Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Autism Events of 2009 - The Good, the Sad and the Ugly

As we turn towards 2010 these are AutismRealityNB's autism events of the year:

The Good 

Public authorities begin to acknowledge the extent of the autism crisis and the role of environmental factors.

1) In an historical development  IACC director Dr. Tom Insel acknowledged that environmental factors are a component of autism. 


2) The 
CDC estimated that between about 1 in 80 and 1 in 240, with an average of 1 in 110, children in the United States have an Autism Spectrum Disorder.


3) The CDC estimated that   29.3 to 51.2% of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders  also had an Intellectual Disability.  (That estimate itself misleads by including Aspergers with Autistic Disorder in estimating ID prevalence "on the spectrum"). The percentage of persons wih Autistic Disorder and  Intellectual Disability is approximately 75-80%. 





The Sad


4) Autistic Children continue to wander from their homes, some to perish as did young James Delorey of Nova Scotia. The autistic Nova Scotia boy left his home  prior to the onset of a bad winter storm.  Although he survived the storm initially, he suffered extreme hypothermia and died shortly there after. 


The Ugly 


5)  US President Barack Obama nominated to a national disability council a young University student with Aspergers Disorder who has held conflicting and ambiguous views on whether autism disorders are disabilities, has opposed curing autism and has organized protests of  events held to raise funds to benefit autistic children including funds for autism research. 


6) The Mainstream Media fawned over the anti-autism cure University student with Aspergers, and promoted his agenda, while failing to note that the protests he organized drew only a handful of protestors and that some other persons with Autism Spectrum Disorders disagreed with his anti-cure positions. The same mainstream media failed to note that families  trying to cure their own autistic children, many of whom are much more severely affect by Autistic Disorder and Intellectual Disability than  the anti-cure University student with Aspergers, are trying to help their children live the fullest, most rewarding lives possible.




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2 comments:

farmwifetwo said...

"are trying to help their children live the fullest, most rewarding lives possible."

Every day... including a promised trip to McD's for lunch today and sledding later this afternoon in the back yard. Have the perfect kid hill where the yard slopes to the field behind us... and just barely enough snow....

Just b/c I want more out of life for him... doesn't mean we're ignoring living.

Jean Nicol said...

I am glad our exchange on Twitter today brought me to your blog. Sadly I cannot stay here as long as I would like to, but I will come back. We may not always agree but I have no doubt I will always learn something. I think we would likely agree on a lot though! I have learned over the last 26 years since my first experience with autism and my obsession since, that there will always be something to learn about autism and I better be open to any possibility of that happening. Thank you for bringing me here. Good luck in all your endeavors. Conor is very lucky indeed to have you as an advocate and you are indeed very lucky to have Conor for a son.