Skip to main content

Home/ Autism Teachers/ Group items tagged magic

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Tero Toivanen

Facing Autism in New Brunswick: Autism Taboo: Shhhh! Don't Mention THEM! - 0 views

autisminnb.blogspot.com/...o-shhhh-dont-mention-them.html

autism mentally retarded intellectually disabled

shared by Tero Toivanen on 03 Jun 09 - Cached
  • It is now politically incorrect to refer to anyone as mentally retarded. The polite and proper term to use now is intellectually disabled. Either way there is very little mention of the fact that many persons with Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnoses are severely intellectually challenged. In the world's autism communities there are many who perceive it as an insult to mention the existence of the intellectually disabled autistic population.
  • some well known autism researchers work hard at showing the world how intelligent autistic persons really are, even those who cannot demonstrate that intelligence with any obvious ability to communicate or function in the real world.
  • The mere mention of the existence of low functioning autistic persons with serious intellectual challenges is forbidden.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • The exclusion by autism self advocates of the intellectually disabled autistic population occurs despite the fact that many persons with Autistic Disorder are intellectually disabled. The ICD-10 mentions this fact expressly in its description of Autistic Disorder:
  • Autistic Disorder...In addition to these specific diagnostic features, it is frequent for children with autism to show a range of other nonspecific problems such as fear/phobias, sleeping and eating disturbances, temper tantrums, and aggression. Self-injury (e.g. by wrist-biting) is fairly common, especially when there is associated severe mental retardation.
  • All levels of IQ can occur in association with autism, but there is significant mental retardation in some three-quarters of cases.
  • There are more than 200 known causes of intellectual disability. Some common examples of intellectual disability are: Down syndrome Autism
  • The attempt by higher functioning persons with ASD's and Aspergers to disassociate "autism" from intellectual disability helps stigmatize persons with intellectual disabilities including the many persons with autistic disorder and intellectual disabilities.
  • And some ND's, to counter the fact that most with LFA are retarded, some "famous" autistics like to promote FC as "proof" that they aren't.
  • My cousin is profoundly autistic. He is around 20 and cannot communicate at all, not verbally or in the written word, and has never said a word. Luckily, his family is smart enough to know that if anyone tries use FC on him they will know it is a scam.If a facilitator told my aunt that P was writing poems and understood Shakespeare she would just laugh. She loves P as he is; she knows reality and doesn't try to force him to be someone he isn't.
  • The current Wikipedia article still shows a frequency of 25-70% incidence of mental retardation in people with autism.
  • Yet, the reader is drawn to see not the high percentage (25% is still very high) but the width of the range, therefore there must be something wrong with the ability of standard tests to measure "autistic intelligence".
  • Mentally retarded IMO comes from the intelligence scales. These do not address the learning styles of all people and are inflexible. I do believe there are better ways to understand how someone learns. I also don't believe there are limits on what we learn, the brain's placisity allows us to learn our entire life.
  • I've spoken hundreds of parents and it worries me that so many have problems accepting their children as they are and will be.For some intelligence is the magic word, a kind of hidden cure inside their child.But autistic kids with a normal IQ which they can use function better than those with high IQ's they can't use.
  • I am only concerned about the cases where the FC person NEVER does ANY kind of independent work, which seem to be the majority of FC cases.
  • Tero Toivanen on 03 Jun 09
     
    It is now politically incorrect to refer to anyone as mentally retarded. The polite and proper term to use now is intellectually disabled. Either way there is very little mention of the fact that many persons with Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnoses are severely intellectually challenged. In the world's autism communities there are many who perceive it as an insult to mention the existence of the intellectually disabled autistic population.
Tero Toivanen

New Study: Autism has Multiple Genetic Roots | Suite101 - 3 views

suite101.com/...multiple-genetic-roots-a246721

autism research study

shared by Tero Toivanen on 10 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • The study’s major finding was that children with ASD have significantly more CNVs affecting their genes than children without ASD. Children with ASD have 20 percent more CNVs in general, and 70 percent more CNVs impacting genes known to be associated with ASD or cognitive problems. Significantly, many of the genes that are affected control important functions such as cell proliferation and cell-to-cell communication.
  • Some of the newly discovered genetic variants are inherited, and are found in parents or siblings of children with them. Others, however, seem to have originated spontaneously in the affected child, and do not appear in other family members.
  • While these findings add significantly to the scientific understanding of the genetic and biological underpinnings of ASD, the immediate usefulness is limited. That’s because there are a very large number of CNVs, and each child shows a different pattern of genetic changes. Each of these changes is rare; no CNV showed up in more than one percent of the children studied.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • “This will lead to a paradigm shift in understanding the etiology of autism,” says Stephen Scherer, a senior scientist at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada. “Until now, most scientists thought individuals with autism shared common genes. We now think each person has his own rare variations.”
  • If significant CNVs show up, behavioral treatment can be started early. That has been shown to improve children’s outcomes significantly. “If we provide stimulation early, while the brain is still plastic, we can improve cognitive development, social interaction and communication,” says Geri Dawson, Chief Science Officer of Autism Speaks, the major sponsor of the research project.
  • What this new research suggests is that autism and ASD probably result from the interaction between many different genes and a child’s environment. Rather than search for one single cause and one “magic bullet,” researchers will try to find as many significant genetic variants as possible, link them to the biological functions and pathways they control, and then search for medications that can improve or normalize the functioning of damaged pathways.
1 - 4 of 4
Showing 20▼ items per page