Phoebe posted a short but sweet (and oh so important) link on her blog to celebrate Valentine’s Day - Autism is my valentine. She points readers to a website called Donors Choose where people can search for a teacher in search of supplies for his/her classroom. It is a sad but very true fact that many schools in the United States are underfunded - this is doubly so for classrooms dedicated to educating children with an autism spectrum disorder. By going to donorschoose.org and typing in the search phrase autism you are met with pages of teachers looking for supplies for their autism rooms. Instead of spending $50 on a dozen roses that will wither away and die soon, consider donating some much-needed items to a teacher.
Thank you Phoebe for the great idea!
I just received a Google Alert announcing that the Sundance Channel will be premiering the Autism Speaks/Lauren Thierry film “Autism Everyday” on World Autism Awareness Day. World Autism Awareness Day is April 2nd and was designated as such by the United Nations after a push by Autism Speaks (the day did have international support). The film Autism Everyday is truly a horrific film and at one point a parent talks about killing her child because dealing with “autism everyday” is so difficult. In May of last year, I posted some information on the film in my entry “Autism Everyday Backlash.”
Seeing this film promoted, in light of a recent case centering on the murder of an autistic child by her mother, sickens me. The mother in the case, Karen McCarron was ultimately found guilty on all charges. Perhaps those in the know at the Sundance Channel should really sit down and watch the video and look at the message that it is getting across and compare it to what the family of Katie McCarron has to deal with now that it isn’t “autism everyday.”
No time to expand further right now but I felt compelled to blog immediately.
I don’t know how many times a month I hear someone tell me, not knowing my family’s makeup, that ADHD is not real. Usually the comment is followed by a statement placing the blame on bad parents who can’t, or don’t want to, control their kids so they simply medicate them into a zombie state. Our local news station even had a special report with a local counselor who swore up and down that ADHD is simply not a real condition. As she sat there spewing her nonsensities, my son was jumping up and down incessantly trying to form a thought. This was around dinner time and obviously his medication had worn off. He never did get that sentence out.
I do agree with those that state that ADHD is overdiagnosed and overmedicated. I do think that some children are placed on ADHD medication for the benefit of the teacher(s) and/or the parent(s). Some children who are medicated are also like little zombies, I have seen it myself. My son, however, is not one of these. He is medicated because *he* notices the difference and likes the way he feels and act. I’ve mentioned it before, he even calls it his “control medicine.” Pretty insightful comment from a five year-old. Read my entry The Controversy Behind ADHD.
Parentingguides.org has an article up entitled “I Don’t Believe in ADHD” - it is more than worth the two minutes or so it takes to read it.
What an interesting week it has been with regards to autism news. The week started off with mass reporting of a new study confirming the fact that there is no statistical link between the MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella) vaccination and autism. Yes, another study detailing this lack of a link. Here are a few different blog entries discussing the study that I found interesting:
New Study Confirms No Link Between MMR and Autism at Autism News Direct
Surprise Surprise: No link between the MMR and Autism at Autism Vox
MMR Still Doesn’t Cause Autism (and never did) at Left Brain/Right Brain
My daughter has had one dose of the MMR vaccine - she received it after her autism diagnosis. She also had a nasty local reaction with a huge knot in her leg that didn’t go away for nearly six months. About a year after she received the innoculation, we found out she was allergic to eggs - ah hah!
Now on to the other study of the week, Vanderbilt University revealed the results of their research study looking at the benefit of melatonin usage to help children with sleep problems who are also on the autism spectrum. Melatonin is a mainstay in our house and we use it almost nightly. From the study:
“Twenty-five percent of parents reported they no longer had sleep concerns after using melatonin, 60 percent of parents reported the sleep problems had improved, 13 percent still had major concerns and only 1 percent (one child) had worse symptoms.”
My son falls into the 60 percent of children who have seen an improvement in sleep. My daughter falls into the 25 percent of children who no longer have sleep issues. Sure every now and then she has a sleepless night but between the melatonin and the weighted blanket, I think we’ve found the solution for her sleep problem. Our pediatrician is one of the more progressive-thinking doctors in the area and suggested melatonin to us over a year ago. Go Dr. L!
The Genetics in Medicine journal has published a research study in its January 2008 issue detailing a road map towards creating a genetic diagnostic test for autism spectrum disorders. I can only imagine what those who think autism is *only* vaccine-induced must be thinking. This quote from the study intrigued me:
Epidemiologic data support the presumption that autism is primarily a genetic disorder. The calculated heritability of autism is around 90%.
That is a pretty bold statement but one which makes sense, in my opinion.
To read the entire article, follow the link to the Autism News Direct’s report: Genetic Diagnosis for Autism Explored.
In my Google alert for ADHD there was a post by a mom detailing her experience trying to find a pediatrician for her daughter who was recently diagnosed with ADHD. Reading her post leaves me wondering if the black box warning label on most (if not all) ADHD medication has caused pediatricians to steer away from accepting these children as clients.
Read crazymamasusan’s post on her blog: Doctors Refuse to Accept ADHD Patients.
I’d love to hear what others think of this. I’m going to spend some time this evening and see if I can dig anything up on the topic.
I have redesigned the site. I’m not sure that I like it all right now and I may tweak it a bit but for the most part I like it - the layout, the header, etc look good. I might tweak it a bit over the next few days.
More Autism Speaks controversy - this time the organization has sued the owner of a website that was a parody of the Autism Speaks site. The website, http://www.ntspeaks.org, is no longer online after receiving a cease and desist type of letter from Autism Speaks’ lawyers. Evidently the owner of the site was being sued for $90,000 for, among other things, copyright infringement. If you noticed, I used the word “was”; the lawsuit has been dropped. The individual being sued just happens to be underage so Autism Speaks dropped the lawsuit creating a bit of a chuckle among the supports of NTSpeaks.
Yesterday, the owner of the NTSPeaks site (known as abscout) states he is willing to be interviewed on the topic. For more information on contacting abscout check out his post on aspiesforfreedom.com. For more fun on the topic view a post on the Autism Speaks message board started by the one, the only, Autism Diva! As of this blog post there are 10 pages of responses to the Diva’s post.
Last night I was sitting in bed studying for an exam and my daughter came running into the room and hid between my bed and her bed (yes her bed is in my room). There is about nine feet between the door and where she hid so there was no way I could miss her. After about a minute she jumps up and yells “Boo!” I feigned surprise and she started giggling and ran out of the room. As soon as she got out of my sight she turned around and ran back in giggling just as loud as she could. She ducked down between the bed again and then stood up quickly and said “gotta do it again” and ran out. Rinse, repeat. So I asked her “Do you want me to see you or not see you?” She said “not see you.” At this point my son came into the room and hopped over onto my side of the bed.
My daughter ran out of the room again and this time toned down the giggling and ran in and hid again. She jumped up, yelled “Boo!” and I feigned surprise and so did my son. His was a lot louder but hey, he’s six - it’s OK. After a few minutes of doing this my son proclaimed, with a grin on his face, “This is the best part of my life!” It was so darned adorable, I joined him with a big grin on my face while my daughter still “snuck” about with her loud laugh.
Moments like that really warm my heart and make me remember how great it is to be a mom.
Happy New Year everyone!
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
This is a question that every parent will ask their children at one point in their lives. For a while my son would say that he wanted to be an Egyptologist. Then he switched it and would answer with a question of his own “What makes a lot of money?” I’m not really sure where he got that one from; he likes his “stuff” and he knows that money gets you stuff so maybe that is it. Lately this question has resulted in the answer “I want to work with daddy.” Sounds good, daddy is a networkengineer and Alexander has a love of computers.
The other day while driving home from school we had the conversation again. He said “I’ll go to work with daddy. Then we can take lunch breaks together…and potty breaks together…and evening breaks together, you gotta go home right?” I just started giggling - too darned cute. I called my husband and told him to prepare for potty breaks at work with Alexander in about 15 years. The thing is, Alexander has this amazing memory. Neither my husband or I would be surprised if in fifteen years, at the age of 21, Alexander proudly exclaims to us that he’s ready to go work with daddy hehe.
Gotta love kids!
