to be fed up of people using Aspergers as an excuse

[SomeGuy]

Just reading DM (yes, IABU, I know), story about some bloke who got into a facebook tiff and sued for libel:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1298010/Facebook-libel-Law-student-dubbed-paedophile-wins-10-000-li bel-damages.html

'Jeremiah Barber posted an indecent image of children on Raymond Bryce's page on the social networking website along with the comment: 'Ray, you like kids and you are gay so I bet you love this picture, Ha ha'.

The image, which hundreds of users could see, showed Mr Bryce superimposed on to a collage of pornographic pictures.

It was 'tagged' with Mr Bryce's name, allowing his 800 friends on the site to see it.

His victim, who is now a law student, pursued the civil claim against his former school friend and was awarded £10,000 at the High Court yesterday for the stress and anxiety the incident caused him.'

'Mr Bryce, 24, who lives with his parents in Stone, Staffordshire, suffers from high functioning Asperger's Syndrome, but has secured a place on a full time degree course studying law at Stafford University.'

So in other words he's intelligent and successful and has lots of friends. So why should we care that he 'suffers' from Aspergers? It doesn't make the libel any worse, or make him more of a victim.

Here's another story, from Friday:

www.thisiskent.co.uk/tunbridgewells/Asperger-sufferer-admits-cash-card-theft-friend/article-2442184- detail/article.html

'Sevenoaks Magistrates' Court heard on Friday how 22-year-old Michael Funnell, of Addison Road, invited a group of friends around to his house for a party on March 6.

He took their coats to hang them up and when Steve Goodwin's back was turned, took his bank card, before withdrawing £120 from a cash point.

He had memorised his friend's PIN when with him a couple of days before.

Brian Ferris, defending, said: "I am told my client has Asperger's syndrome. He can offer no explanation as to why he steals in this way."'

You wouldn't get them saying 'I am told thay my client doesn't have a very good job, because he is not very bright.'

Another story from today:

www.thisistotalessex.co.uk/news/Spared-prison-camera-showers/article-2442265-detail/article.html

' A MINISTRY of Defence manager who set up covert cameras to watch naked men in the showers has been spared jail.

Hensman, who suffers from Asperger's Syndrome, was working as network manager in communications and systems at the MoD police HQ in Wethersfield when he was accused of voyeurism.

Judge Anthony Goldstaub QC told him: "You were originally prosecuted for sexual offences [voyeurism] but because of your psychiatric makeup these charges were dropped.

"In February 2006 you set up some sort of video recording equipment which recorded movements of people coming in and out of the showers, involving some images of naked males' private parts.

"You were doing it because of your psychiatric condition."

Asperger's is an autism disorder characterised by social interaction problems.

Judge Goldstaub said that people have to "accommodate" others with psychiatric disorders and be "tolerant", adding "it's not their fault".'

It seems to be a popular plea for people accused of child pornography offences:

www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/2031606.indecent_images_man_avoids_jail/

'A BARMAN who was caught with more than 900 indecent images of children has been spared jail.

Southwark Crown Court heard because Jonathan Bristow had Asperger's syndrome he could act on impulse and become obsessive about collecting things.'

It's great she has a concept of imitation aged 3- even if she finds motor movements hard. Ds1 has made enormous progress in the last couple of years since learning imitation. Now he is beginning to understand verbs, he can horse ride, he can surf, he can climb. All thanks to imitation. It's so key and often ignored.

Deep down she has some good foundations, she is quite sociable and wants to interact, has some imaginative play and is actually quite biddable if you can actually get her attention (thank god). She is hyperactive and constantly stares off and goes into her own world of course.

So I know it could be worse.

Just have to get over the fact we used to think she was gifted with advanced speech (I was a smug parent, pride comes before a fall!)

Your DS sounds like he is doing amazingly well!

aww that's a shame. I'm always ready to learn from those who have greater knowledge & experience than I do

Which is of course why I love MrsT

It reminds me a letter I received this week from the LA 'ASD Support and Outreach Worker' ... due to my sources on the inside I know that she has no training at all & was until last month working as a general family support worker having graduated from homestart volunteering for a couple of years.

When asked what support she could offer us (a family running an ABA programme & pretty close to the edge financially & due to sheer exhaustion) she asked if ABA was a very new therapy because she'd never heard of it & also didn't know that some people with ASD might find OT useful. I don't have enough time to waste it on people who basically know fuck all but think they are terribly important.

That's dreadful phlebas. Terrible. What a waste of time (and la money).

Last weekend we met with an old therapist who is very experienced- it was so nice - over coffee and croissants she made lots of suggestions and we bounced ideas back and forth and had a giggle at the same time.

There need to be more like her.,

It seems to me, I'm afraid, a sign of a limited imagination (and possibly intelligence) to simply witter on endlessly about 'knowing right from wrong'. That is such a simplistic way of discussing these issues.
Even in the wildly disparate cases mentioned in the frankly bizarre OP, Aspergers is mentioned for three very different reasons. Firstly, it is mentioned as far as we can tell in passing, not as an 'excuse' (there is certainly no evidence of it being an 'excuse' for the act and is not even mentioned by the accused at all) but as an explanation BY THE BARRISTER as to why the accused could not explain his behaviour, as the court would normally expect. Actually the very fact that the barrister could only say, 'he can offer NO EXPLANATION of why he behaves in this way' surely shows the man involved is is NOT using his autism as an 'excuse' or even an explanation. The man was found guilty. In the 2006 filming case the autism is highly relevant as to WHICH of several charges should be pressed. Often (contrary to Someguy's assertion) proving a crime means you also have to prove a particular motive, not just a particular act. For example, to prove voyeurism, you have to prove a sexual motive. In most cases filming in an area where people might be naked would be good evidence of a sexual motive. But in someone with a very different world view and obsessions that wouldn't occur to the average person, that might not be the case. If there is a different motivation, you need to find a different charge, as was the case here. The accused was not 'let off' - he was simply charged and found guilty of a different charge. Aspergers here was not an 'excuse' but an explanation that the motive was different to the one originally assumed. In the last case dating from 2008, well, yes, it might offered by his barrister partly be an excuse for the scale of the crime. There is no link between Aspergers and a sexual interest in children. I can imagine that if someone did happen to have autism AND a coincidental sexual interest in children, that could lead to an obsessive collecting of images, which would of course, be wrong. And the guy was indeed rightly found guilty, and I can see no evidence that his sentence was any different to anyone else's would have been.
It seems obvious that taking at one incident where someone with Aspergers was the victim of a crime (and is clearly a highly moral person), and combining it with three totally different trials over several years, which happened to involve people with Aspergers, does not add up to a serial pattern of behaviour from autistics, as was claimed. Nor does was it ever claimed that any of these people didn't 'know right from wrong' or shouldn't pay a price if they did wrong.

It's nothing to do with a pattern of behaviour from autistics, it's using it as an excuse, as it says right up there in the title. It's not an attack on people's precious children, as some seem to think in this thread, it is about people not taking responsibility for their actions.

It's a standard tactic for defence lawyers now, extensively discussed:

www.slate.com/id/2233313

Rober Durst was acquitted of murder after murdering and chopping up his neighbour, because his very expensive lawyers blamed it on the Asperger's. www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/15/48hours/main606443.shtml

And that's before we talk about Gary McKinnon

Goodness me, you are OBSESSED with this, aren't you? I know you aren't good at listening, but really, don't you have anything better to do than trawl the web for any crime, anywhere in the world, no matter how trivial, no matter how long ago, as long as it involves someone who is autistic? I honestly would have thought that with a son who you have had diagnosed (god knows why, as autism clearly makes no difference to anyone, ever) you might have something better to do, like educate yourself about autism in some kind of positive way. Or is this some bizarre way of dealing with your fears?

Robert Durst (one of the wealthiest people in America) got away with murder because of the American criminal justice system that failes repeatedly to convict the rich and famous - and not because he had Aspegers (which I don't believe he does have).

Gary McKinnon was doing the US a favour by exposing their lack of IT security - he does not deserve to be extradited to face a lengthy prison term.

And the case dates from 2003!

I think really with the OP what we are seeing is a bit of a QED of his statement of having the relevant tendencies himself. He cannot seem to see that the cases are different - turn on different points of law, profoundly different circumstances, different outcomes: that, overall, in each example the Asperger's has a different relevance.

To the extent those cases do have anything in common, it's how they demonstrate the Asperger's difficulty of understanding and negotiating context (and the subtleties of variation of context) appropriately. It really does seem like the OP shares that difficulty.

I'm not saying this as anything more than an observation. It is not a criticism - though I guess it may be a bit of an excuse for what does come across as insensitivity and enormous point-missing.

What is your obsession with dates? Do you have Aspergers? Is it a big deal for you?

If you're not interested don't comment. If you are interested then something more than 'but these cases happened over several years, it's not faaaaair' would work a little better as a reply.

I linked the article in Slate, sub-headed 'Do criminals with Asperger's syndrome deserve special treatment?', and it discusses various high-profile cases over several years. That's what journalists do.

If you think the answer is 'Yes, they deserve special treatment' say so, but it would be nice if you'd stop the 'you're not good at listening', 'you're obsessed' ad hominems.

One feature of Aspergers is repetious behaviour.

To be still trying to press your point on a thread you started 5 days ago could be considered an Aspergic trait.

I rest my case.

ah thanks Dr. Freud, really great that, I'll be sure to employ that line next time a thread's still going after a few days and I disagree with the OP.

i was not ko'd, i was busy with my children and running our home. why is it that when someone does not reply straight away ppl like you think they have bullied ppl away?

saintly.......maybe, just maybe you are doing too many things at once. i don't know the exact length of time it takes him to process any information but from what you have said, i'm guessing it's quite a while. being overloaded can cause anxiety and upset to someone with asd as their brain cannot cope with it all.
as for not knowing what severe asd is, trust me, i have worked in many homes with very severe asd. the violence comes from frustration etc.....and is a symptom of the asd and ldd. and yes, why can't a person with severe asd live in their own home? it is with 24/7 support from one person who most of the time is there for safety reasons. when i 1st met that chap, his life was awful. we were his last chance of some kind of normal life outside of a hospital locked ward. it worked, because we gave him that chance, understood him and gained his trust, friendship and allowed him freedom along with boundaries where he began to learn what was appropriate. i have also worked with someone who that was not going to work for and she is back in a locked ward. but in that short time i worked with her, i made progress with her because she did not attack me. i gave her consistancy, trust and understanding. unfortunately i had to pull out because i got preg but if she had more staff that gave her what i did, she would have made progress. it was a lack of inexperienced staff with no training or support plus a bad reputation from the staff that worked with her previously that failed her.

as for your shopping dilemma, try using a small shop, 2 symbols of what you need to buy (make one his choice, if its sweets or choc, then let him have it unless he is allergic) to act as a reinforcement). get those 2 items (week by week add an item and don't go more than 3 times a week) and when you get to the till, reinforce the list by counting and showing him the symbols. if he takes from others baskets, reinforce the list with the symbols. if nothing else it will help with the routine of the shopping. sharing with asd is hard because most with asd are egotistical and do not even realise there are others in the world. happy and sad or yes and no symbols may help, keeping it simple.

and yes, cannot agree more, it is the more higher functioning ppl who are the most misunderstood. my son does not follow the usual pattern, gives good eye contact, laughs, is starting to have an imagination, interacts with ppl but when his anxieties kick in ppl just think 'naughty, spoilt brat' etc....because he look or act differently to most other children. the sooner ppl stop thinking asd is 'rainman' the better!!

i don't know if it has been tried, but social communication groups have helped my son along with pair working. at can be done on whatever level the child is at and does help.

"people like me"..yes, I am always bullying people on here, such a meanie I am..

anyway, am off, you carry on educating people with your superior knowledge!

mamadoooooo...don't.

Seriously, don't. Don't patronise saintlydamemrsturnip, someone who has more knowledge of autism than anyone I know. Don't belittle all the years that she has spent learning about autism in general, what it is for her son and how she can develop what he can do. Nobody I know deserves patronising less. She is my heroine, for that, and for the fact that she can write coherent, helpful, empathetic posts.

As for the rest of the anti-autism posts...

All 'autistics' are not the same. There are 4 people in my family who have autism, all to differering degrees and all with varying degrees of ability to control their behaviour. I always say that autism isn't an excuse; it's an explanation, and I stand by that. There are many things that my son has control over but also many things that he doesn't. Obviously, my role is to up the number of things that he can manage, but his autism does limit him and I really hope that, by the time he's an adult, I can trust the world to be a little more compassionate and understanding than it is now .

givemevodka.............

saintly asked me a question, i answered it.
having worked in the field for 16yrs now and being a parent to a child with asd, i know that sometimes you get bogged down with the problems, you can't see the woods for the trees, so sometimes, when someone makes a suggestion, you suddenly see that lightbulb come on. it doesn't matter how much knowledge, experience you have, you just get focused on certain issues.

No, you're just trying to prove your point that autism is "an excuse" (your words) and that anyone can be taught anything, especially right from wrong.

That may be true in your experience. But you haven't met every person with autism in the world so your belief that SDMT must just be 'doing it wrong' because she's not made her son understand all the things in the world is a)ignorant b) nonsensical c) patronising and d) fucking annoying, tbh.

Oh fgs I don't do everything at once - we have used various techniques over the years. Although tbh pecs, tapping and makaton work well together. He has spent most of this summer at the beach in the sea (first time ever) because he is ultimately a little boy, rather than a project.

Yes of course we go in with symbols. That's a given. It hasn't led to him miraculously knowing right from wrong. And I don 't see how a symbol is going to reinforce when he is going for specific Items tgat he has curent compulsions over.

He actually has no problem sharing. Is very keen to, has often been commented on. Unfortunately he has limited language, one word and major motor problems so he doesn't have the tools to share very easily. He uses what he has well.

I don't want him living alone with a carer I coundn't think of anything more lonely for him tbh. And living 24/7 with a carer is not living independently. Proper care with 'adult school' would be far better for him.

i actually said that in some of those reports autism was being used as an excuse and yes, i do believe that everyone can be taught right from woring having worked with the ppl i have.

you say saintly has 'more knowledge of autism' etc....that maybe the case, she knows her son well and how asd affects him. like i said before, you can get bogged down and not see the woods for the trees. she asked me a question, i answered it.

apparently i don't know severe asd, all i know is the ppl i worked with were severly affected by it and the related issues but most problems were overcome by trying different things and the way staff worked with them. so yes, things can change!!
and as having experience from both sides, the employed worker and now the parent, it is harder being the parent and putting things, strategies, techniques into place and actually being able to take a step back and re-evaluate what is working and what isn't.

Actually I work in the field of severe autism as well mamma

I don't think you have really considered the effect of learning disabilities in your answers. I'm not having a go at you there - if you search on my name you will find that learning disabilities feature a lot in my life.

Mammadooooooo, I agree with saintly, I fail to see how you have considered the effects of learning difficulties in your answers.
You may believe that everyone can be taught right from wrong, good for you.
You strike me as the sort of professional I detest, believing that our children just need the intervention of some godly being who can miraciously transform them into a normal person, gah.
You talk about finding specialist services such as salt, my ds who is severely autistic and whom atends a special school for children with sld and complex needs had no salt for eighteen months because the la did not appoint staff after a raft of them left. New salt now in place, part time,term time only, will be seeing each child in a school of over one hundred pupils at least yearly,how fantastic and lucky we are.
Perhaps in your wisdom you could tell me how I should have handled the situation yesterday when my nine year old ds beat the shit out of me at the doctors because he was not allowed to turn her computer off.Thank goodness he was in his wheelchair.
Whilst the doctor sat open mouthed and told me this can not go on, you cannot put up with this.
Or being discharged from the Psychiatrist because we do not want our child to go onto anti psycholtic meication or by all the other professionals over the last seven years who have worked with our family.
Perhaps you could tell me where you work and i'll send ds to you and you can save him.
Seriously because I have had enough

oh hairy I had a summer like that last year. It is much improved this year but I'm not sure why. I think because ds1 has found ways of expressing himself (this was developmental rather than anything we did though).

Do you get respite? It has kicked in this year and has been a godsend for us, - and - importantly - for ds1. But I know how hit and miss that is. Until ds1's provision was opened recently there was nothing I would have left him in locally.

I know it's not much use, but thinking of you. xx