OH yeah, and another thing...

Just to make sure everyone reads what this guy said (because I know it is annoying to not be able to just click on it), here is an excerpt:

SAVAGE: Now, you want me to tell you my opinion on autism, since I’m not talking about autism? A fraud, a racket. For a long while, we were hearing that every minority child had asthma. Why did they sudden ⎯ why was there an asthma epidemic amongst minority children? Because I’ll tell you why: The children got extra welfare if they were disabled, and they got extra help in school. It was a money racket. Everyone went in and was told [fake cough], “When the nurse looks at you, you go [fake cough], ‘I don’t know, the dust got me.’ ” See, everyone had asthma from the minority community. That was number one.
Now, the illness du jour is autism. You know what autism is? I’ll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That’s what autism is.
What do you mean they scream and they’re silent? They don't have a father around to tell them, “Don’t act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don’t sit there crying and screaming, idiot.”
Autism ⎯ everybody has an illness. If I behaved like a fool, my father called me a fool. And he said to me, “Don’t behave like a fool.” The worst thing he said ⎯ “Don't behave like a fool. Don’t be anybody’s dummy. Don’t sound like an idiot. Don’t act like a girl. Don’t cry.” That’s what I was raised with. That's what you should raise your children with. Stop with the sensitivity training. You’re turning your son into a girl, and you’re turning your nation into a nation of losers and beaten men. That’s why we have the politicians we have.

And while we are at it, lets highlight another person who is clueless. It is someone on Mr. Savage's website who also put his clueless 'opinion' on autism out there. His name is Thomas Sowell and here is what he said:

Those who diagnose children by running down a checklist of "symptoms" can find many apparently "autistic" children or children on "the autism spectrum."

Parents need to be spared the emotional trauma of false diagnoses and children need to be spared stressful treatments that follow false diagnoses. Yet the "autism spectrum" concept provides lots of wiggle room for those who are making false diagnoses.

Real autism may not get as much money as it needs if much of that money is dissipated on children who are not in fact autistic. But money is money to those who are running research projects-- and a gullible media helps them get that money.

When we first realized that Daniel was a 'late talker' I read a book similar to one that this guy wrote... about how some children talk late and they are just really smart and there is nothing wrong with them. This guy's book is called "The Einstein Syndrome". If you want to talk about sparing a parent emotional trauma, don't try to tell me that the majority of late talking children are going to be just fine. You were wrong about my child and unfortunately wrong about many others.

Oh, and IF ONLY I could have gotten a diagnosis for Daniel by someone going down a 'checklist'. The 'checklist' he is referring to is just a screening that pediatricians (who are NOT qualified to diagnose autism....we begged ours to give us the diganosis so that we could get 'help' and she couldn't) use at the 18 month check up just to see if they should refer to a specialist to check for a variety of developmental delays (not just autism).

WE (not the government) spent a lot of money to get a diagnosis because the only place in Houston, TX (with the biggest and best medical center in the world) that will give you a diagnosis and takes insurance takes a YEAR to get in. Precious time that is wasted...oh, but maybe I should have just not treated my son and waited it out. That way when he was 6 and we found out, "oh, you guessed wrong, he really DOES have autism, but it is too late to really do a whole lot about it." I could say, 'well at least I didn't spend the government's money torturing my child for a couple of years. now he will just be tortured for the rest of his life instead.'

OH and speaking of torture, when we did get our diagnosis, Mr. Sowell, you should have seen how much money the government spent torturing our kid: $0. They will however gladly spend lots of money to torture his parents who are fighting to get insurance to pay for things that are medical necessities (did I mention he has seizures...which also happens a lot with autism. wait, is that common in late talking children also?). No, instead of letting the government spend our tax dollars to torture us, we used our own money to torture our child. We spend about $1000 a month for a child who was in his own world and not talking to be tortured into looking like this:



The sad fact is, I would just be so happy if I could make him that 'tortured' at home.

So to recap, Michael Savage and Thomas Sowell are clueless about how autism is diagnosed and treated. Yet they use thier words and voices which reach millions of people to act like they are experts on the matter and say things that are absolutely false (and it is not hard to prove how wrong they are...do these people have fact checkers on their staff? If so, they need to be fired.) They use the power of thier speech and platform to make life harder and more painful for families that are in the trenches dealing with this thing. Daniel is definitely the type of child they are referring to...he makes eye contact more than Rain Man. He smiles. I have gotten so many comments about how people "just never would have known" he has autism. And those of you who have followed my posts know that I have really grappled with having it really sink in that Daniel has autism. Now I know why. All I need to do is take him to Michael Savage and Thomas Sowell and let them tell me everything is going to be fine. Have them list the stereotypes of autism and say, 'hey, in the last five minutes that we have been talking your son has not exhibited any of these stereotypes...he's fine!'.