On Absurdly Poor Criticism And Advocate Misconduct, Part One

On September 14, 2013, exactly a month before I started writing this post, I was contacted by a colleague who expressed an interest in changes in behavioral practice since Lovaas's original methods and models of clinical treatment.

During the resulting exchange, I attempted to explain a variety of things related to behavior analysis, ranging from how ABA is not a treatment method to the relationship between ABA and PBS (the short version is that PBS is a brand-named philosophy regarding how to go about conducting and using ABA research). I also provided her with a number of assorted articles and writings on the subject, including a piece of my own work which acted as an overview.

I ended the exchange on something of a positive note, hoping that the information would help. The positive note, however, did not last.

This is what she wrote... or, at least, the currently-published version. There has been a rather spectacularly intellectually dishonest edit in the interim. It's, to put it mildly, an extraordinarily poor critique. The arguments are, by and large, spectacularly off-base, and her abuse of my writing is glaringly obvious (if not as much so as before the edits).

That said, I should probably discuss what this means and why it's a problem before I get into a detailed critique of the piece itself.

Contrary to what some people apparently believe, saying that a critique is poor does not mean that one disagrees with its conclusions or that the critique does not deal with real problems. It is saying that the critique misidentifies the issues involved and/or argues from a position of misunderstanding or prejudice.

In this case, the author is attempting to argue that all forms of applied behavior analysis are inherently unethical -- a very, very strong conclusion, one that simply does not follow from the evidence (such as it is) and arguments (such as they are) that she presents. Saying so isn't defending ABA, and certainly isn't excusing, justifying, or apologizing for the assorted abuses with which people have valid complaints.

This is important for several reasons -- not the least of which is that poor criticism serves to distract from real issues, detracts from good criticism, and confuses issues in ways that impair efforts to reform things.

To illustrate this, let's take a very different example, one that most of us can rapidly identify, easily understand, and generally make easy sense of: one of the more disgusting things which occurs whenever news story publishes a story about a black man raping a white woman.

Rape is obviously wrong: it's a gross violation of  a woman's bodily autonomy, a dehumanizing act which can easily (and often does) destroy her life. It is very difficult to think of a worse violation of someone's personhood... and the ethnicity and skin color of perpetrator and/or victim is utterly irrelevant to this.

Unfortunately, however, some people insist on making the moral issue here about race in a variety of ways. One of the simpler (and more vile) of these is to simply state that the act was wrong because a man like that (a black man, not a rapist) has no business sexually touching a White woman.

This is an absurdly poor (and racist) criticism of rape. It is one that needs -- urgently -- to be shouted down and combated whenever it pops up.

Referring to this sort of thing as poor discussion or off-base criticism is very much not excusing the heinous criminal act to which the alleged criticism was directed. It is simple truth.

The race thing serves to distract from the real problem. To the extent to which it gets attention, it's distracting people from paying that same attention to other, more relevant, criticisms.

But... let's say that some people actually took it seriously. Let's further say that they then tried to use it as the basis for political reform efforts.

These efforts would be useless at best and harmful at worst. In fact, that particular criticism can pretty much be considered a form of rape apology in and of itself: if the rape of a white woman by a black man is only heinous because of the race difference, what's wrong about a white man raping a white woman?

More, such "reform" efforts would likely target and harm completely innocent interracial couples. In fact, such prejudices and acts have historically caused very substantial harm in the form of blatantly racist legislation and various racial prejudices for just this reason.

Obviously, this has little directly to do with the ABA article which started this discussion, but does serve to illustrate a few very important points: 1) poor criticism is rarely helpful; 2) poor criticism is often harmful, even when its conclusions may be correct... and 3) stating that an argument is poor is not the same thing as stating that its conclusion is wrong.

In Part Two of this series, I will hopefully get to precisely why the specific critique that started this is poor and unlikely to be helpful. In Part Three, I will discuss just why I'm taking such pains to lay out these problems, why a simple blog post like that has lead to me starting an extended blog-rant, just what followed from the situation, and why it's taken me so long to post all of this.

Still Yet Another Note on Vaccination

Just got vaccinated again -- and still don't feel any more autistic.

Not even a bit of soreness this time!

On Autistics Speaking Day

Today is, once again, Autistics Speaking Day. Through happy coincidence, it also happens to be part of the early voting period in my state's election cycle during a major national election.

I live in Florida. Those of you familiar with practical politics here in the US should have some idea of what this means regarding the significance of my vote.

Guess what? I chose to make my voice heard in a far more significant way than a mere blog post.

It took, as it happens, about forty minutes, most of which was spent in a line. For those of you who go, I recommend bringing a book -- the paper kind -- because the legality of cell phones and the like in voting areas is... well, an issue. It's illegal to use them here; no idea about elsewhere.

And, if the person reading this happens to be a politician? Yes, people with disabilities vote.

And that means that we can vote for (or against) you.

In the end, as I said, that's far more important than a mere blog post. Today, for me, was not just Autistics Speaking Day.

It was Autistics Voting Day.

Yet Another Note on Vaccination.

I just got vaccinated. Again.

Still don't feel any more autistic.

I do feel a bit of soreness, though.

Still Yet More on Vaccination

I just got vaccinated -- yet again! And, once again, the vaccine contained mercury!

Nope, still not feeling any more autistic. I'm noticing a pattern here...

The Bigotry Defense?

Some of you may be familiar with the Alex Barton/Wendy Portillo case. For those of you who aren't, it started two years ago, when a kindergarten teacher (Portillo) had her class list off why they didn't like an autistic classmate (Alex Barton) and then had them vote him out of her class. To briefly summarize a really, really long story, Alex is now doing quite well academically in a different school district (although he still bears emotional scars), Wendy Portillo is back in the classroom (retaining her tenure) and again abusing students, and Alex's mom, Melissa, has filed a federal lawsuit against the Portillo and the St. Lucie County school district.

I'm writing this blog entry about that last one. You see, the school district's defense is apparently going to be something along the lines of the argument that the incident didn't hurt Alex... because autistic children can't understand -- or be hurt by -- "negative social feedback" (or, in other words, someone else doing something nasty to them).

No, I'm not joking.

After going through quite a bit of trouble, I've managed to obtain some of the documents that the district's submitted in their defense. Specifically, I've obtained the "expert testimony" that they commissioned from two doctors: Dr. Sue Antell and Dr. Max Wiznitzer.

These are quotes from public documents available on PACER, albeit not for free. I had to jump through a lot of hoops to get them (although, admittedly, most of these were technical -- I didn't bring a memory card with me when I went to visit my school's law library, the law library's one computer set up for PACER access was an antiquated technical nightmare, and I didn't want to unnecessarily spend money to get the documents from my home system), but they're still technically public domain. As such, I've uploaded them to RapidShare to cut down on the metaphorical red tape. Feel free to host them elsewhere.

I'm not going to comment over-much on them. I'm going to let what they wrote speak for themselves. I will, however, clarify a bit on both.

To start off with, there's this section of Dr. Antell's testimony -- delivered before she ever met or examined Alex (whose full name is Caleb Alex Barton, although he does not respond to "Caleb"):

... Based upon this review, it is my opinion that CAB probably does have Autism, a disorder of language, executive functioning and social relatedness, which profoundly impacts upon how a child perceives and reacts to the language and behavior of other people.

It is further my opinion that the events described would not be expected to have any long term impact even upon a typical child who might appreciate more of what was going on around him. As they grow up, children experience numerous negative or unpleasant experiences with peers, teachers and parents. Such experiences are part of the normal experience of development. They serve to help a child develop an appreciation for the impact of his behavior on others in his world, and are important in the development of sympathy, empathy, and altruism. This is quite different from the constant and chronic bullying which we unfortunately see somewhat among older children, or the chronic systematic emotional abuse of a child by the adults in his life. In any child with Autism, such experiences are going to be processed quite differently. Depending on the extent of the pragmatic language dysfunction, the lack of social relatedness, and the impairment in the ability to appreciate another's point of view (what psychologists call "Theory of Mind") it is quite likely that many, if not most children with autism would simply have no emotional connection to such events. While they might encode and recall the "script" (i.e. the language used and the actual events), their ability to be emotionally impacted by what is almost entirely a language based experience would be anticipated to be exceedingly limited. This is not to imply that Autistic children cannot experience trauma. Rather it attempts to distinguish between possibly unpleasant events which are the result of linguistic exchanges from more primitive responses which might involve non verbal actions, or verbal communications which would produce feelings of fear or terror which are generated by non cortical brain regions.

Beyond this, we have the opinion of a qualified child psychiatrist that CAB suffered no emotional distress as a result of this incident, and another who described behavior with autism but not PTSD.

Based on the foregoing, it is my opinion to a reasonable degree of neuropsychological probability that CAB has not demonstrated any real evidence of emotional distress as a consequence of the events of 5-21-08. It is further my impression that he does not require any ongoing treatment, and depending on his ability to appreciate what is happening in such therapy, that this poses a risk of creating a trauma where none actually exists.

Two clarifications: "The events described" were the vote-out incident. The same is true of "the events of 5-21-08".

And then there's Wiznitzer's testimony:

In summary, Caleb Barton is an 8 year old boy with a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder (Asperger disorder) and behavioral features labeled as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (including compatible rating scales). He has a history of challenging behaviors in kindergarten with no details of his behavioral functioning since that time (except for the report of Dr. Coleman). School records document impairment in social interaction with peers (supported by psychiatric evaluations). Assuming that his diagnoses are accurate, it would be difficult for a child with a significant impairment in socialization (compounded by the social issues associated with ADHD) to fully process and comprehend the impact of negative social feedback from peers (as stated by Dr. LoSardo "on some level he probably didn't get social significance"). Therefore, this type of event would not be expected to result in PTSD.

Dr. Wiznitzer's testimony is nowhere near as bad as Dr. Antell's... but really.

To the St. Lucie County school board, however, I have only one thing to say.

Some Links That May Have Passed the Neurodiversity Community By

Just as a series of quick notes while I try to recover some strength for next week's midterms:

Not too long ago, two reporters of my acquaintance wrote an excellent article for the Miami New Times regarding the Geiers and their political antics. They blogged on the affair (and what it says about the media) on Thursday; the entry is of general interest to the autism-relevant communities.

Almost exactly one week ago, Peter Bell and Geraldine Dawson of Autism Speaks held a pair of "forums" here in South Florida, one in Miami and one in Boca Raton. A recording of the Boca Raton forum is available in two parts here and here. I spent a good part of the week transcribing various parts of these recordings -- trying to get a record of the more notable quotes and timestamps in them. I've finished with Part One (Bell's presentation), but have yet to even start on Part Two (Dawson's presentation and the subsequent Q&A). This is unfortunate, as there's some genuinely good/useful stuff in that part.

Cleaned up somewhat, my transcript (which has various notes, etc.) reads as follows:

Part 1/Ross:

10:31 : Their advocacy efforts -- "a way in which we give the autism community a voice."

12:52 : Start of a discussion of his son's "regression".

13:14 : Implicit endorsement of the opioid excess theory (and the GF/CF diet).

14:42 : Start of the "duplo discussion" (sequence RE son's play styles)

15:28 : "... he basically disappeared in front of our eyes."

21:08 : "We're also, ah, as I said, getting ready for the adult years, um, we're actually, we had our first meeting, ah, about, ah, guardianship last week, um, which we'll be going through when he turns eighteen in January..."

25:54 : "And autism today, in some people's estimation, is an epidemic. Um, certainly the increase in the last twenty years, which we, uh, estimate at about six hundred percent, um, has reached epidemic proportions. It is better understood; um, I think most researchers would say that it's not well understood yet. We, uh, have some ideas about what some of the causes might be, um, but, ah, we certainly don't know what probably is behind the vast majority of the cases. Um, it is considered a spectrum disorder, um, I mentioned, ah, before, ah, how there are different types of autisms, um, and uh, certainly we refer to autism these day, these days as autisms, and, uh, that there are multiple types of autism. It is, by and large, considered to be a treatable disorder, ah, this notion of 'recovery' is real. Uh, and I use the quotations over 'recovery' because it's more or less a term that's defined by no longer meeting the criteria of autism after having been previously diagnosed with it, um, and it is believed that anywhere between maybe ten to fifteen percent of cases of autism, um, the child does recover or ultimately lose his their diagnosis."

27:22 : "The earlier you get it, the better the outcomes are going to be."

28:28 : "We're fortunate in that, in the mid-1990s, several national organizations were established, one of which Jackie referenced, was, which was the National Alliance for Autism Research, which had an amazing presence here in South Florida, largely because of Jackie and all the efforts that she did. Ah, another organization that was founded around the same time was Cure Autism Now, which was based out of Los Angeles. And CAN and NAAR, really, between the two of them are largely responsible for having created what is now the research -- autism research -- field, which, ah, probably totals or numbers at least two thousand scientists around the world who have dedicated their careers to autism."

29:07 (Continuing): "Um, the DAN! movement also happened around the same time, um, and sure some of you have, ah, seen DAN! doctors and so forth, and, ah, certainly, uh, this whole attitude of thinking of autism as something that they can actually ameliorate and make better and so forth, um, again, I think also contributed to that whole notion."

30:19 : (Some credit-mongering/AutSpeaks bragging. Not really politically useful, but worth listening to.)

32:58 : "We're also very involved in family services; this was a department that was formed not long after the merger with Autism Speaks, and that's about helping families, ah, live a better life through quality of life for those who are living with autism today." (compare the numbers)

35:15 : "We're very proud of, um, what we're able to do in terms of helping families."

(Discussion of what they do to "help families".)

51:10 : Community grants in Florida. Total $136,435 over three years. Compare Geri Dawson's salary.

51:56 : "Uh, we have funded, uh, four different CARD programs throughout the state, um, as you found listed here."

54:41 : "So let's shift gears and talk a little bit about advocacy and, uh, what we do in government relations, and, as I said before, this is all about giving those that have autism and their families a voice. Ah, I will do a little bragging down here and say that our AutismVotes website, which is AutismVotes.org, did recieve a Webbie award, basically being one of the best healthcare sites, ah, that's available, ah, for political campaigns."

(Lots of credit-seeking.)

56:39 : "And we've also to ha-have more dialogue with the office of disabilities. We do recognize that autism is part of the larger disability community, and so we've started to make some inroads in helping to figure out what place autism has in that, within that spectrum."

1:07:43 : "Believe me, when I go home tonight, and it probably won't be until tomorrow morning when we all wake up, 'cause I get home very late, uh, in the wee hours of the morning, but I'm very cognizant of the fact that when I wake up tomorrow morning and see my seventeen-year-old son, it's going to be hard to think about the progress that we've made, 'cause he still has autism, and his life is very challenging."

(Closing remarks from the 1:07:43 timestamp are well worth listening to.)

1:09:37 : "It is still a public healthcare crisis, or a 9-1-1, so to speak, um, we have to make sure that people recognize that we have, for the most part, an unexplained six-hundred percent increase in the last two decades, and we need to understand why. Um, and there is absolutely a sense of urgency in terms of what we need to accomplish in order to get the answers that we need."

1:10:31 : "I think it's also critically important that people with autism have a voice in this. Um, and even if you're not able to communicate verbally, doesn't mean you're not able to have a voice. Um, I know we, as uh, a-y'know my son is is marginally, ah, communicative, ah, or verbal, um, and y'know it's hard to really get a sense of what is it that he wants out of life and what is his future, but y'know what, we, we go through great, um, ends to try to figure out what it is that he wants, um, and I think that we have to, as a community, stop and listen, and listen to the individuals that have autism, and, and have them be a part of what we're, what kinds of decisions that we're making on their behalf."

Still More on Vaccination

I just got vaccinated yet again -- this time the vaccine even contained mercury!

I'm now heavily perseverating. Oh, wait. That's normal. Nope, still not feeling any more autistic.

Another Comment on Vaccination

I got vaccinated today -- against three different illnesses. I still don't feel any more autistic.

My arm is a bit sore, though.

On Stereotypes

One of the kindest, most generous people I know is a homosexual, atheistic skeptic. I mention this not because I'm an atheist (I'm not, certain people's claims to the contrary aside) nor because I'm gay (I'm not), nor because I'm a skeptic (this, at least, I am). I mention this because "kind" and "generous" are very much not part of the stereotypes surrounding atheists, homosexuals, or skeptics.

Despite the stereotypes, however, he is all of these things. In fact, the entire list of traits works together quite well: his skepticism, for instance, means that he investigates charities before he gives to them and tries to make sure that his donations actually go to the people he's supposed to be helping. He's skeptical about the charities he donates to precisely because he genuinely cares. I cannot say the same for many people who donate to religious charities, who often care more about appearances or ideology than genuinely helping.

The prevalent stereotypes, however, would pidgeonhole him as the exact opposite of who he is: atheists are often seen as prototypical sinners, untrustworthy and criminal. Skeptics are seen as cynics at best (true skeptics are anything but). Homosexuals... let's not even go there.

Many of the people who know me will know precisely who I am talking about. There is even a possibility that the person I wrote about will read this blog entry some day. I am not, however, writing this to flatter him.

I am writing this to illustrate the point that stereotypes are often misleading. Worse, they are often wrong -- that is, they very often don't even have a genuine basis in fact, but rather are based solely on prejudice or incomprehension.

If this is the case, why do we persist in stereotyping? Especially now, as we're becoming increasingly aware of the manifold harms and errors perpetuated by this sort of thing -- why do it?

The sad truth of the matter is that, as best we can figure it out, stereotyping is the result of normal, adaptive cognitive mechanisms being used in ways that just don't make sense. People, in general, categorize other people in ways that just don't make sense... and then use these categories to reach conclusions that make even less sense.

While I sadly know the answer to why we do it (it's tied up into the normally-adaptive cognitive processes most people rely on to function), the fact of the matter is that we should be smarter than this. We can be smarter than this.

Just question yourself -- repeatedly. Be careful of over-generalization. Realize that in-group differences almost always exceed between-group differences. Keep in mind that people are people, regardless of anything else. Understand that you can misunderstand. Question yourself -- it bears repeating. Understand that statistical significance and practical significance are very different. Realize that "groups" of people -- however they're defined -- are almost always "fuzzy" statistical constructs. Watch out for logical fallacies. Don't expect perfection, mind... but always try to be right.

Yet Another Example of Over-the-Top Woo

I just discovered that some people are selling levodopa as a dietary supplement.

Yes, levodopa -- arguably the world's most infamous anti-antipsychotic. Yes indeed, legal home psychopharmacology has reached a new low. Just when I think the quacks can't get any more outrageous...

For those of you who don't understand my reaction, levodopa, also known as L-dopa, is a particularly infamous anti-Parkinson's drug and the basis of Dr. Oliver Sacks's well-known book, "Awakenings". It is an extremely potent drug with a host of known side effects which include (but are not limited to):

• Nausea
• Gastrointestinal bleeding
• Disorientation and confusion
• Auditory and visual hallucinations
• Drowsiness and narcolepsy
• A condition which strongly resembles stimulant psychosis
• Hair loss
• Emotional effects (it tends to make emotions more "extreme" or "vivid", which wouldn't be such a bad thing if anxiety and libido weren't the aspects most notably/commonly amplified).
• Cardiac arrhythmia

And then there are the effects of chronic use. This is not a safe drug.

And yet people are selling it as a dietary supplement, completely absent any sort of real regulation. Thank you very much, DHSEA.

On a Recent Huffington Post Article

Around a week ago, this article was posted to the Huffington post.

Quite frankly, my initial reaction to it was to think that it was an April Fool's joke. The sheer absurdity of the juxtaposition involved in talking about healing divides while spewing hate speech is striking.

Yes, hate speech. It's pretty unambiguous. Reading through the comments, however, it quickly becomes apparent that people don't get it.

Well, some commentators do. Thanks, Kim! (And, of course, all of the other people who I don't know...)

At the moment, the commentators seem to be divided between those who engage in reification error and those who don't. This is... pretty typical, really.

In any case... let's see. The post characterizes the neurodiversity movement as being made up of "people with Asperger's Syndrome or higher functioning autism" (this is nowhere near true, and "high functioning" is considered insulting), describes ASAN as "a self advocacy movement for people with high functioning autism" (ditto), and ends by stating that "We aren't the enemies. Autism is." (Which qualifies as blatant hate speech).

I really don't know what to say here...

A Recent Blog Post

It's somewhat ironic, given my recent decision to post my discussion topic for the Autube.tv project, that the subject of that discussion would promptly come up in one of the autistic blogosphere's better blogs. This, however, is precisely what happened.

Amanda's post on the topic is (among other things) a highly eloquent and effective explanation of one aspect of what I felt -- and still feel -- needs much more exploration by everyone involved in the field of autism. I highly recommend reading it in its entirety.

On Highly Misleading News Articles

Catching up on a newsfeed, I came across this article. Suffice it to say I wasn't impressed -- at all.
In essence, the article reports data from the National Birth Defect Registry and notes that "over 60%" of autistic children entered into their database had some form of structural birth defect as well as an autism diagnosis. I was pretty surprised at this news -- just not by the fact that the number was so high.

My surprise was at two things: One, that they considered this news... and, two, that the number was so low.

You see, the registry relies on parents to input data on their children. Specifically, it requires parents to register their children with birth defects.

Obviously, this means that not every child with a birth defect gets entered. More importantly, parents will only enter their children if they believe that said children have birth defects.

Now... how many parents of autistic children consider autism a birth defect?

The news story suggests that the answer is higher than I thought. Of course, it may just be that some of the remaining 40% have other issues. I don't know -- I haven't seen the data.

This, of course, is what is known as selection bias. More specifically, it's a blatant case of sampling bias.

In other words -- why the heck is this news?

The answer: media sensationalism. Frankly, publication of this article fails pretty much any accepted standard of journalistic ethics, specifically because of accuracy standards and the harm limitation principle. On the other hand, that's never stopped the publication of countless other sensationalized articles...

A Quick Note On The H1N1 Shot

I just got my H1N1 shot. I don't feel any more autistic.

That is all.

A Brief Note

Two of the most accomplished autistics in the world discuss their histories here.

Note the common threads between how they were taught and educated.

According to many notable "authorities" on autism, this is precisely the wrong approach to take. I find this fact to be extremely interesting -- and not in a good way.

Scary, scary figures

I recently came across this piece by the LA Times. Frankly, I'm scared. Epidemiology may not be my field, but this is far, far worse than I'd imagined.

The mathematics of mass vaccination are complicated, and the level of vaccination required to achieve herd immunity varies between illnesses (or even strains of the same illness), but I can't think of any illness where a vaccination rate of 13.5% is enough to provide such an effect. That is, admittedly, the most extreme example on the list, but I could say the same of a vaccination rate of 50%, which is much more common. Generally speaking, a vaccination rate of anywhere from 85% to 95% is required for herd immunity to provide any real protection.

They might have well posted this data as an article, and labelled it, "California kindergatens are fertile breeding grounds for some of the nastiest diseases circulating in the world today!"

I'm beginning to suspect that it'll take a genuine tragedy to stop Jenny and her brand of idiots. In the meantime, her kill count keeps rising... and, for every additional unvaccinated child, the scope of the inevitable tragedy, when it comes, grows.

As I said, I'm pretty thoroughly scared by this.

Modelling Coolness

Google recently did a page on using its SketchUp software in teaching autistic children. This is obviously not an "autism intervention", but is still a pretty cool toy... and, frankly, if it's easier for a child to use than an alternate method such as drawing a floorplan (which, apparently, it is for at least some children), then I say to go with what works.

SketchUp does look pretty cool, to be honest, and looks far better than some of the 3D modelling software I played with when I was a kid. Given the fact that I'm comparing a modern product of a major corporation to 1990s cheapware, this shouldn't be much of a surprise. Beyond the obvious increase in featureset, however, it looks like they've done a great deal in terms of ease of use. Way to go, Google!

I'm not too sure what to think of "Project Spectrum" (some of the lesson plans are better than others), though I do have one major comment on the intro.

Guys, would you please stop reifying autism already? Autism is not something that "affects individuals' communication skills and ability to deal with social interactions". Autism is a description of, among other things, people's communication skills and ability to deal with social interactions. Gyah.

On the Media

As I noted in a previous post, I had my wisdom teeth out recently. I'm only starting to come out of the narcotic haze of the painkillers now (and will need to take another shortly), so my plans to start job-searching will have to wait. No, this isn't because of the pain -- it's because of how badly the painkillers effect me. Still, while I have a few lucid moments, I might as well comment on all of the stuff I've missed.

For one thing, I haven't been able to read any peer-reviewed journal articles. This... really, really sucks, from my perspective. More than any of the other effects of the hydrocodone they gave me, the fact that it pretty much destroys my attention span to the point that I can't read research articles drives me ready to tear my hair out.

This does, however, present a somewhat unique opportunity as I go over the news I've missed. This entry is going to be of a special format -- as I catch up, I'm going to post a brief summary of each article dealing with autism, a link, and a comment on just how offensive the media coverage of the story was.

To start with, take this piece, whose main offence was to equate all developmental disabilities. As this is supposed to be reporting on abuse of persons with developmental disabilities... this really shouldn't be the case. The nature of the disability in question should be at least stated. It is insulting to spread the stereotype that all persons with developmental disabilities are "mentally incompetent".

Any broad category of disabilities covers a huge range of issues. The term "physical disability", for instance, can cover anything from a trick knee to quadriplegia. "Developmental disability" is only different in that it covers a greater variety of issues... many of which are only issues because of the lack of available societal supports.

On the other hand, the article does a good bit to highlight issues of abuse. I have mixed feelings about it.

Next, we have this piece, dealing with an Aspie contestant in a talent show, deserves particular mention for being exceedingly odious. For one thing, the entire piece is based not on what Mr. James (the contestant in question) can or can't do, but rather on a judge's prediction on whether or not he can cope with the stress of being on the show.

The language of the article itself, however, is so blatantly offensive it's absurd. Even the title is offensive -- "Asperger's sufferer will not..." indeed! The first line of the article repeats the theme: "The X Factor contestant Scott James, who suffers from Asperger's syndrome..."

Excuse me. Asperger's is a description of the way your brain's wired. You don't suffer from Asperger's (or autism) any more than you suffer from liking classical music (and, in fact, it's harder to separate "Asperger's" from the rest of you than it is said like). Saying that someone "suffers from" Asperger's (or autism, or...) is around as offensive as saying that someone "suffers from being Jewish".

Next, a local piece on the whole sign fiasco. Decent coverage... except I'm going to need to withdraw my earlier declaration of respect for Ms. Wallace. When the heck will these people realize that the cancer thing is even more offensive?

Then there's this piece which deals with an Aspie surfer... and deliberately calls up the whole lack-of-empathy stereotype. Enough said.

Next, this bit on the murder of a twelve-year-old autistic boy. This article actually manages to avoid being offensive. Way to go, UPI! Of course, the incident itself is another story, but at least the coverage wasn't bad.

This article on a summer camp for autistic kids actually looks pretty cool. Beyond its continuous reification of autism and oversimplification of the research, the article actually makes the program look decent... which should not be taken as an endorsement. All that really means is that the program isn't setting off any red flags based on this article.

This article covers the opening of a new school in a spectacularly uninformative fashion. Kudos to the author, though, for its opening line.

An article in the National Post details the (hopeful) end of a truly obscene saga of an autistic Canadian who got trapped in Kenya. Nothing too bad about the article, but, again, the story itself is pretty offensive.

According to this piece, an autistic child whose school was attempting to deny him the ability to bring his service dog with him won a victory in court. I do, however, feel sorry for Ms. Crook. While it involves skipping out of the chronology of the articles, it's worth noting that there's a considerably more offensive follow-up story by ABC here.

Really, when will the media learn that Autism Speaks doesn't speak for autistics?

Anyway, next up is a Salt Lake Tribune article on a couple who's been charged with abusing thier autistic son. Again, good coverage for a nasty incident.

This piece tries to hold out an autistic nineteen-year-old who recently became an Eagle Scout as an inspiration. At least it's better than most such attempts... which isn't saying much.

Finally, the Onion's latest effort in mocking Obama concluded with a pretty damn offensive bit about Biden and Asperger's.

Well... that's a few days in the news for me. No, this wasn't really atypical.

P.S.: It looks like the Psycho Donuts fiasco has come to an end. Cool.

Edit: It may just be the painkillers kicking in, but I find this incredibly amusing for some reason.

Billboard Fiasco

Perhaps understandably, I have been in and out of touch a lot as of late. Last weekend, I unexpectedly found myself cut off from the 'net for... well, pretty much the entire weekend. I had 158 e-mails in my secondary e-mail account (which I don't use for mailing lists) when I got back. Newsfeeds and the like? Didn't get 'em. I'm still catching up on blog posts.

As a result, I managed to miss a pretty interesting event, something that's truly unusual in the disabilities field.

It started out pretty typically: York County, PA's Autism Society decided to try some truly uncreative advertising. Upon noticing, a number of autistic (and non-autistic) people promptly complained. This included a letter from the ASAN.

That's where things got strange.

In only a few hours, the president of York's ASA chapter wrote back... and apologized. The ad campaign was promptly withdrawn.

Wow... an autism organization actually taking responsibility for a mistake and apologizing to the autistic people they offended? Who'd've thought?

I'd never heard of Ms. Wallace (the president of ASA-York) before this. She's now earned a good bit of respect from me. Way to go!