Yet another story that I am surprised that Estee Klar-Wolfhond will not blog about in her joy of autism blog. A storyabout a man with autism hitting a baby. The 28-year-old man hit the baby who was six months old and left a bruise on its head. When questioned, the man acknowledged that he needed help and hoped to get it. Yet, when asked why he hit the baby he exclaimed, "it was an accident, don't worry about it." Yet one has to wonder how a man could hit a 6 month old baby by accident.
The man's mother was shopping with her son in a K-mart in Wichita Kansas when this happened and says she cannot keep complete control of him and was worried about the baby being harmed. Apparently the baby had a bruise and other than that was not seriously harmed. She states that he has harmed children before.
The mother acknowledged that her son did not get much help growing up. Naturally this lead to an autism expert claiming that autistics do these things because they don't get early intervention, using this tragedy as an opportunity to get behind the figurative bully pulpit and preach the mantra of early intervention being some sort of solution to the problems of autistics. This was followed by a shameless plug for this autism expert's special education school in Wichita. Of course, there is no proof any intervention in this man's childhood would have curbed his violent tendencies.
The baby's mother contacted a prosecutor in the Wichita city attorney's office. She was told charges would not be pressed against the man because of his inability to know right from wrong.
The boy's mother has asked for possible solutions to her son's problem with hitting children. She stated in the article, "what am I supposed to do, lock him up, shoot him? I wish society would give me an answer." I wonder if anyone from the neurodiversity movement could give the mother an answer, since they seem to believe autism needs to be accepted rather than cured or prevented. They don't want autism speaks to fund science that would find a cure or even better treatments for someone like this, or find a way to prevent the man from becoming autistic in the first place.
Chaotic idealism would just state that the mother needs to write a post on wrongplanet or aspies for freedom and one of the experts at either of these two pristine web sites would offer her a solution.
Ari Neeman would just say that being anti-cure is not being anti-progress and not to worry.
Somehow I wonder if either of these solutions would cut it or if someone from the ND movement has some answer that would help this man and his mother. Or do they still want to say this behavior should be accepted and not be cured or prevented?
Also, I am waiting for all of these exploitive special educators to offer proof that their schools and interventions would prevent something like this from happening.
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15 comments:
"Or do they still want to say this behavior should be accepted and not be cured or prevented? "
Jonathan, this was a bit over the top and just hurts your credibility. Don't do that. You have some really good points to make but don't self sabotage yourself.
Jonathan,
I think we should buy this guy a beer and send him to visit Estee so she can get the slap on the head she needs.
Hi Jonathan
I am not aware of any statistics with regard to rate of aggression to others in relation to the aggressor’s condition, and autism in particular, but I am certain that the leading cause to aggression and crime is alcohol/drug related and not autism. There are very rare cases reported like the one you mentioned. For this reason, I do not think one can use it as an argument to generalize, arguing for “intervention” or “cure” of any type. I have met many people with an ASD, whilst there is a strong tendency to being argumentative for some individuals HFA/AS (to surf various blogs is sufficient to attest this), I have not met or experience physical violence from ASD people, other than from people who are in serious distress and are being mishandled by others one way or another (that’s not like the attack reported on the baby- it’s nothing like that). My understanding of the ND movement is that they want to be accepted for who they are and request support when needed. I cannot judge on the case reported in the news article, as most of the time, it’s incorrectly and incompletely reported anyway, but I doubt the ND people would deny the support this man may need.
I'm with jonathan on this one. The solution is obvious but is clearly being suppressed by vested interests in the "education industry". Helmets! Baby Helmets!
Here's a site that I'm sure could miniaturise their normal offerings for protection against the neurologically diverse. They have a range of culturally sensitive offerings. Hockey helmets for Canadians, Hurling helmets for the Irish, Cricket helmets for the English & Horse riding helmets for the wealthy. They don't seem to do American football helmets though, but I'm sure they'd branch out, if only in the interests of diversity.
SM69: I am not personally aware of any actual statistics or controlled studies or anything like that which give rates of violence such as this man's of autistic people. I do though have plenty of anecdotal evidence that behavior not dissimilar to this is not unique. I know of one man who would go up to woman and kiss them and touch them inappropriately, one man who burned his parents' house down. Another parent who says he can't bring his son out in public because he attacks people.
This is not to say that violent behavior is necessarily common in autistics or that this is the norm.
ND basically, in spite of their denials, wants to demedicalize autism and just make it an alternative way of being rather than a disease.
I believe this is not a good way to think about autism and I do not think this man's behavior should be accepted, nor other inappropriate violent or sexual overtures made by autistics. If ND has a solution to these problems that are an alternative to cure or prevention of autism (not abortion), then i welcome them. Since I have read numerous ND websites and have never once seen a solution, other than chaotic idealism's suggestion that the people on wrongplanet or aspies for freedom will have some sort of suggestion (I won't comment on the utility of this solution) then I will assume ND really has nothing to offer, so i will continue to support scientific research that leads to a cure and/or treatments or a way to prevent people from becoming autistic in the first place.
Isn't touching women inappropriately a natural way of behaving? You'd think the ND's would be in favor of it.
Hi Jonathan,
I must admit I am reading your post after a few glasses of good wine so you will have to forgive me of the lightness of my message. But when I read you saying that a man was found to touch a woman’s breasts inappropriately (I mean in public), that surely brings a smile to my face and then when you follow this with another account of someone else burning his parent’s house down, I find this even more funny. I know the issues are serious and should be treated seriously, but isn’t it the case that most of the times both the reasons, and the responses of these behaviours are simple?
I mean the reasons are obvious, the answers are simple in many ways, though not always, and not very incompatible with the ND movements, if only they could accept that when needed, help, I mean serious help, not just provisions, and accommodations should be made available.
I know you have tried to challenged the view of the ND people here, and either they post as Anon (a cool guy I tend to meet a lot lately) anf theyr tend to post on various personal issues not dealing with any fundamentals or they have avoided responding to your seeking, but can we hear from you guys, how do you see the issues reported here?
I mean, how do you see this issue if you son did this?
SM69
"you saying that a man was found to touch a woman’s breasts inappropriately (I mean in public), that surely brings a smile to my face "
So, you like men touching your breasts in public? That's fine with me, maybe you can spread that thought to more women.
SM69,
You and all neurodiverse women should be accepting of our differences as males and allow us to touch your breasts whenever we like. You aren't accepting our natural variations since we would like to touch every breast we see. I think it's quite bigoted of ND women to oppose accepting our differences as males but I like your attitude of acceptance in this area.
Doesn't look like Foresam can hold any sort of conversation.
I'm just trying to understand Neuroinsane logic.
Foresam
I didn’t base my comment solely on this current exchange.
I've heard that anti-psychotic drugs often given to autistic people can contribute to violent tendencies.
Yes, it’s true. I often have to sit in court to assist AS adults, as an expert witness to request medication to be reduced and drug effect monitored. Often there are multiple drugs put together, the combined effect of which is unknown. The degradation that result are serious, weight gain, confusion, drowsiness, and yes serious outbursts of violence. Not uncommonly, the person will try to escape that regimen, if the person is not in a secured ward, he would leave when the opportunity occurs. Then the medications are stopped suddenly, which is even worse still. There are other problems that can give rise to violent behaviors, pain is nb 1 cause. I am writing a grant exploring this issue with regard to challenging behavior and self-injurious behavior. And I must return to this work!
Come on! people with autsim sometimes know that they can do wrong things and basicly not get in truble!In one of my classess there is idot boy named ben who doesn't have autsim but for lunch he only eats CANDY!!! He is such aloser!!
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