Category: ‘Autism’ · TangleBones

So very wrong

As men­tioned over on Left Brain/Right Brain, in the intro­duc­tion to Jenny McCarthy’s new book about rais­ing her autis­tic son, Dr. Jerry Kartzinel says:

“Autism, as I see it, steals the soul from a child; then, if allowed, relent­lessly sucks life’s marrow out of the family mem­bers, one by one..”

…which makes my mind boggle. Let’s be clear who we’re talk­ing about. This is what Dr. Kartzinel thinks a soul­less child looks like:

Has this guy ever met an autis­tic? Jared is the hap­pi­est, fun­ni­est, sweet­est bundle of life and joy that you could ever meet. He’s made every­one around him happy for years. Every kid in his school seems to love him, and when they see him, they run to him shout­ing his name as though they were greet­ing a con­quer­ing hero. This kid isn’t suck­ing life’s marrow from anyone. This kid is too busy relent­lessly making life better for every­one who knows him.

So the next time you hear people like Dr. Kartzinel or par­ents like Jenny McCarthy on tele­vi­sion describ­ing autis­tics and autism, think of these pic­tures. Think of that smile. And then give them the finger.

What I Wish I Could Say

A woman where I work sent out a request on an inter­nal mail­ing list asking if anyone could rec­om­mend “a good autis­tic spe­cial­ist who prac­tices using the DAN philosophy” in our area. Here’s what I wish I could write her:

Dear XXXXX,

I don’t want this to come across too harshly, but I cer­tainly hope nobody will help you find what you’re look­ing for. DAN is noth­ing but quack­ery, and their use of chela­tion and Lupron is both ill-​advised and unethical.

I would encour­age you to call Kennedy Krieger and talk to them about seeing a neu­rol­o­gist and what­ever other ther­a­pists your child might need - they have all sorts. My son Jared has done won­der­fully work­ing with them.

Best of luck,

Jemal

Jared Reaches out and Touches Someone

Jared made his first phone call the other day. He dialed the phone and made con­tact with a per­fect stranger. This is actu­ally a big step for Jared, and he was able to com­mu­ni­cate effec­tively, giving his name and age to his new friend. Of course, his com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills weren’t perfect.

I’m guess­ing that Jared was prompted to call by our trip to the Fire Expo on Sat­ur­day. Jared got to ride in the front seat of a fire truck and work the sirens. He got to man a fire hose. He got to spray a fire extin­guisher. And he got to eat cotton candy. A very excit­ing day, all things con­sid­ered. So you can imag­ine that he might want to tell some­body all about it. But I guess he wasn’t entirely clear about what was going on.

So when the oper­a­tor from 911 emer­gency ser­vices called back, he was under the impres­sion that we needed an ambu­lance. Instead, Kellie had to inform him that Jared was just really excited to see a fire truck.

I guess we’ll have to add the phones to the list of things that have to be kept out of Jared’s grasp.