"Why I'm Relieved My Son Has Asperger's Syndrome"

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http://www.popsugar.com/moms/Why-Im-Rel ... e-27332480

Following the links she seemed to have sent her kid here
The Center for Autism & Developmental Disorders (CADD

They use ABA. Again as is so typical the whole post is me, me, me ,me and nothing about her kid.
Seems bad but it is just a brief post that I hope is not indicative of that person.

Seems to me she's relieved he has a diagnosis rather than the fact he has Asperger's.

All ASD mothers are not the same, carbon copies, not all self-serving, not all ABA fanatics (thank goodness), they are a diverse group just as parents generally are diverse.

The article itself is written to hook people in to Autism Speaks, which is lurking there in the background, unfortunately. It sounds innocuous and will hook some people in just as it is meant to. Click on the Spring Harbour link and you instantly get the promo stuff for Autism Speaks, ABA and usual whole nine yards.

Autism Speaks is very clever and cunning with its marketing. I am sure that they channel substantial funds into marketing advisors and companies. They count on not being challenged about this and the myths they slyly spread by any effective opposition - and sadly, that assumption of theirs is largely true, because very few ASD people, percentage wise, are active in activism. That is a tragedy IMO. This may change in the future and I do really hope that it does.

I don't understand why the woman is getting so much hate, it seems like she wants to help her son. She has written about it from her viewpoint because that is what the article is about. Why should she write personal things about her son? I think if she would have done that then she would have been a cruel person. I think that it is good that she kept her son as much of it as possible. When he is an adult he can write about what he felt, if he chooses to.

I'm not bothered by the article. She seems concerned about getting him accommodation in school which is good.

Of course that's good. To me the problem is wider than that, though, the reasonable-sounding article is being used as a baited hook by Autism Speaks. Like rust, AS never sleeps...

As far as I can tell she is mainly happy that SHE now has a diagnosis label for his issues which allows her to explain away his behaviours that "made it look as though I wasn't being an effective parent". Charming.

"I am relieved my son has Asperger syndrome because I finally belong to a group of moms who can understand me: Asperger moms. " - And it is aspies that are stereotyped as self-centred.

No doubt she will now enroll him on a treatment plan of various quack therapies and a ton of mind bending drugs to 'correct' his behavior. - Far easier than you know, adjusting the environment to accommodate him or adapting her own ways to suit.

I cant find this link in the article.

They are insidious.

No. HTH.

For starters, humans don't usually naturally live to "retirement age", so it would be strange for us to have instinctive reactions to that end. We reproduced for a long time when we would basically die as our children left puberty (but of course some people would live to old age), so clearly we don't reproduce solely or even primarily so we can be looked after in old age. I would suggest that reproduction probably has a "selfish gene" explanation, as well, obviously, as an evolutionary one (i.e. species that don't reproduce go extinct within 1 generation).

You might find it best if you refrain from commenting when you notice a gender issue that nobody else has picked up upon. You may have noticed that you frequently experience hostility when you do so. I must admit that several of your posts have appeared, at least to me, to be ungrounded, uncritical, predictable sexist speculation, rather than the novel insights you might assume that you are providing.

It is an interesting point though that autistic adults sometimes don't meet the emotional needs of their family. I know my mother is often frustrated with my manner and expression. And my father definitely was not pleased with me (when he was alive.)
I think it is a matter of things being misinterpreted and lost in translation.

Click the first link in the fifth paragraph of the article to see the AS promo come up.

I am relatively ancient Orangez and not dependent on nor supported financially by my adult children, nor would I expect to be. However if things happened so that I was in dire need, the bonds of love we have would kick in and they would help, just as I would if they were suddenly struck with some great misfortune - I love them and we share strong bonds based on acceptance, trust, affection and respect. I have tried to be an encourager in their lives, not a leech sucking their resources!

Got it.

autism: more than a disability

I found this to be a good read. ^

Um, no. We've been living into our 60s and 70s at least for a very long time, and not just a small minority. Among people who lived to age 20, most would live to 60, with only a minority of people dying in young/middle adulthood. (Higher than today, sure, but still a minority.) You see, mortality by age is not normally distributed, so you can't look at average lifespan numbers and say most people died around that age. For most of human history, two groups had the highest mortality rates - children under 5 and the elderly. In modernized societies, death rates of young children have gotten extremely low, but in societies where 50-75% of newborns don't live to their 5th birthday, they drag down the average quite a bit. (Ancient Rome had an infant mortality rate of about 50%, and that was an improvement on what pre-Roman people had.) For an oversimplified example, imagine if 50% of people died at birth, and the rest lived to age 60. The average life expectancy would be 30 years old, even though none of the population was anywhere close to 30 when they died.

So even in ancient times, most parents lived past their children's twenties, especially since many started families younger. If you have your first child at 15, for example, they'll be 15 when you're thirty, and you'll probably only be halfway through your likely lifespan at that point. Enough time to help raise your grandkids, and maybe even meet your great-grandkids if you're lucky.

It's a magazine article, with the target audience of women and mothers. It's written from a mother's perspective to give understanding of their plight, and to give hope.

While the article has a lot of me, me, me. It's written with the target audience in mind.

It's not a bad thing to be honest, even though it's a very shallow article and doesn't say much of anything.