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Lisa Jo Rudy
Falmouth, MA
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Lisa Jo signed the petition | -
Lisa Jo signed the petition | -
Lisa Jo signed the petition | -
Lisa Jo commented on the article |OMG - remember how autistic people have no sense of humor? You absolutely crack me up. I had to read your whole post aloud to my poor husband, who is constantly listening to me rant about having the write the same autism stories over and over again... thanks for the laugh! Lisa (www.autism.about.com)
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Lisa Jo commented on the article |Dora - this is very interesting. I find that on About.com I get a great many posts suggesting that the costs of autism treatment for young children (often cited at around $70,000, presumably for ABA, speech, ot, pt) is worth it because "you pay now or you pay later." That is, if you don't put up the cash for therapy now, insured Americans, you'll put it up in spades when the untreated child becomes a dependent adult.
Of course, this presumes a great many things that are in doubt: 1 - that the costs for treatment are reasonable; 2 - that the treatments are appropriate; and 3 - that there's some kind of guarantee that these treatments will result in an independent, fully-employed adult (presumably now no longer autistic).
Seems to me that this plays precisely into what you're saying: people with autism are a burden to society, but they're far more burdensome as adults. So suck it up and pay for treatment for kids, so that they will cease to be so burdensome.
Lisa
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Lisa Jo commented on the article |This is a topic near and dear to my heart! When I first got started with Tom, all we knew about were the services made available for free through our county services (limited, not very good speech, OT and PT) and then I got involved with Floortime (attended a conference, bought a book, and did it myself). It took quite a while for me to understand that there were other options... but even then, we found a great speech therapist who took insurance, "wraparounds" funded by the state.
Then I started to realize how much others were putting out... and began shelling out $1,000 for six social skills classes; $1,000 for an OT assessment; $2,000 for vision therapy... didn't take me long to realize I could go broke - or not. It was actually my choice.
The problem is that there is, as you wisely say, NO guarantee that the higher priced therapies will be more or less useful. But I suspect that when parents pay through the nose for AIT or HBOT or you name it, they have a vested interest in believing thatthe therapy is working. That worries me as I watch my own son grow and mature - not because of therapies (we're only using speech and a little floortimish/RDIish parenting) but because he's growing up!
Lisa Rudy (autism.about.com) -
Lisa Jo commented on the article |Clay - the YMCA did change a great deal over the years. It's become a family-centered organization, and its mission is inclusive. It also includes four core principles (caring, honesty, respect, responsibility) in all of its programs. Amazingly, they actually implement this idea almost all the time.
Lisa -
Lisa Jo commented on the article |
A couple of points here -
(1) THINK YMCA! we have had spectacular success at the Y with our son, Tom, who is 12 and homeschooled. He's successfully "included" in homeschool gym/swim, which is two hours a week of gym sports and swim lesson/open swim. It works because it's a small group, and because the Y has a mission of inclusion. We also swim as a family most weeks. Y summer camp has also been a real plus for us; in PA I was able to start up and raise funds for an "autism bunk" in the local daycamp: our kids with included most of the day, but also able to retreat when necessary - and we had 1:3 support.
(2) Think BEACH! I am totally thrilled with Tom's response to the ocean. I think it's the crashing waves that help him with their sensory input - but he just loves it.
BTW - for anyone who's interested, we've created visual "how to " posters for soccer, T-ball and playgrounds. They're posted at Autism.About.com, but we also have full sized versions available for the cost of postage. lisa@lisarudy.com. -
Lisa Jo commented on the article |Personally, I don't think "detox" suggests there's something poisonous about the person... as you say - everyone's doing it, and not because they think they've been literally poisoned.
IMHO, there's something very seductive about the idea of making a "clean start" by removing all badness from the body. Assuming that there are toxins everywhere (and we know there are), the idea of just getting rid of them seems like it should allow you to start fresh as a healthy, new person.
Clearly, there's no real science behind detox. But emotionally, it's very compelling indeed.
Lisa (www.autism.about.com) -
Lisa Jo commented on the article |Wow. As an NT parent of a child with PDD, I think my least favorite is the "real autism" argument.
What it seems to come down to (esp. with Autism Speaks from what I can tell) is - anyone who can speak for himself isn't really autistic (and thus isn't a true self-advocate), and we really can't involve anyone who can't speak for himself in our organization.
Hence, it's impossible to include a person with autism in our organization.
It's a catch-22!
Lisa (www.autism.about.com)
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