Katie Grant from The Times appears to have about as much understanding of autism as my cat.

[Jimjamskeepingoffvaxthreads]

\link{http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2090-2177218,00.html\sigh}. Idiots like this make my life 100 times harder. "No love when I say he;s autistic I don't mean he fidgets a bit I mean he can't talk at all aged 7, and has social understanding of a 12-18 month old if that, and will require 24 hour care for the rest of his life, so bog off".

There that feels better. Silly cow.

Well I wrote to the times as well. Here:

Please see letter below. Even if not published I would be grateful if you would forward this email to Katie Grant. Such badly researched articles do a great deal of damage, and I would be more than happy enter into discussion with her and provide her with some excellent reading materials to improve her understanding of the condition.

Dear Sir

Re: Katie Grant "some autistic children aren't ill, they're just badly behaved"

Katie Grant appears to have written this article without any research at all. May I suggest that she reads the first half of Phoebe Caldwell's excellent book "Finding You Finding Me" which describes in some detail the many sensory problems that autistic children and adults, across the spectrum, are dealing with, which results in their unusual (not naughty) behaviour.

Katie Grant would have us believe that an autism diagnosis is easy to obtain. My son's autism was diagnosed after a 6 week multi-disciplinary assessment, a year and a half after we had first raised concerns with health professionals. We were indeed awarded DLA after diagnosis, but this nowhere near covered the cost of speech therapy and early intervention that we had to provide in an attempt to cover the lack of basic services.

Aged 7 my son is non verbal, and attends an SLD/PMLD school. He will almost certainly require 24 hour care for the rest of his life. I am guessing that even Katie Grant would agree that my son was on the autistic spectrum. However far from feeling "great distress" because the condition has been adopted by "many other parents" (it hasn't); I feel distress when reading such ill thought out articles. I have many friends with high functioning autistic children who I see struggle every day in the face of such ignorance.

Incidentally my son is not "ill", he is very healthy. He just happens to be autistic.

oh yes write something too, the more complaints the better really. I do feel strongly that journalists can be allowed to cause such damage without doing any research at all.

shouldn't be allowed even - that came out wrong!

I agree Jimjams but she writes articles like this deliberately to inflame people like you

What a strange world she must inhabit. I have no spare time to devote to inflaming people! She's supposedly very christian, but lacking in the old compassion then.

Usu. when I read articles like this, I try not to get annoyed or rise to the bait, because it's not worth it. But at the mo. we are in the process of DS being assessed with what is likely to be Aspergers and/or dyspraxia. At times over the last few months the realisation that my darling son is different to his peers and the understanding that this is prob. AS has left me feeling (sorry if I sound overdramatic) as if I am grieving. It has been v. difficult and emotional. Does this woman not understand how traumatic the process of going through assessment is. Also does she not realise the strict criteria and the reluctance to make a diagnosis in many areas - certainly our experience. I would give anything to be told that my DS is completely fine. I cannot believe that people think that AS and autism would be used as a convenient excuse for bad behaviour because it is fashionable to hand out 'isms'. It makes me feel that she would poss. put my son's behaviour down to bad parenting which is really upsetting. It's not as if I don't feel guilty enough as it is.

Thats just a dreadful article which is frankly insulting for parents of an autistic child, the womans cynicism is dreadful, I've emailed a letter speaking against it.

Yes theres an increase, yes you get trends of thinking about conditions, but the diagnositc criteria are so contained your not likely to get tarred with the asd brush if theres not an awful lot of evidence backing it up.

grr

OK I'm back, just wanted to say I'm sorry if I offended anyone. I realise many of you feel very strongly and this is an emotive subject.

I just wanted to raise the point that there is a big increase in ASD diagnoses, and there must be a reason (or reasons) for it. I think, in the light of it being acceptable to blame MMR although the latest evidence is that there is
\link{http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4311613.stm\no link}
we should be debating possible other reasons. One possible other reason is over-diagnosis. I accept the arguments you've made against this - however I stil think it's possible. There may also be other reasons and they should be debated too.

Just because I think Katie Grant may be right to raise this point, doesn't mean I think she's right throughout.

Jimjams, re Charlotte Moore, yes of course she is making money from her sons' autism - are you saying she's not??? Like any good features journalist she is writing about her experiences, and placing her pieces in the media marketplace (where, as I've said, autism is a fashionable topic) and in view of the fact that she probably finds it hard to get out and do a different job, as you've all elaborated, she is extremely wise to do so. She should get paid, shouldn't she? Are you suggesting she shouldn't? Many other journalists have done similar things writing about their own illnesses, loss of family members and other such issues. So what?

I respect all your points of view and I understand people with kids with ASD have more first-hand experience than me. I bow out!

So perhaps you could answer the question Socci, do you think she shouldn't get paid?

As for the other question, more children have it. So then the question is obviously why is that? MMR? If not, what?

Oops I was meant to be bowing out. Must let this go.

Stupid, Stupid woman.. how can they be allowed to write such crap.
I am one of those waiting to be "fashionable" as we don't have a dx yet, but I certainly wish I was able to tell my elderly parents last week that his paed is confident its just a naughty/quirky phase & not autism. But it is not the case. I do not want to be fashionable!

Snowleopard, I think one of the reasons for the increase in autism may be an increase in diagnosis but rather because it was under-diagnosed in the past rather than because it is being over-diagnosed now. I take the point that Katie Grant is not saying that all people with an ASD diagnosis are faking it but that she has concerns that some people are - however as she provides no evidence at all to back up the idea that anyone at all in the whole country has actually succeeded in getting a diagnosis under false pretences this is total scaremongering of the Daily Mail type. I would like to see her name a single person who has done this.

I think Charlotte Moore was writing for a while before autism was fashionable. Also George and Sam have the less fashionable poo-smearing type of autism .

I think more people are writing about autism primarily to educate the wider populace, some of who would cheerfully run a mile from the word autism. Any assertion that this is done with financial gain in mind is at best farcical, at worst highly offensive.

Lady Astor has written at some length in the past few years about her daughter's autism. There is a recent article in the Daily Telegraph re her daughter who is now 13. Samantha Smith is another who wrote an article about her two boys experiences at school - both sons are on the spectrum along with her Dad (who was diagnosed on the spectrum in his 60s only because he happened to come along as well to the specialists).

Of course I'm not suggesting thatCM should be writing for free snow leopard. Your earlier post seemed to suggest that CM was using her son's condition to her advantage, I was pointing out that her earning potential will have been somewhat cutailed by her sons conditions.

As for what is causing the rise in autism I suggest that you read Richard Lathe's book (sorry tamum- but the book is good and very up to date). The general consensus is that there is a whole sub group of the population that are not good (for genetic reasons) at detoxifying crap for want of a better word- and they are the one's being stuffed. This isn;' particularly out there as far as theories go, the results of lots of studies are beginning to tie together and all are tending to show similar things. Sulphation systems are buggered, membranes (gut and blood brain barrier) are leaky (for whatever reason), and heavy metal detoxification systems are not working. To describe the autistic physiology is complicated is a vast over-simplification though, Richard Lathe;s book describes the current state of affairs, if you don't want to spend the money you can get a long way with google. Try walsh autism as a starting point.

BTW complainers of this thread- it should have been sent to [email protected]

I've emailed too - I asked them to provide the evidence to back the claims she is making in the article.

Snowleopard..

Overdiagnosis?

how?

you can't fake the triad of impairments, if a child is Autsistic or Aspergers then theres no disguising that fact, and the process of getting a firm diagnosis is lengthy, stressful and depends to an extent whether your team of specialists are the kind who hold back on labelling children. The Spectrumis broad, they aren't all poo smearing non verbal balls of fury
some of them are not so greatly disabled by it, that doesn't mean they shouldn't gt a diagnosis.
Until there is a definative list of all the causes of Autism and Aspergers syndrome, we will not know what is causing it or why it is increasing.

The times article is inflammatory, it is insulting and it is offensive, Autism and Aspergers are conditions which a lot of society know nothing about, thre are enough misconceptions and misunderstandings surrounding it, without people with no direct experience suggesting that a percentage of its all just a sham, a money making, sympathy grabbing scam.

My impression is that it has been underdiagnosed in the past so obviously to redress the balance there has to be a period of more diagnosises which will appear to look like overdiagnosis. In any case if a lot of people have autism then it doesn't matter how many there are - what is important is why they have it and what can be done about it.