Robin Hood
"Perhaps we should therefore not be surprised that those within the spectrum of autism are particularly comfortable in the cyber world. The internet has even been linked to sign language, considered as beneficial for autistic people as sign language proved for the deaf. Of course, we do not know whether the current increase in autism is due more to increased awareness and diagnosis of autism, or whether it can—if there is a true increase—be in any way linked to an increased prevalence among people of spending time in screen relationships. Surely it is a point worth considering."But, but Susan...don't you know that people are born autistic, they don't just catch it when they're 14 and setting up a bebo account. Lolz!
"Shamans and horses work magic on autistic Rowan"Demonic fits"...I ask you. How is this stuff cleared for publication, doesn't anyone catch themselves the hell on and think that perhaps such language might be offensive, inaccurate, discriminatory?! And given that the young son of a prominent politician died this week, a child who had epilepsy, couldn't they have thought to be a bit more sensitive in their choice of language.
Rupert Isaacson was almost at his wits’ end over his son’s demonic fits, but a riding trip in Mongolia to visit local healers brought an amazing change"
"Rowan was autistic: incontinent, uncommunicative and given to fearsome bouts of nerve-shredding screeching, even at home."But obviously, he couldn't possibly have been (for example) autistic, sweet, cheeky, athletic and into Formula 1. That wouldn't create the same levels of drama.
“He began to talk meaningfully, not just babble or recite Thomas the Tank Engine train names,” says Isaacson. “For the time we were together in the saddle there were no tantrums. It became a place of respite and joy.”While it's nice that the child enjoyed horse riding, his previous speech probably wasn't just "meaningless babble" but was an important stage that all children go though as they're developing the ability to speak. Duncan's early words were almost all repeated phrases for films, and much of it still is, but his speech has real communicative intent.
"when Rowan was three, Isaacson brought a group of bushmen from Botswana to the United Nations in New York to protest against land being lost to diamond mining. Their chief shaman, or “wise man”, performed a healing ritual on Rowan. “It was extraordinary,” says his father. “For five days or so it really was like having a normal kid. Rowan’s symptoms started to fall away. The problem was as soon as we went home he tumbled back into the autism.” "Aw, it must really gall you to see your child tumble into autism. I'm not sure how it happens, but I'll go with it for now. Not wishing to miss a chance to
"believes that shamanic healing works.I'll just let the full stupid of that remark simmer, no further comment is required.“Once you’ve seen enough people with cancer, or snake bites, or dementia or whatever, healed – and the doctors scratching their heads and saying we don’t know where the tumour’s gone, you come to realise it’s a pretty valid system.”"
"To western eyes the ceremonies they underwent appear bizarre. One Mongolian shaman told them Rowan had been touched by “black energy” in the womb and it was necessary to draw this negative energy away. Another prescribed fermented goat’s milk. A female shaman beat on a drum while summoning spirits with a whirling, dancing prayer. They were hit with reindeer horns and spattered with vodka."I once met an old woman who called out to Duncan, and told me that he isn't disabled, he's one of the lost tribe of Atlantis and that I was trapping him in a false dimension with my greasy soul and that if I didn't let her snort snuff out of her nostrils on us both, he'd never progress.
"As their trek across Mongolia continued, so did Rowan’s progress, despite setbacks – intermittent tantrums that saw him refuse to go near a horse and reduced his father almost to despair. At last they reached the so-called Reindeer people, reputed to have the most powerful shamans. After a ceremony there, Rowan’s incontinence was apparently cured."So Rowan was acting as any reasonable person would expect. How is incontinence "apparently" cured? And please could someone please teach these people about conflating correlation and causation!
"my emotionally and physically incontinent son"Gack.
"the shaman's assistant passed her spiritual mistress a bottle of vodka, from which she took a hearty pull, then without warning spat the liquid all over Rowan's face and body."And instead of sweeping your son up and running as fast as possible out of there you let this continue?
"But Rowan was screaming now. Genuine distress. Too much adventure, too tired, too cold, too hungry.Had he forgotten it was he who had arranged the film crew!
...
The cameraman rode up to our side, filming from the saddle. 'Put the damn camera away!' I snapped."
"I'd taken the poor boy to his edge and he was now falling apart. 'Help!' he sobbed. 'Help me.' Rowan had his eyes tightly shut now, as he retreated into himself.No. This is not my worst scenario, not by a long shot. My son being really sick or in pain or suffering at the hands of another, are much worse scenarios to my mind.
This is a very bad thing for an autistic child to do - every autism parent's worst scenario, seeing his child shut down, his nervous system overloaded."
"My son was diagnosed with autism in the spring of 2004, when he was two. It was like being hit across the face with a baseball bat. Grief and shame engulfed me: weird, irrational shame, as if I had somehow cursed this child by giving him faulty genes, condemned him to a lifetime of living as an alien because of me.Oh pull yourself together, this is just silly, there is no glass, no drifting. There is just your child with a brain that works in a different way who needs his parents to adapt and meet his slightly alternative needs.
And then came the pain of watching, horrified, as he began to drift away to another place, separated from me as if by thick glass. "
Now came something new: a demonic, almost possessed edge, materialising suddenly out of nowhere.Again, the demonic thing. What makes these people think it's an acceptable way to label their own children to millions of the reading public?
"Our hope that our son would share a life of adventure with us was dashed.From the earlier Times article, linked to above, he's explained what these therapies are and some are far from mainstream. Before they went gallivanting east, they were pushing chelation chemicals on the boy. This stuff is dangerous and useless in autism. There is no need to spend time and money chasing a cure. Acceptance, education of self and your child, an optimised environment and knowing what makes your child tick are far more important.
Instead, our life became a mechanical drudgery of driving from one therapy and assessment appointment to another and dealing with insurance companies, therapists and our son's ever-increasing, inexplicable tantrums"
