louis theroux documentary on autism

[sphil]

Next week, 19th April, 9pm on BBC2. It's called 'Extreme Love' - blurb says it focuses on young people attending an innovative school in the US.

Will watch - I like his programmes as a rule.

I wonder if it's the school that used shock collars on autistic children?
With their parents' consent?

YY zzzzz totally agree.

No matter how good or thought provoking the programmes are, no matter how sympathetically they deal with the subject, the title is just so horrid.

No, that was Judge Rotenberg Center.
So I will watch and wonder what else the professionals have come up with for our children.

www.mujc.org/schools_warren.html

I do worry about how close some of these shows are to the Victorian Freak shows.
Come and gawp at the unimaginable, shriek and squeal and judge.
Then go home and feel reassured that it is nothing to do with you.
SHOCK! HORROR! EXTREME TV VIEWING!

The school is an ABA school with SLT and OT integrated. Depending on how it is portrayed will shape lot of peoples opinions or prejudices about ABA. It is interesting though that they had to go all the way to US to film it as there are some good ABA schools in the UK.. Makes me think that it is not going to be pleasant viewing. Typical Therox doc You know, look at those stupid /evil Americans.. Good job we don't do things like that round here. (can you tell I am cynical )

Agree about the title as well.

Agree about the title. It looks as if the school uses ABA, which will be interesting, though when I see it succeed I always feel guilty that we didn't continue with DS2's programme. I tried and tried to get school to accept and adopt some of the more basic principles, but after a huge amount of head-bashing-against-wall I gave up. And I will always wonder whether that was the right decision. Even though its all 'what-ifs' as there's no ABA school anywhere round here.

So watching this may be something of a bitter-sweet experience.

I can't help (at this point, having not even seen a trailer!) but agree with dev9. why go to the US to make a documentary about ABA, when there are some excellent ABA schools here?

what 'shock' value is going to be added (it wouldn't really be Louis Theroux without some kind of arched eyebrow and shock value)

there are, undoubtedly, some extreme examples of 'educating' (across NT and SN), but I wonder whether highlighting the extreme (if indeed that is what it does) in this kind of case (more entertainment than expose

Does anyone remember the documentary about ADHD and medication? Again he went to America to film families.
I like louis Theroux but i agree that he does tend to look for extreme examples of a subject matter.
I thought that with the ADHD doc his views shifted from thinking that medication was over diagnosed to understanding why families chose that option after actually spending time with the children and heir families.

Is Louis on the spectrum?

louistheroux.com/blog/?p=85my-new-docs I'm aghast at the way that he describes the documentary, to be honest. The reality is that autism is not about violent behaviour, and it's not 'typical' for those on the autism spectrum to set fire to things or punch holes in walls, actually. Nor is Asperger syndrome 'mild'. It simply means autism that doesn't also have a learning difficulty or speech/language difficulties - but it can still be extreme, and still have a lot of other disabilities/conditions at the same time (epilepsy, dyspraxia etc) and still mean that someone needs full time care.

Oh goodness me...

Maybe you should tell him Amber - maybe we all should.

This expectation of extreme behaviour and violent outbursts is very damaging. Not only does it stigmatise children but it undermines attempts to get help from those who only have these stereotypes to rely on (often schools).

When I used to say DS will get very anxious about x,y and z, school would always say well we did x,y and z and he looked fine to us. So, unless you have violent outbursts you are neither 'properly autistic' or deserving of help.

In their minds obviously.

I've raised the debate on Facebook's National Autistic Society pages and through Ambitious About Autism.

Yes, I think this is very true. And having now read the Radio Times article about the programme, since my OP, I'm beginning to think it will be sensationalist.

I've thought ( and said) for a long time that I would love to read a book*, or watch a TV programme, about ordinary people bringing up ordinary autistic children - those like DS2: no special gifts, no extreme behaviour, no dramatic 'miracle' improvements. I've even thought about writing a book - I was going to call it ' No Miracles' - until I realised it would a) be deathly dull and b) royally piss off those people who have seen genuine dramatic improvement in their children as a result of a particular intervention.

(* 'George and Sam' is an exception)

there's some clips from the programme here and he was on the one show last night talking about the programme but I only caught the last few seconds.

I dont like the title one bit.

weighing up whether to watch it or not. Watched the clips. First thing I see from Louis body pose is that he wasnt the slightest bit comfortable and neither was he impressed on being researched. Also I know its a documentary but WHY talk about the boy in the car to the woman when the lad is right next to him. Talk to him instead. I dont know its only clips and not the whole thing I suppose and I could be being very negative.

Agree why not use UK ABA schools.

Mmm, the lads in those clips were doing a darned better job of communicating respectfully than Louis was!

Am feeling a bit already.

I was wondering what slant he would take. I thought maybe he would track down the "cure autism" brigade but not sure that would be sensationalist enough. Will watch with interest

I didn't like the way he was on the One Show. I think that it will give the audience the "freak show" idea of Autism.

I really felt for the lad he was playing dominoes with. The stress of being alone with him and the camera crew was so intense that he quietly excused himself, stripped off to his undies to at least reduce sensory overload from clothing, and went to his bedroom so he could escape...and the chap and crew followed him into his room. I think there are serious issues of respecting privacy there, to be honest. If that's a sign of how 'difficult' we are to deal with, they should try seeing how difficult it is for us to try to remain calm and polite with people who behave like that.

I haven't watched it, but you make an excellent point amberlight.