Article in national paper

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Like to share this with you all, this is the kind of rubbish here in Ireland that we are up against!

Scroll down page to read article!

http://www.facebook.com/notes/irish-aut ... 8427353789

A quick paraphrase of the article: 'Since there is no scientific test for autism or ASD, I can spout whatever outdated and ridiculous psychobabble I like. Autism is caused by parents not loving their child, and if parents got their act together their child would get better. Despite the fact that there is no evidence to support my theory and mountains of evidence to discredit my theory, which was abandoned by mainstream doctors decades ago, I'm right and they're all wrong.'

I like your paraphrase, how can we move forward when there are too many dinosaurs! thought they were extinct!

I'm not overly worried about people having this opinion, they can think what they want, I neither need nor want their understanding. What is disturbing is that this guy is actually a psychologist, presumably with his own patients. The idea of someone with such outdated and unrealistic theories actually treating someone is mortifying.

I also find it strange that he seems to be saying that as there is no objective scientific test for autism that it doesn't really exist. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there also no test for personality disorders, depression, even schizophrenia? I would be interested to hear what he thinks about those disorders.

I posted this because he is a psychologist and gives dx his attitude is narcissistic!

Wow! and not in a good way.

What a pile of tripe! Hopefully this article will be publicly torn to shreds and the author shown as the outdated, shallow and arrogant person he is. Dreadful!

Not in a good way! its crazy today to even have to respond but the fact it was printing in a national paper is ludicrous!

More importantly it's dangerous. The whole problem is that if you treat ASD kids as you do your other kids, you damage them and yourself in the process. Maybe forever. This is very dangerous indeed.

I'm in Ireland too. When I saw that article yesterday I felt like we'd been thrown a couple of decades back into the past in terms of understanding and intervention.

Imagine, being one of his patients!! !! !! !! !! !

Here is what upsets me most about this kind of crap: here we all are, using current best-practices to raise our kids, which appear to be having real, measurable, positive effects on them. In the past, people who touted this type of nonsense saw autistic kids flatline in their progress and get locked up in institutions in droves.

A) means we get contributing members of society (some with astounding levels of contribution,) or at the very least we mitigate the costs of intervention.

B) means we get the thrill of passing on blame, but we have not only lost whatever value the kids have to offer, we have to cover the cost of lifetime institutional care.

I just don't get it.