Article

2008-07-22 -Short Attention Span Theater-

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by gorb 2008-07-22 02:42|| || Front Page|| [4 views ] Top

#1 He obviously has not been around an autistic child. Most, if not all, autistic children show symptoms at a very early age, before they have even developed any sense of what Savage is talking about. My neice's daughter is autistic.
Savage is a bugwit.

Posted by Glitle Smith3124 2008-07-22 07:45|| 2008-07-22 07:45|| Front Page Top

#2 He also hasn't bothered to consult anyone familiar with recent neuroscience data. There are clear differences between the neural connections among brain sub-systems in people with autistic spectrum disorders vs. the majority of humans.

In fact the neural connectivity of autistic children is - with regard to *some* features - somewhere between 'normals' and the most capable mammals. In particular, they tend to have fewer of the neural connections that in normals *suppress* a lot of memory or conscious awareness of details in the environment.

That suppression is what allows people to develop and use language and abstract concepts. Autistic children tend to be poor at those skills and, like animals but unlike most people, these children find it hard to filter out stimuli from the environment around them. What they get in return is, in many cases, savant abilities of memory or very specific kinds of computation (day of the week for any day in history or other dramatic but very narrow abilities).

Posted by lotp 2008-07-22 09:35|| 2008-07-22 09:35|| Front Page Top

#3 Savage, just cut it out!

Posted by Rupert Omereper5420 2008-07-22 09:40|| 2008-07-22 09:40|| Front Page Top

#4 By chance, I listened to his show yesterday (I can't stand him0 and by no stretch of the immagination did he say that "autism is a fraud".

He asked a perfectly valid question: Is one out of 150 children really autistic? Just from my own personal experience that seems irrationally high. It could be true, but considering our society's propensity to become hysterical over alarmist issues promoted by the media and interest groups, should we not at least try to reconcile our own experiences with what we are being told?

He asked some really good questions about how the diagnosis is being determined, how subjective it is and pointed out how a misdiagnosis could severly label and damage a child for life. He never EVER said autism was a fraud!

More concerning to me, the woman that did come on his show was very slick and sounded like a professional spokesperson and her very agreeable and friendly point was that vaccines are what is causing autism. Sooo.... be careful before you sign on to this hysteria.

The ad council is currently pumping ads about the high rate of autism.

Lobbys and spokespeople are ready and waiting to bring this issue to the fore-front of the public's attention

I smell another hyped hysteria coming our way and I'm very concerned if the "cure" is going to be to encourage the public not to get vaccines.

Posted by Percy Spumble4268 2008-07-22 09:52|| 2008-07-22 09:52|| Front Page Top

#5 I like Savage.

But he needs to know that society to a large degree is judged by how they treat these little Angels.
This gift is sent directly from heaven. People do not know yet how to handle it or understand it.

It certainly ranks over Savage.

Posted by newc">newc 2008-07-22 10:52|| 2008-07-22 10:52|| Front Page Top

#6 Savage is best taken in small doses. The guy usually ends up giving me a headache.

Posted by tu3031 2008-07-22 11:14|| 2008-07-22 11:14|| Front Page Top

#7 I catch him occasionally on the drive home. He can be very overbearing like Limbaugh, who's almost always overbearing and a real blow mouth whom I can tolerate for only about 20 minutes at a time. Fifteen of which are commercials. What I like about Savage is that he isn't afraid to attack Muzzies. And, of course, they have multiple lawsuits filed against him, like Steyn, in Canada. If, perchance, they win any of these, it would drastically impact free speech in the US. For that reason alone, I support him.

Posted by Woozle Elmeter 2700 2008-07-22 11:47|| 2008-07-22 11:47|| Front Page Top

#8 woozle - I agree with you. It is reason enough to keep him on the air.

Posted by Percy Spumble4268 2008-07-22 12:02|| 2008-07-22 12:02|| Front Page Top

#9 Savage has been on a campaign for a long time about the over medication of America. He might have used some unfortunate hyperbole here about autism but he has made some points, one being that kids who grow up without fathers might have behavior problems so people start saying they have ADD or ADHD or whatever and start force feeding them pills when what they really need is a damn good whacking on the behind from their missing dad. Or, for instance, when I was a kid in school and somebody got out of control the teacher could send him to the principle's office for a meeting with the board of education which, as I recall, had a tendency to focus my attention very well because I wasn't sick I was just an active boy who needed a little discipline. They don't do that anymore. You all remember the saying that when you got into trouble at school you would be in even more trouble if your old man found out. Now the parents march into the principle's office and demand to know why the teacher is bullying their precious little angel or they get some doctor to put the kid on meds. Well, there might be some cases where the kid needs meds but a spanking, as invasive as it is, is nowhere near as invasive as drugs so maybe they should try that first.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2008-07-22 12:04|| 2008-07-22 12:04|| Front Page Top

#10 Gee, why didn't I think of that? Just whack all the kids who are autistic? You're all geniuses. No, you can tell the difference between a normal kid and one who falls on the autistic spectrum - which includes ADD and ADHD, whether people have admitted it yet or not. Why don't you just all run down to the special ed classes and cure all those kids under control. You'd do us all a favor.

Posted by gorb 2008-07-22 12:13|| 2008-07-22 12:13|| Front Page Top

#11 it always amazes me how hysterical people get on these subjects. He didn't say "just go wack the kids" now did he? We can never have important decisions on difficult topics because someone always freaks and ignores the important part of the topic and whips up a lynch mob to browbeat an emotional strawman.

The point is that there may be many children being diagnosed with autism that may not deserve to be saddled with this label for their entire life and have their childhood stripped from them with drugs. Can we just focus on them for one minute. No one, not even Savage, is saying that autism is a fraud.

Posted by Percy Spumble4268 2008-07-22 12:23|| 2008-07-22 12:23|| Front Page Top

#12 Diagnosis seems to me to be on of the biggest problems. Every kid who has something wrong with them that the doc cant pin down becomes "autistic".
Even the definition of autism seems to be up in the air as they keep expanding the disease to cover more and more kids. Do they even have any leads as to what causes it yet? I don't remember any cases of autism when I was young.

Posted by bigjim-ky 2008-07-22 13:03|| 2008-07-22 13:03|| Front Page Top

#13 He asked a perfectly valid question: Is one out of 150 children really autistic?

Mr. Savage is a chemist, not a psychologist, which predisposes him to misunderstand matters mental. (Daddy is a biochemist, so I stand firm on this statement from personal experience.) He is expressing an opinion, not a judgement.

The key visible characteristic of Asperger's Syndrome -- at the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum -- is nerdiness. How many nerds do you know? If the entire spectrum of "autism disorders" is considered, the ratio 1:150 is quite reasonable. Current statistics, based on various surveys done in several countries in Europe as well as the U.S., cluster around that number. However, as I understand it, about 75% of those are high functioning, able to function in the normal world to a greater or lesser extent, and to be trained to function better. However, it also must be admitted that there are some false diagnoses, generally to get help for kids who are borderline but need help. In the other direction as well -- high functioning Asperger's kids are generally diagnosed and medicated for ADD/ADHD, which is counterproductive. Lower functioning Asperger's and non-Asperger's autistics are obviously abnormal even to the untrained eye, and no amount of training will enable them to live independently.

There is no drug treatment for Asperger's Syndrome, although medicating for anxiety and depression is sometimes helpful. The key treatment is to teach them the rules of behavior that the rest of us pick up unconsciously. There are some drugs that appear to help some lower functioning autistics, but I believe that those work -- or don't -- on a case by case basis. Unlike, say, schizophrenia, where the response to a standardized drug regimen is immediate and obvious.

It has been demonstrated repeatedly that there is no connection between early vaccination and autism, but not everyone is up on the research... as in so many other things.

Recent brain scan research has demonstrated that the brains of those with ADD/ADHD and autism function significantly differently than those of normals. Some 25% of those with ADD/ADHD have brains that achieve normal function in early adulthood, ie they outgrow it. It has also been recently demonstrated via brain scans that Ritalin does actually act on certain areas of the brain in those with ADD/ADHD, but does not work on the brains of normals.

Yes, there are more troubled children in our society than there used to be, much of which could be avoided were they properly parented. BUT, our diagnostic and treatment toolkit contains much more sensitive tools than back in the day, and we are discovering treatable causes for behaviour that back in the day would have resulted in suicide or the unmarriageable and unemployable aunt/uncle who lived in the spare bedroom... or was sent away to an institution.

Posted by trailing wife ">trailing wife 2008-07-22 13:13|| 2008-07-22 13:13|| Front Page Top

#14 Believe me, getting a kid labeled "autistic" is hard to do. The schools do not like to do it. My kid was on the borderline between moderate and severe, and the schools just barely scored him as autistic. And if the school system had gotten their wish, it would have been a disaster both for my child and whichever class he would have been put in.

As for the drugs: They are life-givers, not childhood-takers.

Any of you out there who think otherwise should go visit one of these classes sometime, otherwise you are just typing to see yourself type. I have yet to see even one single kid in these classes (and I've seen more than most of you) who didn't belong there. Not even one.

There are many more kids in regular ed that would be better-served by moving them into classes that can support their behavioral needs, even if they aren't as severe as those of autistics and those with generous doses of ADD/ADHD. These are the kids that the biases vetting process leaves behind because the schools system doesn't want to have to pay for them.

And there are more autistic kids today. The evidence for this lies in the fact that there are way more severely autistic kids today than a few decades ago. It's hard to misdiagnose a kid who sits in the corner drooling on a broken record every waking moment.

Savage is a moron on this subject. And I don't think you'll find a whole lot of parents of "successful" autistic kids who are against the drugs. Some kids don't need them. That's great. But when you give your kid a drug and he starts talking shortly thereafter, or stops beating his face, or stops picking his arms raw, or stops obsessing on bugs and throwing screaming fits wherever you go - then you'll be a believer. That is when these kids can start learning in a meaningful way. That is the way it is and everyone else can go and play.

As far as the racket is concerned, that argument is just a smoke screen for this moron. He was saying that these kids are just faking it or something. The "racket" comes in when you go to a speech therapist or psychologist or psychiatrist for help and they take your money and do not provide value in return when there are much better options available. This has nothing to do with the number of autistics out there.

Posted by gorb 2008-07-22 14:13|| 2008-07-22 14:13|| Front Page Top

#15 Gorb, you sound like you are talking about fairly severe and unambiguous cases of autism. I think what the article and most of the comments here are wondering about are the lighly autistic or borderline cases that end up getting called autism out of convenience or some need to simply label the problem and medicate. If the rates are as high as some of these people are saying, then the human race is going down the genetic crapper.

Posted by Ebbagum B. Hayes4488 2008-07-22 14:40|| 2008-07-22 14:40|| Front Page Top

#16 Gorb states how hard it is to get a child diagnosed as autistic even when the symptoms are severe and unambiguous. While schools get money from the state for special needs students, it is never as much as it costs the school to set aside classrooms, hire teachers trained to work with such students, hire classroom aides for those mainstreamed, and purchase the specialized equipment required for each student.

I can equally personally vouch for the difficulty in getting a diagnosis for mild Asperger's Syndrome. In this case, while the child was always a bit eccentric, she functioned extremely well at a personal and academic level (a solid group of girl friends, high honors in the school's program for gifted children) until reaching high school, when all of a sudden, despite her very best efforts (and as she ended up a National Merit Scholar and graduated with honors, her best efforts should have been very good indeed), she found herself failing classes in which she should have been getting A's. It took three years and five therapists to tease out the cause of her difficulties, including getting beyond diagnosis and medication for ADD, which she does not have. While she got a lot of support from her teachers and guidance counselor, the school never did anything out of the ordinary for her.

Back in the good old days, she would simply have dropped out of high school and committed suicide. Thus solving the problem.

Posted by trailing wife ">trailing wife 2008-07-22 16:03|| 2008-07-22 16:03|| Front Page Top

#17 Nobody wants a (*&%&^%(*&%^*(^ autism diagnosis. No insurance covers anything related to autism. The insurers are dumping the treatment onto the school systems which are overwhelmed with these cases. What the hell is Savage smoking?

Three of our kids have Aspergers, including our eldest, an occasional Burg reader and poster. We've had twenty years of muddle getting help and therapies for them, and are going through the extremely difficult time of transition to adulthood and independence.

My father is an Aspie. He became a chemist, an excellent one; but his social skills are very poor. He couldn't get along with co-workers. His company worked around him; they set things up so that he could do his work with the electron microscope and his other gadgetry and other people kept out of his way. Nobody knew he had Aspergers--it didn't make the diagnostic manual until 1995. If somebody had known what was going on with my dad, his personal life, and the whole family, would have been better off.

I can understand Savage's beef about over diagnosis. There's a parent from hell in the next school district east of us that says her kid is ten times needier than he is. This dame even wanted school staff to work with her kid on Saturday.

But he really blew his argument to hell with his rant about autism.

Posted by mom ">mom 2008-07-22 16:32|| http://idontknowbut.blogspot.com]">[http://idontknowbut.blogspot.com] 2008-07-22 16:32|| Front Page Top

#18 Which one is your son, mom dear?

Posted by trailing wife ">trailing wife 2008-07-22 17:03|| 2008-07-22 17:03|| Front Page Top

#19 My neice's daughter is not servere but not mild either. She is learning to function but the cost is high. Her husband has been a contractor in Iraq for the last 4 years (medical) because that's the only way they can pay for treatment. Schools do not provide the kind of education these children need and neither should they be required to. They moved from Columbia, South CArolina to Atlanta because that's where the best facility in the South is. She has made wonderful progress there. When she finally did start talking it was in complete sentences, not baby talk. All of us family help whichever way we can.

Posted by Deacon Blues">Deacon Blues 2008-07-22 17:51|| 2008-07-22 17:51|| Front Page Top

#20 My sympathies to all those having to deal with such difficult circumstances. Life is already tough enough without adding such a major complication.

Posted by Jomock Platypus9662 2008-07-22 19:03|| 2008-07-22 19:03|| Front Page Top

#21 , and no amount of training will enable them to live independently

That perception at root is the problem.

My brothers son was severely autistic/ has Aspergers Syndrome. His wife was convinced it was caused by vaccines. I looked into it and found there was no good scientific evidence for vaccines and I found the evidence compelling that vaccines cannot possibly the cause.

Anyway, my main point is that irrespective of the cause and underlying physiological mechanism (assuming there is one), Autism is a problem, because of their behaviour, and behaviour can be changed relatively easily.

Communicating this to my brother caused a major family rift. And his wife insisted they pursue their very expensive search for the cause.

Now several years later, his son is almost completely over his autism without drugs or any other intrusive procedures. The key was that my brother's son sees a buddhist monk a couple of times a week.

This is no way an endorsement of Buddhism as a religion, and I'll point out that I trained as a behavioural psychologist.

What I specifically said to my brother is, "You have to get him out of the environment where he exhibits the severe autisitic behaviour. Unless you do he will be like this for the rest of his life."

His wife interpretted this to mean I was blaming her and reacted strongly. In sense she was right, she (and my brother) was the cause. This is obviously too bitter a pill for many parents to swallow. Hence the search for causes and the reliance on medication.

It took my brother a couple of years to try my recommendation, but he did eventually with happy results.

Posted by phil_b 2008-07-22 19:30|| 2008-07-22 19:30|| Front Page Top

#22 wow -that'quite a few children from rantburg readers, which is food for thought. It may be because, let's face it, nerds gravitate to sites like rantburg rather than MySpace. :-)

Like I said, I don't listen often and was forced to listen yesterday, but original point I was making it that Savage was clearly not saying that "autism is a fraud". Rather he was making the point that many of our high functioning nerds could be damaged by the diagnois. For example one question he pondered was if Einstein had been diagnosed with it. No matter how outrageous Savage is, it is a valid discussion.

But my concern goes one step further. It's always the same pattern. It starts with an public campaign blitz by the Ad Council and other public service announcements. Nothing wrong with that. That's a good thing. But when your radar should go up is when the next steps start to fall into place. Media Matters will scour the airwaves to latch onto an outrageous statement made by a celebrity that and hype it into a full blown blog/media circus. And next, highly professional spokespeople, lobbyists or others who stand to benefit from public funding or lawsuits are ready and waiting to call in to the talk shows and media shows for a full blown sh** storm using the comment as a spring board.

My concern is that the professional spokesperson that called into Savage was hyping that vaccines are the cause. Another poster pointed out that this has been debunked. But one only need look at global warming or Gore's stolen election to realize how little facts matter when hyping the public into a frenzy.

So my point was/is that if they are going to push the vaccine issue, as I am now suspicious, we should all be very concerned and not fall prey to the hype.

I don't know if that is really what is happening or not, but I was just pointing out that we should stay alert to the possiblity because Savage did not say that "autism is a fraud" and the woman who called his show was a very professional spokesperson attempting to pedal a fraud that will in no way be helpful to anyone, especially those who have autistic children.

Posted by Percy Spumble4268 2008-07-22 19:31|| 2008-07-22 19:31|| Front Page Top

#23 ALL of our four children have some type of problem, from my oldest who is 41 to our youngset who's 3. The most severe is our 34-year-old son who suffered extensive brain damage before we adopted him, and who now functions at an equivalent age of 12 to 15. Our youngest daughter suffers from moderate to severe dyslexia, has many of the symptoms of ADHD, and who is now about a third of her way through a 2-year technical study course at the college level. We don't know what Tim's problems are going to be, but we see the early symptoms of them in his everyday behavior. We've worked in the system and outside of it, and understand the good, the bad, and the very, VERY ugly that can take place. We made many friends that also adopted problem children, and we've watched those children develop over the years.

There are many, many children that are both mis-diagnosed, or over-diagnosed. We've seen it happen, we're not dealing with hearsay. We've had our own bouts with children that are autistic (and that had other problems equally as severe) when we were foster-parents for a private agency, and we know how difficult it is to meet the needs of those children. We've also seen the abysmal failure of "society" - especially the school system - where many of these children are "warehoused", with the minimum supervision, minimum education, and minimum stimulus that they need to succeed in life.

I haven't heard the Savage broadcast, and I don't plan to listen to it. If there's a transcript, I MIGHT read it, just to see what the fuss is all about. I do know, though, that there have been far too many times when doctors and other professionals have latched onto the latest "research" to explain problems they haven't the experience to diagnose correctly - unattachment, bipolar disorder, ADHD, and yes, even autism. It's ALWAYS best to be cautious about such labels, as they can criple a child psychologically, emotionally, and intellectually. I am especially leary of those that have a glib, single-point-of-focus for all of life's problems, such as the "vaccine causes autism" crowd. Every single person is different, from birth through life to death. Trying to label every child and put them into neat little groups is a stupid way to approach any problem that involves people.

Posted by Old Patriot">Old Patriot 2008-07-22 20:01|| http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/]">[http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/] 2008-07-22 20:01|| Front Page Top

#24 Never knew so many on the 'burg have personal experience with autism. My hat goes off to you all.

Posted by Swamp Blondie in the Cornfields 2008-07-22 20:34|| 2008-07-22 20:34|| Front Page Top

#25 Savage has been on the warpath for years about the over-prescription of drugs such as Ritalin and Prosac, particularly to children. And I think events are tending to support him more and more over time.

I agree with bigjim-ky. I don't remember anybody having autism when I was a kid. So why now? When I heard the PSA I thought to my self, this is a shakedown coming.

No doubt some people do have a real problem and need help. But no doubt some people also take advantage of the situation, especially the professional crusaders.

I have to admit I can think of at least a half dozen teachers who would have sacrificed the body part of your choice to have had me tranqed for the school year. I'm glad I'm not a kid today.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2008-07-22 20:39|| 2008-07-22 20:39|| Front Page Top

23:11 Rambler in California
23:10 Percy Spumble4268
23:03 Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo)
22:50 Yosemite Sam
22:42 Fred
22:33 mhw
22:06 Raj
21:32 Mullah Richard
21:31 Raj
21:26 ed
21:20 ed
21:19 Billie Sol Estes Rockets
21:16 ed
21:13 ed
21:11 Billie Sol Estes Rockets
21:09 Glineter Poodle2494
21:08 ed
21:08 Billie Sol Estes Rockets
21:05 Nimble Spemble
21:03 ed
21:01 Nimble Spemble
21:00 ed
20:59 bigjim-ky
20:57 OldSpook