Autism & Related Conditions
 

This wiki article was recently brought to my attention. I'm not extensivly familar with the effects of conditions like this, but I found the following quote interesting.

I wonder: We know quite a bit about the brain... but not nearly enough to effectivly diagnose and treat what we call 'disorders'. Yes we successfully medicate depression cases (and others, I'm sure) but, and correct me if I'm wrong, it seems like we do this based on more of an understanding of chemicals than of neurology.

Is the stance taken in the above quote a healthy one, socially speaking? I don't mean that the alternative would be prejudice, persay. But should we be looking at conditions like this as something that doesn't need to be fixed, or do we think we know enough about the mind that we can lable it as a disease or disability and attempt to treat it?

Also; How do you imagine people with autism were viewed in centuries past, before people could know about such a thing being a medical condition?

I was diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder as a young'un. The initial diagnosis was more severe; over several years of respectable New England physical and pyschological therapy, the condition became more mild. Eventually I moved into the Asperger's side of the equation (a very mild form of the disorder) and, after hitting my mid-to-late teens, I essentially "graduated" from needing any form of help whatsoever.

Though you could reasonably say I'm about "as normal as an autistic person can get," I'm by no means "cured," as I don't imagine a full-blown cure for the condition could feasibly exist. But as one of the few ASD folks who has become capable of understanding social interactions and emotional intimacy, I've often been bombarded by doctors, psychoanalysts and the like with questions about what my past was like, what I was thinking, that kind of stuff.

To answer your questions: first off, in regards to past generations, generally autistic folks in the lower classes were more likely to die, espesically the more severe cases. It's difficult if you're piss-poor broke to take care of an autistic person, espesically when you can't provide him a "special" education to give him or her a chance to achieve some form of "normalcy" or understanding of how the world works.

The mid-and-upper class autistic folks, particularly the mild cases and the savants, were essentially many of the eccentric geniuses of past generations. (Or so many profess to believe.) Speculation runs rampant as to who may have been autistic in past generations; Emily Dickinson, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Thomas Jefferson, and Mark Twain are all popular figures who are frequently mentioned to exhibit autistic traits. I feel comfortable sharing that kind of company.

Anywhoo, in regards to whether autism should be "treated," I'd probably argue yes, to a certain extent, though I wouldn't argue in favor of some futuristic technology conforming an individual's neuronic structure and transforming us all into "brain-clones." I value individuality, but at the same time, I believe there are certain common values that every human mind should be capable of understanding (intimacy, social connections, a full range of healthy emotions.) And I would encourage autistic individuals to continue to be treated so that they can experience the commonalities of "the human condition," while still retaining their individuality.

I have a real problem with how the treat and diagnose kids that are supposedly autistic or add/adhd.

There is a huge group of these people who are perfectly capable of functioning; i.e. capable of surviving independently from any external help beyond what is normal. And what I mean by this, is you have people who are socially retarded, or atleast struggle with social situations who are handed a diagnosis, but why is struggling with social skills any different than a kid whose struggling with math? We don't say those people have mental disorders do we? No, we don't because the minds of some people are better equipped to handle different stimuli and information than others. And there's variation among everyone.

I do think that it is necessary to help those who do suffer on a day to day basis and are impaired in daily functioning. But this group is much smaller than is typically presented. I knew someone who had been diagnosed with autism, when he wasn't autistic at all. His whole family acted like it was a big deal, and just coddled the hell outta him. The kid was fucking smarter than anyone else in their family. It sickens me to hear of parents bragging about disorders as if it made their kid better than someone elses, and a lot of people are beginning to do that.

It's also important to distinguish disruptions in functioning from something innate as opposed to environmental. My fiance was diagnosed as mentally retarded growing up because he couldn't handle any social situations. He was exceptionally aggressive. The thing was, was he wasn't retarded, he's infact a genius, but because he had an abusive upbringing, as a kid he lashed out. Instead of trying to find the cause of his problems, they drugged him until he was a teenager and sent him off to an alternative school. The abuse of those labels happens so much.

Those seem like very, very different things to me. I mean, I don't see very much of a positive side to ADD, while autism has produced some of the finest geniuses known today.

Pretty much all of my knowlege about autism (not very much) comes from reading the curious incident of the dog in the night-time. It was a great book, but I fear I might be lacking in my knowlege of the facts.

Most of the kids, and I do mean most, who are diagnosed with add/adhd are just bored and really bright. They're parents and/or teachers can't handle their hyperactivity so they diagnose then drug them. It's stupid.

You and me both.

Anyway, I don't look at the issue as having any separation between social acceptance and treatment, especially considering the relative simplicity of treating the disorder if spotted early enough. With any form of autism comes strengths and weaknesses, but the beauty of it is that the strengths can be used to overcome the perceived weaknesses. Allow me to explain.

Autism is essentially the cognitive parts of the brain overgrowing during prenatal development and impacting the growth of the parts of the brain responsible for social development. In more extreme cases, those with the disorders are usually incapable of completely normal societal function, though we're just now becoming capable of diagnosing autism early enough to where proper treatment and training can begin more quickly in a child's development. As a result, there's really no telling what the true limitations are in these situations.

In the higher functioning cases, it's of course a great deal easier. However, in any and all cases, the trick is to use the more advanced cognitive abilities to learn their way around the impeded social instinct. Massive stimulation is needed from birth in order to keep the child from naturally introverting itself to a point of no return.

The simple fact is that the best treatment for autism is early diagnosis and then simply being a good parent after that, providing stimulation, education, attention and activity as much as is humanly possible. The more extreme cases you see later in life are often the result of parents being misinformed about their child's condition, being told that the kid is retarded and that they'll have to care for them for the rest of their lives, or the parents being too lazy and/or irresponsible to give a damn anyway. I've seen cases of parents treating their autistic adult offspring like babies (hand-feeding, bathing, clothing, etc), which gives the person no opportunity to learn to do things for themselves. By doing this, the brain will literally atrophy to the point of retardation, turning an individual with near-genius potential into a developmentally-disabled invalid.

Medication, as well, is incredibly stupid as it is a neurological disorder and not a chemical imbalance. What's disappointing is that autism is easily diagnosable. A simple EEG can determine whether someone has the disorder or not, as their brainwave pattern is constantly in the state of REM sleep.

I got very, very lucky that I had good parents that raised me as well as they could, even though it wasn't until I was 13 that my status went from "difficult child" to "high-functioning autistic". Hopefully, testing like EEGs may one day become a standard of pediatric medical procedure in the near future, rather than waiting until the parents notice that their child seems to be a little odd behaviorally and every other option has already been ruled out.

I was diagnosed with Aspegers, ADD, some sort of depression as a child and prescribed medications to deal with all of that, I refused to take them and instead dealt myself with what I saw as the causes of the issues. I believe medications to be an aide, not a cure to situations such as mine (and my brother's), they can help you settle down enough to think, but then you need to do something about the causes; learn how to read emotions, how to react yourself and not expect to be treated any different because of your 'condition'. I get really upset when anyone (kids, teens, adults) use something like this as an excuse to be jerks, they need to grow up and deal with their issues.

Sociopathic killers also tend to sit in this group as well.

You sure you're not my twin or something?

I'm just sayin', our circumstances were very similar. (Aside from the fact that I was diagnosed with some form of high-functioning autism much earlier, as a toddler.) A very supportive family and a network of therapists essentially got me to approach social situations as cognitive exercises. I'm still not great when it comes to sociability (my greatest weakness remains an occasional inability to pick up certain nonverbal cues), but I became much better with eye contact, for example, when a therapist approached eye contact from an intellectual level.

I was very lucky to have a therapist when I was twelve who essentially transformed all social contact into some form of a mind game. Difficult to explain here, but one example was that I had a crush on this girl (my first crush, really,) and my original impulse was just to indulge in mental fantasy while ignoring the situation. He transformed the situation into a cognitive exercise -- and essentially the girl became a sort of puzzle we intended to solve, by asking questions such as "How are you?" and engaging in eye contact and getting to know her. As unexpected social situations arose with her that I failed to interpret correctly, I'd come back and talk to him about it, and he'd help me "put the puzzle pieces together," come to a conclusion, and devise a method to work around it.

I didn't end up dating that girl or anything (too many rookie mistakes, I imagine even if I were "normal" it wouldn't have ended well,) but that was one particular technique that helped me become much more socially adept.

Actually, it would appear out similarities end there. Most of the things that kept me from degrading too far psychologically were completely accidental. My mother keeping me stimulated when I was little was simply good parenting for any child, my father's supportiveness of the realization of my creative endeavors were often an attempt on his part to live vicariously through me, and my stepmother's frightening me into "straigtening up and flying right" were more or less just her being a crazy bitch.

Hell, the only reason I had the EEG in the first place was because they actually though I might've been bipolar (because my mother was misdiagnosed with the disorder a few years prior, which turned out to be petty mal seizures), and during the handful of sessions I had with my psychiatrist before they just decided to have tests done mostly consisted of him quite literally yelling at me for not looking him in the eyes when we were talking because he thought I was being disrespectful (which, in his experience as an expert on child aggression, was often true. However, in my case, it was because I was fucking autistic, the fucking quack).

And even after I was diagnosed, it took my parents 2 years to finally tell me what the deal was, and even then they didn't really go into too much detail about what all that entailed. It wasn't until I was in college that I finally had an opportunity to research the disorder and find out that it was, in fact, just me and the everybody else didn't go through all this crap.

I don't know why, but learning that was one of the most comforting things in my entire life. When I say I got really lucky, I mean that the exact right things happened at the exact right times to mold me into a functioning member of society, purely by accident.

Im curious as to how an "expert" could think it was a good idea in any way to shout at a kid as his therapist. That doesn't seem like a good idea in any way.