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Just when Aspies get a modicum of respect, TPTB try to screw everything up…

The American Psychiatric Association’s proposed revisions, announced Wednesday, involve autism and several other conditions. The suggested autism changes are based on research advances since 1994 showing little difference between mild autism and Asperger’s. Evidence also suggests that doctors use the term loosely and disagree on what it means, according to psychiatrists urging the revisions.

A new autism spectrum category recognizes that “the symptoms of these disorders represent a continuum from mild to severe, rather than being distinct disorders,” said Dr. Edwin Cook, a University of Illinois at Chicago autism researcher and member of the APA work group proposing the changes.

The proposed revisions are posted online at http://www.DSM5.org for public comment, which will influence whether they are adopted. Publication of the updated manual is planned for May 2013.

Dr. Mina Dulcan, child and adolescent psychiatry chief at Chicago’s Children’s Memorial Hospital, said Aspies’ opposition “is not really a medical question, it’s an identity question.”

“It would be just like if you were a student at MIT. You might not want to be lumped with somebody in the community college,” said Dulcan who supports the diagnostic change.

It’s not as snooty as what that last Duncan person said.

With autism being so much in the public eye, it’s finally becoming clearer to more than just the families themselves exactly how HUGE a spectrum this is. Asperger’s has a face – Bill Gates, Einstein, Goerthe, John Nash, VanGogh, several Presidents. While the majority of autistics have problems making friends, at least those with Asperger’s stand a chance. They stand a chance of being able to be productive members of society on and of their own accord.

Not that other autistics do not deserve this – they do, and more. However, the majority of more severe autistics need round the clock care or monitoring, and this lack of ability to be independent is, to me, the major distinction between Aspies and the rest. I think that not wanting to be lumped into a group where the most severe cannot go to the toilet alone is a valid concern. If I’m wrong, please tell me why.

Personally, I don’t find a hard floor comfy. But Mr. Beautiful here sure does….

Friday Ark. Go. Visit

Somewhere around the end of 11th grade or the beginning of 12th, if you have a child who has an IEP, you can expect them to have to go through something called an ER. Now, your average kid does not have to go through this – but since I have a child who is autistic, probably will not do even middling on the SAT or ACT, and who will be a challenge to get *into* college, we have to. Colleges require it, and it’s only good for three years.

At the team meeting, the school decided that they didn’t want to be the ones doing the eval, that they would pay someone to do it, someone I would approve of. This is a Big Thing, because these outside evals cost upwards of $5000…..methinks they just don’t want to do the work. Ok, fine – gives us a fresh look, and we think maybe we can get an executive function eval done, too, since that is his biggest issue. The school then tells us he has to see a **psychiatrist** – saying that the testing psychologist would ask for it.

The psych did Not ask for it. Turns out the school just wanted it done. Now, Bug has NEVER had any psychiatric issues. He has never even had a meltdown. The psychiatrist calls me on the phone last week, to talk to me before he meets Bug. He confirmed that it was the school that wanted it done, and after I told him basically what I just wrote, neither one of us could figure out why the school wanted this done. Of course, the guy probably thought I was nuts, because 15 minutes into the phone call, someone comes to the door, the dog goes nuts barking, Bug stands there looking at me like I should get off the phone and answer the door, and I’m trying to tell HIM to do it….even though he knew who I was talking to…Grrrr… And when Bug finally met with him, they talked about Monty Python…. The guy met John Cleese, so that went over really big with Bug.

In any case, we have been going to the psych’s office for the testing, she is doing a gazillion IQ type tests, and I had to fill out quite a few of them. One of them, the GARD, is really for YOUNG children. I thought it entirely inappropriate, and when it comes to the end, I will probably request that we don’t use it. She told me that I would be allowed to veto anything that was in the report. Now, if the school had done the testing, that sure as hell would NOT have happened.

Last week, she called me into her office to watch him taking a test. There was a computerized test of patterns, and he was flying through it with an extremely high score, which amazed her. I did not ask what it tested, but someone told me later that it tested matrices. That did not surprise me, as he tested genius level for those when he was in 3rd grade and couldn’t read….he’s the kid who can find the needle in the haystack. The rest will probably not test near that high, but it would be great if we could figure out a job (or a college major) where he could use that. And no, he has no interest in computers except to use them for a TV, so he can watch videos of old shows or fart around on You Tube.

This psych is a weird bird. I hear that’s typical. Today we were supposed to have another appointment, but they called off his school because we were SUPPOSED to have a snowstorm. So she called off, too, even though I told her we could make it. All we got was flurries. It wasted a good test day, he would not have had to miss school – so far he has missed three days, and there will be at least two more.

I almost resent this testing, even though I know it’s something we have to endure. He has missed SO much school, and with the 5 snow days we have to make up, has lost all his spring break. Of course, we were supposed to go visiting colleges then…. I think he will take off and do that, anyway. Tough crap. Today was a wasted snow day. They owe him an unwasted day, period. Come to think of it, it’s the *school* I resent.

Click on this link. You will get a black page. Click your mouse anywhere (& everywhere) on the page & see what happens! Better yet, click (hold down) & drag your mouse over the black page… Much better than all this snow…………..

40″ of snow on March 7???? WTF???

Bad enough it’s supposed to snow 12″-18″ Thursday into Friday…..then three feet+ more?????????????????

I am sick of all of this.

You know, the Seinfeld kind?

There’s an awful lot of Two Face going around….

During the 2008 presidential campaign, then-Sen. Barack Obama repeatedly promised that if elected he would clean up the way Washington works and bar lobbyists from working in his administration.

“I have done more to take on lobbyists than any other candidate in this race — and I’ve won,” Obama said during the primaries. “I don’t take a dime of their money, and when I am president, they won’t find a job in my White House.”

But just weeks after Obama’s inauguration, one found a job in the Pentagon.

William Lynn was confirmed as the No. 2 man in the Defense Department, a bit of a shock because he had spent much of the last decade as a lobbyist for Raytheon, the $25 billion a year defense contractor that makes the Army’s Patriot missile system and the Navy’s Tomahawk missile.

He’s not the only one. But isn’t even just one more than what we were supposed to get?

He’s not just after Your info any more, now he’s spying on your KIDS, too…

A federal class action claims a suburban school district has been spying on students and families through the “indiscriminant use of and ability to remotely activate the webcams incorporated into each laptop issued to students,” without the knowledge or consent of students or parents.
The named plaintiffs say they learned that Big Brother was in their home when an assistant principal told their son that the school district knew he “was engaged in improper behavior in his home, and cited as evidence a photograph from the webcam embedded in minor plaintiff’s personal laptop issued by the school district.”
The families say the Lower Merion School District issued Webcam-equipped personal laptop computers to each of its approximately 1,800 high school students: in Harriton High School in Rosemont, and Lower Merion High School in Ardmore. The schools issued the computers as part of a “one-to-one” laptop computer initiative lauded by Superintendent Christopher McGinley as an effort that “enhances opportunities for ongoing collaboration, and ensures that all students have 24/7 access to school based resources and the ability to seamlessly work on projects and research at school and at home.”
But the parents and students say that, without their knowledge, the access went both ways. Nowhere in any “written documentation accompanying the laptop,” or in any “documentation appearing on any Web site or handed out to students or parents concerning the use of the laptop,” was any reference made “to the fact that the school district has the ability to remotely activate the embedded webcam at any time the school district wished to intercept images from that webcam of anyone or anything appearing in front of the camera,” the complaint states.

Thank heavens Bug’s school computer doesn’t have a webcam… I hope these parents win BIG TIME.