The TV show, as always with these things, showed a mum telling the miraculous story of her son's escape from the clutches of autism (tendencies) via music, biomedical therapy and craniosacral therapy. "Two years later," claims the reporter, "he's really reaching his true potential." Two years is a long time, and autism is developmental delay not developmental stasis. The Child Development Centre is being credited with all that slow, natural progress the child made in this lovely infomercial courtesy of RTE.
Today FM also promoted the Child Development Centre and their conference in an interview as bland as that on RTE. A mother describes how her perfect son was all of a sudden diagnosed with autism and "turned to a stone" but then they went to a herbalist and the Child Development Centre and were able to "bring him back" and now "he's not lost any more." He never was lost.
Hey Irish media, how about when you have a story on autism or some other condition, you seek out a person who has that condition. If you want an expert on autism, talk to an autistic.
Neither was I expecting to read a circa 2007 article on quack autism cures in the Irish Times a few days ago. Dear Maud this one is truly terrible. It (again) features the mother of an autistic kid who claims that following a particular regime rid her child of teh autisms. This time it's the services of Natasha Campbell McBride's and her GAPS diet that are being promoted and Geoff has written a wonderful post detailing just a few of her outrageous claims and dubious and potentially dangerous practices.
This article follows the tried and tested Autism ArticleTM template as described below.
It really astonishes me just how closely Adrienne Murphy sticks to the template I wrote in 2008!
But it's 2014 and we should not have to keep having these discussions. I'm tired of dismantling specious claims by unscrupulous hacks. Autism is nothing like that described by Murphy in the Irish Times. Autism is a genetically-based human neurological variant and NOT "the result of a complex intermeshing of degenerative diseases and comorbidities, largely created and exacerbated by environmental factors."
Autistic children are NOT "fully recovering" after biomedical treatment. Autism is not a disease though some people may have medical conditions as well as autism for which they must obviously receive proper medical treatment.
Murphy describes herself as "a lay expert" in autism yet fails to understand the most basic explanation for rising diagnoses.
Yet there's a final insult in the closing lines of the article: "Adrienne Murphy will be joking about autism as one of the performers in Stand Up For Humanity! Activists do Stand -Up Comedy for Charity."
After the disablism and inaccuracies of her article, I think it's for the best that I'm too far away from Dublin tonight to attend.
Hey Irish media, how about when you have a story on autism or some other condition, you seek out a person who has that condition. If you want an expert on autism, talk to an autistic.
Neither was I expecting to read a circa 2007 article on quack autism cures in the Irish Times a few days ago. Dear Maud this one is truly terrible. It (again) features the mother of an autistic kid who claims that following a particular regime rid her child of teh autisms. This time it's the services of Natasha Campbell McBride's and her GAPS diet that are being promoted and Geoff has written a wonderful post detailing just a few of her outrageous claims and dubious and potentially dangerous practices.
This article follows the tried and tested Autism ArticleTM template as described below.
 | |||
| Don't stray from the template- sure who wants to know about the reality of life with autism! |
It really astonishes me just how closely Adrienne Murphy sticks to the template I wrote in 2008!
But it's 2014 and we should not have to keep having these discussions. I'm tired of dismantling specious claims by unscrupulous hacks. Autism is nothing like that described by Murphy in the Irish Times. Autism is a genetically-based human neurological variant and NOT "the result of a complex intermeshing of degenerative diseases and comorbidities, largely created and exacerbated by environmental factors."
Autistic children are NOT "fully recovering" after biomedical treatment. Autism is not a disease though some people may have medical conditions as well as autism for which they must obviously receive proper medical treatment.
Murphy describes herself as "a lay expert" in autism yet fails to understand the most basic explanation for rising diagnoses.
Yet there's a final insult in the closing lines of the article: "Adrienne Murphy will be joking about autism as one of the performers in Stand Up For Humanity! Activists do Stand -Up Comedy for Charity."
After the disablism and inaccuracies of her article, I think it's for the best that I'm too far away from Dublin tonight to attend.
2 comments:
Hi there, thanks for your articly. I agree that unbalanced media reports are really unhelpful. Please see our website www.iarb.ie for information on initiatives regarding progressing real science in ASD. RTE reported on this on their morning news show on 16/01/14. Its unfortunate that the more controversial topics tend to drown out the science.
Best Wishes
Louise Gallagher
Hi yes sharon , this iarb.ie it is development with partnership of nuig, trinity college dublin and Autism Speaks. I was at this meeting and raised my concerns of this biobank / registry especially because of autism speaks involvement. I now know that autism speaks are involved in ireland since 2012 with their "ireland fund" project funded by them and Adrian Jones board member of Autism speaks is one who initiated it. I am shocked that any college or person that really cares for Autistic people would engage with Autism speaks as they clearly discriminate and demonise those with Autism. I'm mother to 2 Autistic children and have aspergers. I find it very worrying that they are continuing on with this project even though they are fully aware of how much hurt they are causing the autistic community by allowing autism speaks into ireland In the first place. I believe in research to support autistic people but not to eliminate them which is What autism speaks clearly believe! We won't ignore this though and a boycott is in the making as we speak , yes let the real AUTISTIC people SPEAK !!
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