Savage on Autism

Two comments:

1. Michael Savage discussed something on his radio show other than how the homosexuals or Muslims are trying to destroying America? I'm shocked!

2. He does have some sort of medical degree, though he long since left medicine in his rear view mirror in favor of naturapathy, but on another forum I had a guy respond to my comment about how talk radio hosts aren't scientists (in a discussion on AGW) with "Dr. Savage is a scientist." I smacked him down by noting that Savage's degree was in nutrition, not meteorology or geology and that he hadn't done anything science related in 20 years or more.

That said, I agree with the sentiment, if not the particulars, of Soapy Sam's post yesterday where we try and clinicize some behavioral issues as pathology.
 
Sunni Man said:
Savage is a retard!

I feel for any parent of an Autistic child who had to hear or read his stupid comments.
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My 16-year-old autistic daughter and I were watching CNN this morning when they reported on Mr. Savages comments. She said, "He's stupid." I said, "I think you're right."
 
Ivor the Engineer said:
What is the range of normal behaviour for children?

Who decides what's normal?
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That is the thing. Even "normal" kids can display signs of autism. In my sons case it was shyness/lack of interaction that was what his teachers were keying on. The whole thing is subjective when you are talking about more high functioning forms of autism (like Asperger')s.
 
Delvo said:
I wonder if he's getting two often-talked about psychological issues or just their names mixed up with each other here. ADD/ADHD is pretty commonly talked about by plenty of other people the way he's talking about autism; switch the names and there's nothing unusual about what he's saying.

* * *

What makes Asperger's Syndrome different from (regular or severe) autism in this context, and more like ADD, is that people who have it can appear pretty normal a lot of the time, so when the behavioral oddities do appear, it's easy for an outside observer to see it as simply bad behavior on the part of a normal person who could do better, not a symptom of a condition that makes doing better impossible.
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Very well put.
 
Billdave2 said:
That is the thing. Even "normal" kids can display signs of autism. In my sons case it was shyness/lack of interaction that was what his teachers were keying on. The whole thing is subjective when you are talking about more high functioning forms of autism (like Asperger')s.
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I get kind of concerned when a definite disease/condition becomes a "spectrum".
 
Ivor the Engineer said:
I get kind of concerned when a definite disease/condition becomes a "spectrum".
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Are you concerned that depression is a spectrum? What about emphysema or asthma? Perhaps cancers(yes, some cancers are a spectrum)?

Diseases/conditions are not always black and white.
 
Another thing to consider, there are also parents out there who bring in kids that are "normal" hoping that they can get a diagnosis so they can qualify for a check. There are also hypochondriacs and borderline Munchausen by proxy parents that are convinced that something is wrong with their child no matter what the diagnosis is. Most parents are not like this, but there are definatly some who are. You also see lots of parents looking for somewhere to place blame (like vaccinations) and parents who are trying all kinds of crazy stuff to try and "cure" their child. You will even see parents who after being told that there is a clear genetic reason for their childs delay will still swear that it was vaccinations that caused their childs problem. It is a muddy subject. It is easy to tell when children are profoundly autistic, the lower end of the scale kids are not so easy to tell. I am sure there are kids out there who have been diagnosed autistic who are really just behavior problems, just as there are autistic kids labeled behavior problems.
 
Ivor the Engineer said:
What is the range of normal behaviour for children?

Who decides what's normal?
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I think Maddox put it best:

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[/joke]
 
Fronzel said:
I saw a show on CNN about Autism for some awareness day they were using. One of the producers had an autistic child. They listed the symptoms he had.
There were things like Difficulty in social situations, Liked math and science, very few friends, introverted and a few others and it made me realize that being a weird nerdy kid in school is now autistic.
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So?

This is like the complaint that alzheimers is a BS diagnosis because it is just normal senility.

When a disorder gets described it gets named.
 
Ivor the Engineer said:
Perhaps it will be discovered Mr. Savage has a mental illness, which can be used as a label (and possibly an excuse) for his behaviour. Then all of those who condemn him will have to feel guilty for persecuting a mentally ill person who couldn't help himself.;)
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You mean, some kind of socio-political coprolalia?
 
applecorped said:
Describing behaviour that some people think is not normal immediately makes it disorder?
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Who said anything about immediate?

But when symptoms A and B taken together show high correlations with C, D, E and F, then there is likely something different about people with that set of descriptors.

This fits with all kinds of mental disabilities and disorders. You could say much the same thing about any mental disorder, in a large part because they are not diagnosed medically, but behaviorally at least in almost all cases.

Do people know what really causes schizophrenia? My understanding was not, so should they all just suck it up and deal?
 
Billdave2 said:
Another thing to consider, there are also parents out there who bring in kids that are "normal" hoping that they can get a diagnosis so they can qualify for a check. There are also hypochondriacs and borderline Munchausen by proxy parents that are convinced that something is wrong with their child no matter what the diagnosis is. Most parents are not like this, but there are definatly some who are. You also see lots of parents looking for somewhere to place blame (like vaccinations) and parents who are trying all kinds of crazy stuff to try and "cure" their child. You will even see parents who after being told that there is a clear genetic reason for their childs delay will still swear that it was vaccinations that caused their childs problem. It is a muddy subject.
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Only when exceptions are used as indicative of the majority. :)
 
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