Psychology Today

Some parents of children with ASDs refer to autism as having robbed them of their children.  It is understandable that a parent wants the best life possible for their child but autism does not mean that life is over.  Life may be very different than imagined but I'd be willing to bet that most parents find that what they expected of having a child is very different than what transpires after the child is born.

I do not intend to be perceived as an advocate of JRC.  I am not.  There have been many troubling stories that have come out in the media such as, a case that I believe is still under investigation, in which a former client delivered information to JRC staff that was stated to have led to the delivery of multiple skin shocks to two current clients.  It is best to allow the proper authorities to decide whether JRC's practices are appropriate.  However, I also want to clearly state that there are situations in which aversive interventions are necessary.  Banning them outright is not the solution.  Regulating them properly for the very few situations in which they are necessary is the more humane alternative.

 A very important paper was published this week in Nature.  In this paper it was reported that persons with an ASD diagnosis were found to "carry a higher global burden of ...CNVs..."  So what are those CNVs?  They must be some substance carried in vaccines!  Finally we found the environmental toxin that Big Pharma has used to cause the autism epidemic.

There was no evidence to suggest that the GFCF diet had a positive effect. Fourteen preschool children with a valid diagnosis of and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were given the gluten-free, casein-free (GFCF) diet for 18 weeks. Strict adherence to the GFCF diet was ensured and each child participated in comparable early intensive behavioral intervention throughout the study. Additionally, following at least 4 weeks on the diet each child was exposed to blinded challenges to the diet.  That is, each child was given food containing gluten, casein, both, and a controlled challenge.  Behavioral ratings were collected before the challenge, and at 2 and 24 hours following the challenge.

 Odgren was reported to be "obsessed" with the number 19. He killed Alenson on 1/19. Odgren was born on 9/1/90 and the number 19 played a prominent role in Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" and some other of his writings.  Odgren also had a particular interest in Stephen King's novels.  Anyone that knows ASDs knows that repetitive interests drive behavior.  Odgren acted on January 19th in a manner that seems directly related to his these interests.  How can we not assume that his Asperger's Syndrome played a significant role?

Many well established researchers and clinicians were skeptical of the plausibility of FC from the beginning.  How could a person seemingly communicate at a high level after a few minutes with a facilitator?  Why were they able to communicate so effortlessly and often without even being oriented towards the keyboard at which their faciltators were guiding their fingers towards letters or icons?

Special Master Hastings expressed extreme sympathy with the situation the family faced with their daughter's condition. He also stated that the Cedillo family had been mislead by a bevy of charlatans who posed as experts when, in fact, they either had scant qualifications to testify or were basing their testimony on faulty assumptions.

Imprinting establishes the parent as very important, a potent reinforcer, and a significant cue.

As the child with autism ages, they learn to engage in additional forms of stereotypy and, perhaps, the motivation to engage in stereotypy increases.

 Psychologists have a long history of ignoring (e.g., Koch, 1964), not understanding (e.g., Rogers, 1964), and/or intentionally misinterpreting (e.g., Chomsky, 1959) behavior analytic interpretations of psychology.

 In some cases problem behavior seemed to suggest that the person was asking for attention or access to a preferred activity or escape from some activity they found unpleasant.

 Going from such selective acceptance of food to eating other foods often takes quite a long time. The only situations in which I would recommend restricting access to food would be if the child had a documented food allergy or excessively consumed food.