have been siblings, he says. “We started to say, there’s a pattern here; there’s a trend here,” Bernier recalls.
The team soon found 13 more individuals like them scattered across the world, most of them diagnosed with autism.
That right there sounds like the discovery of a very specific type of autism. It makes me wonder what kind of type I have.
I have heard of quite a few "special diet" success stories, and also of many people who said special diets didn't do jack. Maybe more research into genetics will show us why.
People with mutations in DYRK1A, another gene regulated by CHD8, also have intellectual disability, but not gut problems. They also have unusually small heads — the opposite of the macrocephaly seen in children with CHD8 mutations. The researchers suspect that DYRK1A and CHD8 play opposing roles in brain development, so that a mutation in one results in a small head and a brain with too few neurons, and a mutation in the other leads to too many neurons and an enlarged cranium.
This situation, if true, has implications for personalized therapy, because a treatment that benefits people with too few neurons may cause problems for those with too many. “I’m completely convinced that you cannot treat all autisms the same way,” says Eichler.
Oh, I agree with that. But now it's looking like it's way more complex than I'd ever thought.
And finally, this comment from an autistic:
edited 25th Nov '14 12:05:21 PM by BonsaiForest
A nice butterfly
Maybe in the general populace the idea that "One autism is exactly the same as other autisms" is prevalent but in medical science most disorders, if not all, are different and must be treated depending on their context, even if the diagnosis is the same. I dunno. I do not like the subjacent idea of the article that says "It is a brand new thing that until now scientists and doctors have reocgnized autistic people need individualized treatment".
Everyone does. For every psychiatric disorder. I have mentioned this before, that is what the multiaxial approach in DSM is for.
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
I'm thinking mostly in terms of what the general public knows/believes. And the general public doesn't know much. By and large, if a regular person hears that someone is autistic, they'll have certain assumptions about what that person is like - assumptions that are just as often as not wrong.
There is some controversy about whether all the various ASDs are (biologically) lumpable like that. I know that the brain anatomy patterns can be different between high- and low-functioning forms.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
A nice butterfly
Even if they were biologically similar, ASD itself would be impossible to treat with a panacea treatment. Being a disorder evidenced in the social structures in which the individual develops itself, the surroundings and such will definitely come into play and affect the person in its own way, and must be considered.
A child with ASD type 101 will be different than a child with ASD type 101 if they are in different income levels and schools, even if the genomes and such are the same, simply because of the different pressures and tools they are subjected to and have available
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
It the insurance companies that insist most strongly for standardized treatment of categorical conditions, for obvious reasons.
I think there’s a global conspiracy to see who can get the most clicks on the worst lies
A nice butterfly
True but there are centers and institutions of all sorts of disorders that treat it as some sort of packagge, like, having different set of professionals related to the disorder in reach to intervene if needed, and base everything off the package that it costs to acess the integral team of medical attention.
it is done in addiction recovery centers, where sometimes you are going to need dcotors, anesthesiologysts, psychiatrists, and sometimes you wont.
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
Someone with ASD should know better than to say someone is acting retarded.
- It's rude as fuck.
- He wasn't acting "retarded", he was acting Autistic. Just because your high functioning doesn't mean his disorder isn't the same as yours. You just got lucky in the genetic lottery to not be afflicted as heavily.
- What is "retarded"? Is that supposed to be Downs? Frontal Lobe Damage? Fetal Alcohol Syndrome? Low grade psychosis? Delayed Developmental Disorder? That's vague as well as insulting. There are thousands of conditions that could be affecting someone to make them behave in that way. Lumping them all under the umbrella of "retarded" is completely useless if nothing else.
True. I did say "pardon my language" because I was going with a crude mainstream term. Either way, I meant "obviously lower-functioning and very clearly disabled". I didn't know of a really simple way of saying that.
And also, according to the studies being made, his disorder might very well not be the same as mine. Though I am formerly non-verbal and lower-functioning.
edited 25th Nov '14 11:54:48 AM by BonsaiForest
Gabrael has extensive experience in the field of clinical cases and I am a profesional in the area of psychology. Our multilateral approach to the problem should suffice to provide a good purview of the situation.
IN THE NAME OF DIAGNOSTICS, YOU MUST PUNCH HIM. Trust Me, I'm a Doctor.
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes