Almost eradicated in the 1940s with the use of cod liver oil given to children and encouragement to get out in the sun and play, it was so rare in the 1960s, when I had it, that when my two cousins had it apparently made the papers. My own case didn’t but I expect it drew attention from the GP and welfare services and had some relationship to me being taken into a welfare centre program for at risk children from 6mths old until I was 2 and a half.

I had apparently had jaundice at 6 months old (you can see I’m ‘tanned’ in the pic at 4mths old, in fact I’m actually a very pale person and don’t tan) and colic and recurrent infections but I was never told about the Rickets. Probably because in the 1960s such cases would instantly have flagged ‘neglect’. By 2 and a half I had spent my weekdays being fed and in the sunshine of Northcote Day Nursery (at that time, 1965, it was a welfare program for at risk children, today it is a regular nursery) so if Rickets had merely been an episode in my infancy then all that should have remained would have been the bone deformities.

But at 2 and a half I was in a three day hospital assessment at St Elmo’s hospital. According to my father and my aunt, I was there primarily because of queries as to whether I was deaf or had leukemia (as I didn’t respond and had easy bruising, bleeding gums and my eyelashes coming out). The result was I was diagnosed as psychotic, infantile psychosis, which is what autism was considered to be in the 1960s. Was Rickets unrelated?

According to my father and aunt there were other developmental delays. I struggled to stand or walk (not surprising with Rickets) but was also late with toileting, which I managed by the age of 3 and a half. I remember I had shoes I knew as ‘click clacks’ from the sound they made. I had them from around age 4 to 6. They were heavy leather school shoes with press down ‘caliper’ style metal buckles that didn’t leave any room for my feet to twist. Not sure what did the trick but I obviously came to walk fine.

The developmental issues went together with physical health issues. I remained on fairly constant antibiotics for recurrent infections and as an adult was diagnosed with the primary immune deficiencies, food allergies and food intolerances I’d apparently had all my life.

The Q angle of my knees in the above picture was 25 degrees. The normal Q angle for a female child aged 7-8 is 7-11 degrees.

At age 9 my teeth were horrendous and I required fillings to most of my teeth. My mother was told that I would probably have false teeth by adulthood and that I had a calcium metabolism problem. She, herself, would tell people that when pregnant with me she had lost all her teeth so there may have been some truth in this. With her being an alcoholic when I was born, she was likely already D or calcium deficient but its equally possible that with two cousins developing Rickets in the 60s when I also did that it may have been more than just us both being born to alcoholic mothers. They may well have already had their own metabolic disorders. With being on supplements since age 9-11 I got to keep my teeth into adulthood though they were yellow and pitted and so I have veneers covering them top and bottom so instead they present a ‘picture of health’.

At age 9, I was the second shortest girl in the school. I may have been 3ft 3″ as I remember being 3ft 3″ in grade 3, so 39 inches, the average being 47. So was put on zinc, C, multivitamin-minerals. As a result of grew to 61 inches (5ft 1″) by age 12 with associated severe bone and joint pain. and was put onto zinc, vitamin C and multivitamin-minerals and three years later I was normal height at 5ft 1″ but with all the expected severe growth related pains of sped up sudden growth. I was also diagnosed with language processing disorder and the treatment of me changed accordingly and the combination of the nutritional interventions and communication interventions meant that by age 9-11 I went from 90% meaning deaf to only 50% meaning deaf and moved accordingly from echolalia to producing progressively functional communication. I had been put through intensive ballet training from age 5

to age 9 which hopefully improved bone strength for me but it certainly train me to support my spine with well developed thigh and lumbar muscles and taught me to turn my legs out which hid my now longer bowed legs. With spinal degeneration in my 40s, I’m glad of the supplements and ballet that might otherwise see me now with a far higher level of issues than I’m tackling.

As an adult I was diagnosed with a range of food allergies and intolerances, among which was casein intolerance. Had I been unable to digest cow’s milk in infancy (I was left with cow’s milk bottles, not breast fed) this may well have as easily contributed to my Rickets as having been reportedly left in my bedroom for my first 6 mths, so without adequate sunshine.

In spite of inability to have milk products, in adulthood, I had a diet that was rich in D and calcium and was perplexed that in spite of being on fish oils, eating chicken and fish and spending adequate time in the sun daily without a hat or suncream that I was D deficient. I went on to vitamin D drops and this normalised in my next blood results by the time I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

My case is only an anecdotal one but an extensively documented one nevertheless. Rickets, once an eradicated disease in modern societies is now back in epidemic proportions thanks to over zealous reactions to fear of skin cancer and lifestyle changes. Children who were once playing out in the sun without hats or sunscreen, play indoors or under sun shades whilst slathered in sunscreen. Children now rarely play in the street or walk to school.

Sure, skin cancer is real, but most skin cancers are basal cell carcinoma, essentially cosmetically harrowing but won’t kill you, squamous cell cancers generally start as harmless solar keratoses that are commonly picked up and gotten rid of before they develop into potentially deadly squamous cells, and melanoma, undoubtedly deadly, accounts for only 6% of skin cancers. Other allergies, immune problems, life long back pain and spine degeneration. Sometimes we need to get the overview, not fixate on a single detail. Its about balance.

With advancements in the study of the health issues of children with autism, new studies are finding a range of gut, immune, metabolic anomalies related to developmental delay and associated neurological, sensory perceptual, sensory integration, communication and motor planning development issues. Combine this with a set of personality traits predisposing a child to respond ‘autistically’ to chronic stress, disability or information overload and once those responses have become neurologically patterned, automatic and integrated into the child’s identity, strategies, adaptations and responses to the environment by age 3-5 and you may well have a recipe for a presentation and diagnosis of autism.

An article in The British Medical Journal, Vol 1, N.o 1379, in 1887 (yes, I did mean 1887, not 1987) mentioned impact of Rickets not only on bone development but on ‘derangements’ of the spleen, liver, heart and digestive system and urged for medicine to not overlook the neurological impacts of Rickets reported as far back as the mid 1800s, which included epilepsy (seizures, including absence seizures that may look like staring spells), Hyperesthesia(multiple sensory hypersensitivities), muscle weakness, tentany(causes involuntary muscle contractions and twitches) and ‘mental backwardness’(ie developmental delay, information processing disorders and learning disability).

It was still being discussed in 1939, 4 years before Kanner would coin the term ‘autism’. To quote from a recent article in Psychology Today:

“To my knowledge, the neuropsychiatric symptoms of rickets have not been studied in the modern era. However, at least two old papers have addressed it, both published before Kanner described autism in 1943. Both papers describe ‘weak mindedness,’‘feeble minds,’‘mental dullness,’ unresponsiveness and developmental delays. Even more intriguing, both papers report that the mental condition in rickets improved with vitamin D.”

you can read the whole article article“>here.

Whilst vitamin D levels are essential to normal brain development, the brain’s development, resilience and nutrition also depend on the gut (colon), immune, detox (kidney), blood sugar balance and enzyme production (pancreas).

“The VDR (vitamin D receptor) is present not only in tissues that regulate serum calcium, including the small intestine, bone cells, and kidney, but also in essentially all tissues and cells in the body, including brain, colon, breast, prostate, pancreas, heart, skin, skeletal muscle, monocytes, and activated T and B lymphocytes (essential parts of immune system function)” (1, 20–22, 24). http://www.jci.org/articles/view/29449

With the near eradication of Rickets in developed countries by the 1940s, all this history of knowledge and its potential relevance to autism was probably lost until around the 1970s skin cancer campaigns added lack of sun exposure to the lives of children who had never “done” cod liver oil as grandmothers had, often with dread and off the spoon, in the 1940s and 50s.

Today premature babies who would have died in the old days of daily cod liver oil, commonly survive. Yet many are born with D deficiency and in spite of this are given heavy vaccination regimes that such an undeveloped, unregulated immune system would perhaps be far more at risk of being overwhelmed by. Vitamin D deficiency impairs glutathione metabolism, which is essential for detox function. In a more heavily polluted society than in the 1940s and 50s, those with D deficiency could today more easily become further neurologically compromised through toxins they can’t detox from heavy metals and other toxins (probably including salicylate, a natural plant toxin) at the rate of most children.

Add to this a lack of breast feeding, lack of good bacteria in our now pasteurized milk and plants selectively bred to have higher and higher levels of the natural plant toxin, salicylate (because it deters insect attack) and you have a range of further exacerbation to gut and immune health in what may already compromised child. Then there’s the question of no standard testing of infant’s ability to digest lactose or casein so those who would also be at risk of Rickets that could be picked up before it wreaks havoc. There is also subclinical Rickets and inherited causes of Rickets.

The physical signs of autism are already widely noted and the similarities with vitamin D deficiency in Rickets are very strong. The differences may well reflect some of the additional flow on effects of D deficiency in our modern society. We have more polluted, toxin loaded, highly vaccinated, and more sunshine depleted infancies since the 1970s-80s sun phobic modern world than those writing about Rickets in the 1940s could have imagined.

But if children with autism had Rickets wouldn’t they all show the bone deformities so obvious in those with Rickets? It’s a great question. But keep in mind that gestational Rickets (during the mother’s pregnancy) means the fetus is still floating in fluid in the mother’s womb. The fetus has not yet sustained weight on their legs and the gravity effecting the arms in children with Rickets may be completely different whilst one has only ever floated, essentially weightless in fluid. What about the forehead? Do children with autism tend to have the protruding forehead seen in children with Rickets and associated with scull formation? The answer is, yes, people have noted this, particularly in Fragile X, one of the most common forms of autism. The flat feet in Fragile X is also a known sign of vitamin D deficiency. Large heads seen in people with autism also occurred in children with Rickets (known as rickety children) as per the following text from the mid 1800s:

“Scrofulous and rickety children are the most usual sufferers in this way. They are generally remarkable for large heads, great precocity of understanding, and small, delicate bodies. But in such instances, the great size of the brain, and the acuteness of the mind, are the results of morbid growth. Even with the best of management, the child passes the first years of its life constantly on the brink of active disease”. source:http://www.freefictionbooks.org/books/t/17810-a-treatise-on-anatomy-physiology-and-hygiene-re?start=191

In this (before Ricket’s was better understood) they wrote that when these precocious rickety infants then lost all their abilities and became ‘imbecile’ for the rest of their lives they believed the parents had essentially worn out the Rickety child’s brain. But the accounts do mirror what today is seen as ‘regressive autism’:

At what age particularly is excessive and continued mental exertion hurtful? Instead, however, of trying to repress its mental activity, the fond parents, misled by the early promise of genius too often excite it still further, by unceasing cultivation, and the never-failing stimulus of praise. Finding its progress for a time equal to their warmest wishes, they look forward with ecstasy to the day when its talents will break forth and shed lustre on its name.
But in exact proportion as the picture becomes brighter to their fancy, the probability of its being realized becomes less; for the brain, worn out by premature exertion, either becomes diseased, or loses its tone, leaving the mental powers imbecile and depressed for the remainder of life. The expected prodigy is thus easily outstripped in the social race by many whose dull outset promised him an easy victory”. source:http://www.freefictionbooks.org/books/t/17810-a-treatise-on-anatomy-physiology-and-hygiene-re?start=191

Further, Subclinical Rickets would not show the overt signs and would only be picked up on more careful scrutiny and testing.

In terms of autism, understanding of the prolific effects of early D deficiency may significantly advance the field.

Donna Williams, BA Hons, Dip Ed.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.
http://www.donnawilliams.net

I acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the Traditional Owners of this country throughout Australia, and their connection to land and community.

This item originally posted here:

Rickets, vitamin D deficiency and autism

In other words, parents in the 60s and 70s created homemade individualised programs for their kids… then it became a payroll for patent junkies… take the power back… there’s enough online training there for any family to make a start for themselves…. what, you won’t do it perfectly, exactly as a highly paid professional? so what! maybe your adaptation will fit your particular child even better!

Working as a consultant with over 1000 families of kids with autism, I’m familiar with watching a vast number of kids in varying programs and which kids tended to get the most out of which types of programs.

TEACCH
I feel Teacch works best for kids who work best in solitude, enjoy and feel rewarded by solitude, like only intermittent social contact and prefer to be left to ‘get on with it’, are methodical, systematic, enjoy a high level of structure.

You can pay mega bucks and take a second mortgage …. or teach yourself TEACCH

OPTION/SONRISE
I feel Option/Sonrise is primarily a bonding program so it best fits kids who main obstacle is that for whatever reason (including severe sensory processing issues) display attachment disorders. Option/Sonrise is about winning a child’s trust but also teaching families how to observe and not invade. Done well, it is a relatively indirectly confrontational approach so may reasonably fit kids with Exposure Anxiety who have compulsive avoidance, diversion, retaliation responses.

You can pay mega bucks and take a second mortgage …. or teach yourself Sonrise/Option

FLOORTIME/RELATIONSHIP DEVELOPMENT INTERVENTION (RDI)
These approaches are relatively indirectly confrontational approach so may reasonably fit kids with Exposure Anxiety who have compulsive avoidance, diversion, retaliation responses and those hypersensitive to the social claustrophobia of more directly confrontational compliance-based programs. Floortime/RDI both focus on using the child’s own interests and co-opting these into constructive activities rather than trying to force compliance of impose directions the child has no interest in. RDI would suit those who enjoy learning through doing and builds inherent reward into meaningful activities rather than relying on constant external rewards.

You can pay mega bucks and take a second mortgage …. or teach yourself Floortime
You can pay mega bucks and take a second mortgage… or… teach yourself RDI

APPLIED BEHAVIOURAL ANALYSIS (ABA)
This is a highly marketed, highly lucrative multi billion dollar INDUSTRY with vast offerings of jobs to new psychology graduates to earn up to $60,000 per family, per year to enter their home and take over as the expert in the home. That being the case expect that if you payroll such a service, exiting the program may not be as easy for you as entering it and you may find yourself having to argue the case for your right to make that choice.

Psychologists are wonderfully useful if you have a mental illness. Young children can be hypersensitive to being socially pursued by directly confrontational adults seeking to justify their own pay packets and if these therapists come from a perspective of viewing autism as ‘pathology’ in need of correction through an intensive compliance based program with external rewards, then this can lead to overdoing the child’s sense of itself as a ‘case’, a therapy case.

The ability to comply for external rewards is a skill that may fit with mainstream school and later employment. But applied intensively (ie up to 20 hrs per week) to a child under 3-4 years old, is in my view a precarious choice that should be weighed up with the child’s personality and equal opportunities to develop an identity broader than being an ABA ‘client’.

ABA may best suit kids who are highly motivated by continuous praise and naturally strive for external rewards. These are the type of personalities which will naturally be motivated by achievement, recognition, and admiration. Temple Grandin never had ABA but had a strict nanny she felt used an ABA style approach and so is an advocate of ABA. Temple may well have had the kind of natural drives that fitted this type of program but many children with autism will not fit this personality profile.

Those driven by a need for routine and acceptance may fall into a ‘pleaser role’ and be at risk of prompt dependency, learned helplessness and dependent personality disorder. Those with a high level of Exposure Anxiety or who are naturally Leisurely, Idiosyncratic, Solitary or highly Vigilant/Autonomous may be at more risk of developing progressive behavioral issues in a highly directly confrontational program like ABA. Subsequent development of acute anxiety disorders in these types of kids are not unheard of in those experiencing intensive ABA where they have experienced this as socially entrapping. The majority of ABA therapists are also female, often in their 20s and have not yet had children (nor autistic children) of their own and putting boys into intensive compliance based programs with these psychologists as their managers may have later implications for their identity development and rejection of skills they’d earlier complied with.

There is no reason why a family can’t set up and operate their own ABA style program if they wish to.
There is nothing highly qualified about intensively fixating on your child in a program with compliance as its basic goal and a system of external rewards in place. Parents can and have set up these programs for themselves in spite of being told by ABA therapists that they are not professional enough to do this ‘properly’ on their own. In fact families sometimes felt they ran the program better, more flexibly and more suited to their particular child.

You can pay mega bucks and take a second mortgage …. or teach yourself ABA.

You can also make a mixed program with an hour of three different approaches with breaks between programs or create one designed more specifically for your particular child.

Donna Williams, BA Hons, Dip Ed.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.
http://www.donnawilliams.net

I acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the Traditional Owners of this country throughout Australia, and their connection to land and community.

This item originally posted here:

DIY Autism therapies… how to stop payrolling the professionals

Donna Williams, BA Hons, Dip Ed.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.
http://www.donnawilliams.net

I acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the Traditional Owners of this country throughout Australia, and their connection to land and community.

This item originally posted here:

Naturally autistic?

AUTistic as an ADJECTIVE meaning (SELF oriented/contained) … brain fog and immune related brain issues can make one AUTistic…. social emotional agnosias or significant visual/verbal/body agnosias can make one AUTistic…. communication disorders can…. dissociative disorders can…. OCPD (Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder) is essentially an AUTistic personality disorder…. being Schizoid/Schizotypal are AUTistic personality disorders, having AvPD (Avoidant Personality Disorder) is essentially AUTistic, having DPD (Dependent Personality Disorder) is AUTistic and narcissistic, and NPD (Narcissistic personality disorder) and BPD (Borderline personality disorder), Passive Aggressive Personality Disorder, are essentially ME oriented personality disorders, drug/alcohol/computer/gambling addiction is AUTistic,… being hypervigilant to the point of social paranoid, or being too highly sensing or too real or too deep in a world of bullshit and ego can make one more AUTistic, being developmentally delayed or disabled in a world that co-opts that, pursues it, flagwaves it, uses it as currency, excludes or cashes in on that can make that person self contain, feel more AUTistic, so no wonder so much confusion/identification/debate about what IS versus what is EXPERIENCED as “AUTism”.

Having met personality disordered adults who with autism who were diagnosed in early childhood and having met personality disordered and dysfunctional adults who had no such childhood diagnosis, I know that without giving these people the ability to discuss their stuff they can too easily use the ‘autism’ idea to excuse it instead of address it.

So as we rip and shred and hate and harm and hurt and haul this person or that person over the coals of debate and diagnosis, maybe we should sociologically acknowledge the adjective of AUTistic so this vast range of people can discuss their alienation, derealisation, disorientation, and disabilities whilst acknowledging where and if and how they do or did fit a DSM for the medical condition of autism.

Donna Williams, BA Hons, Dip Ed.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.
http://www.donnawilliams.net

I acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the Traditional Owners of this country throughout Australia, and their connection to land and community.

This item originally posted here:

AUTism… the adjective

They are amazed too that authors only get around 50 cents per book sold via bookshops or their publishers even if the customer has paid $30-$60 for the book. They are amazed that authors get only 6 free copies of any newly published book for the lifetime of that book and that they actually have to buy their own books at the recommended retail price less a 30% author’s discount. So the authors $20-$40 for the signed books they might resell at their lectures at the RRP of $30-$60.

At 52 weeks in a year and up to 3 national and international requests to donate books per week (including the postage!) the fundraisers are actually asking the author to hand over around $90 per week or $4680 per year to their organisations. And if you don’t do so, then you must be stingy, or a parasite living off writings about the condition. They envision big auti$m: that any autism author earns Tony Attwood or Temple Grandin style lecture fees of up to $4000 per lecture, that they stay in luxurious hotels, fly in business class, etc etc, but somehow don’t live ‘like they do’.

As an artist, they ask me for both books and art works. I have produced around 200 paintings in 10 years. That’s around 20 paintings a year. Rather prolific for an artist. I sell them for between $50-$350 each. I also sell limited edition prints (numbers up to 50 per painting) and art cards. I don’t donate my works to charities. I do discount my works for charities so they can purchase them for fund raising purposes. As soon as they’re not free, most charities, however, don’t reply.

I have donated books over the years, sometimes even art works, certainly discounted my lecture fees to allow hosts to use my presentations as fundraisers, sometimes spoken without fee or provided consulting time without fee or at half rate for those struggling. Mostly, I donated my time, my energy, my heart to the autism world.

I’m dealing with cancer which was diagnosed this month. I have suspended all my lectures and consulting. Surviving cancer is all about how we spend time and energy and heart. I had wonderful well wishes from so many warm hearted people. I also found that I heard from those just wanting to remind me how much they have valued one of my 10 books and how they’d love for me to send them a book/s and/or artwork/s for their charity fundraiser. Perhaps I’ll now be inundated with requests for bequests. All I can say is that I am not autism with a person attached. I’m a person who happens to have autism amidst the many things that make me me. Whilst I wish the autism charities well with their fund raising, I’m donating my resources, financial, emotional, energetic, to recovering from something far worse than autism – cancer.

Donna Williams, BA Hons, Dip Ed.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.
http://www.donnawilliams.net

I acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the Traditional Owners of this country throughout Australia, and their connection to land and community.

This item originally posted here:

Freebies please?

My father, not as meaning deaf as his mother, still seemed to miss large chunks of what was said to him. He filled the gaps with his entertaining repetitive stories, with his quips and characterisations or made a match without seeming to get the full meaning or significance of what was said. I felt fitted ADHD, Dyslexia, Bipolar, was Schizotypal and had Dissociative Identity Disorder. He was also a substance abuser, a criminal and behaved like a sex addict (no, HE has never sexually abused me).

Of course as Aspergers came to light in society in the 1990 people realised there were parents on the spectrum, then ADHD joined the autism spectrum and it was accepted some parents of those with autism could have Aspergers, or ADHD.

Then co-morbid mood, anxiety, compulsive disorders were recognised in those on the spectrum – another taboo was that those with autism could only have this SINGULAR, PURE mysteries condition called ‘autism’, that it could never be blurred by co-morbids added and well mixed into the info processing or sensory perceptual issues. So then we had to face that some parents could be have AS, ADHD, co-morbids.

Then we came to face that some kids and adults on the spectrum had personality disorders, such as OCPD, Schizoid Personality Disorder, Schizotypal Personality Disorder, and reluctantly society faced that some also had Dependent Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder and, god forbid, Borderline complicating their autism or AS. So now we had to face that parents on the spectrum could have an information processing difference/disorder, an attention deficit, mood, anxiety, compulsive, and personality disorders in any combination.

Finally, we were able to explore psychopathy and whether killers those like Martin Bryant could have both AS and psychopathy. The public of course couldn’t bare the idea but with psychopathy being found to be a brain anomaly, why couldn’t someone be born with more than one co-occurring brain anomaly.

Then we weren’t allowed to suggest that parents of those with autism could be substance abusers, but with some adults on the spectrum speaking out about their own alcoholism and substance abuse, and of course some were parents too, then we had to face that someone with a range of ‘fruit salad’ could also abuse substances.

Finally, we talked about dissociation, how this occurred naturally in all children up to the age of five as part of development, how derealisation, depersonalisation and splitting off experiences is part of a spectrum and all humans can experience these things. From there we had to face that as human beings, those on the autism spectrum, and those with all combinations of ‘fruit salad’ could also experience dissociation and that under extreme enough circumstances this could develop into a range of dissociative disorders; the wanderings of fugues, dissociative amnesia, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, DDNos and in the most extreme cases, DID.

Finally, coming full circle, we have had to face that there are parents who have abused and murdered their children with autism, we have faced the cases in the papers, on the net. And so we know there are children with autism subjected to horror, in the home, sometimes in residential care. We have heard about the compulsive bullying they lived with in schools, the restraining and injuries they experienced from teachers and workers managing them.

So we can no longer deny that autism is all angels born to saints, nor even that compulsive over protection has saved or helped them. We can not longer deny that some children with autism will need to be removed from parents unfit to care for them who refuse help to acquire parenting skills, boundaries, balance. We can no longer glorify the families or those with autism by excluding troubled families complicated by their own information processing disorders, mental illness, personality disorders, or substance abuse.

We will have to become transparent, allowing welfare officers and social workers to become assistants assisting dysfunctional, disturbed, damaged, disabled families and primarily their children, not feared as the enemy, the judge and jury, the invader. We will have to stop self righteously dividing society into the ‘good people’ and the ‘bad people’ to turn ourselves into saints by silencing and invalidating others and their equally valid realities.

Donna Williams, BA Hons, Dip Ed.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.
http://www.donnawilliams.net

I acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the Traditional Owners of this country throughout Australia, and their connection to land and community.

This item originally posted here:

Autism, fruit salad, and purist social bigotry

Schizotypal Personality Disorder does not fit the criteria for Schizophrenia but those with it (and with Aspergers) have commonly been previously diagnosed as Schizophrenic.

There’s also 58% overlap between Schizotypal Personality Disorder and dissociative tendencies. Given that dissociation is normal in children up to age 5, what does excessive dissociative tendencies look like in a child of 7, or 10, or 15? Does it look more ‘Autistic’?

With higher dissociative tendencies, natural tendencies toward derealisation and wandering, natural aversion to forced conformity, natural tendencies toward non-conformity to the degree they struggle to track and gauge ‘normality’, and an inbuilt tendency to take refuge in their own world, what is the developmental impact? In children, perhaps particularly in those with Schizotypal Personality Disorder who also have significant sensory perceptual disorders adding to their disorientation, is that developmental impact likely to look fairly Autistic? Could it be that the same issues occurring in a child without Schizotypal or Schizoid personality disorders would look less ‘autistic’ than when they exacerbate the degree and appearance of these personality disorders?

Children with Schizotypal Personality Disorder also tend toward problems with:

communication,
“attention,
abstract reasoning,
cognitive inhibition,
early verbal learning and development,
verbal working memory,
reading social cues,
recognition memory,
social anxiety
general intellectual functioning
and associated social isolation.

Presently we don’t diagnose personality disorders in children, yet we’re OK with calling Schizotypal and Schizoid children ‘Autistic’. Perhaps if we distinguished their personality disorders, sensory perceptual disorders, health disorders etc, from ‘The Autism’ would we even find that we could find this mysterious singular thing we imagine as ‘Autism’?

Donna Williams, BA Hons, Dip Ed.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.

http://www.myspace.com/nobodynowherethefilm
http://www.donnawilliams.net
http://www.aspinauts.com

This item originally posted here:

Autism, Aspergers and Schizotypal Personality Disorder

Donna Williams aged 4

Donna Williams aged 4

Donna Williams aged 9

Donna Williams aged 7

Donna Williams, BA Hons, Dip Ed.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.

http://www.myspace.com/nobodynowherethefilm
http://www.donnawilliams.net
http://www.aspinauts.com

This item originally posted here:

Let’s stop calling it ‘the autism’ – Eye contact in babies

General social forums for adults on the spectrum are different to the primarily pride related, often more militancy oriented forums. I think adults on the autism spectrum are often relieved to realise they are not crazy but proud they are not crazy is a whole other level… especially militantly proud. ‘Proud’ is an emotion associated with inflation. ‘Relief’ is not.

The Aspies I meet in the physical world are generally shy of their diagnosis, some are embarrassed to mention it overtly or just desperately want to ‘just be people’, make no biggie of it, not make it a central feature. But I’ve met others at big autism conferences who seem far more militant. As a public speaker at these I’ve had them come in in their dark glasses and Schizoid poker face expressions walking in a team as one as though they are Borg and take a seat away from all others in the front row, placing bags to block the chairs either side from others sitting with them and then crossing their arms as if they are the gestapo there to vet how politically correct I am in terms of their culture/pride politics – no kidding! I’m sure these folks have little idea (or motivation to care) how one size fits all and scary this can seem. Fine if you are seeking to join a movement, don the ‘uniform’, and bleat the party line, but I’m hopelessly idiosyncratic. The Borg dynamic just doesn’t fit me.

I find extreme differences between those I meet in real life who have never adhered to the online culture thing and those who are deeply immersed in the online culture thing. I do think one can actually have AS and ALSO have turned into a badge wearing, T-shirt touting ‘I AM AUTISM’, ‘I AM AN AUTISTIC‘ sort of poster child for the pride movement. But I also think there’s plenty who don’t have AS who are very quick to join any newly popularized label or cause that gives them an instant checklist identity and paint by numbers dictate of how to ‘do pride’.

Refusal to be ashamed is not the same as being proud. I refuse to be ashamed. I invest my pride where I feel I’ve worked hard and achieved something very difficult. I don’t invest in pride for the sake of self inflation because that is flimsy, destabilising, removes me from where I’m really at… it un-grounds me.

I certainly advocate when its important to but I advocate what is relevant, no more than that… ie… oh, I’m face blind… or you’ll have to slow down, I’m rather meaning deaf (verbal agnosias)… or I’m context blind, I grew up seeing everything in bits (visual agnosias)… so otherwise I don’t feel I need to explain my personality as we’re all different… sometimes I’ll say… its a good thing we’re all different, eh… otherwise we’d get bored with everyone being exactly the same. Sometimes I advocate about tics or stereotypies (which I pass off as tics… I have both) and will just say… don’t worry, its just tics… brain stuff… I’m still in here… still a person… my head hasn’t fallen off… is yours ok? Or if my speech tumbles or I can’t retrieve words well or my stammer steps in or my speech has become telegraphic, I’ll say oops, flat language batteries… bad language day.

I’ve also met those who join Aspie groups with agenda to identity-shop, to explore the ‘culture’ (condition as culture) and there’s those who welcome it and those who don’t, sort of like straight people entering the GLBTI world as ‘curious’ then ‘realise’ they just might be x or y or z. I don’t mind tourists but I won’t be part of the zoo they’re exploring.

I’ve known one person who gained curiosity in the Aspie world based on stereotypes of socially disadvantaged geniuses and who already have business ideas lined up, to supply themselves a wage. This person first needed to immerse themselves in the autism circles, align themselves with the movers and shakers, create a profile for themselves as ‘autism friendly’, then they mirror those in these groups, intrigue an Aspie enough to get a ‘peer diagnosis’ and ‘come out’ as self identified Aspie, then strive to market themselves with their business plan. Gather a disadvantaged group then apply for grants and funding and you’ll certainly have a better chance than claiming you’ll go gather them once you have funding. They had a history of failed projects and schemes and credit card debt of over $100,000.

Autism is a booming industry for both the curists and any ‘Aspie’ entrepreneur with a new service. I hear regularly from those both identifying and newly diagnosed with AS who want to use their diagnosis to start an ‘advocacy business’ but as soon as I mention they’ll actually need a professional qualification and experience based on that professional qualification I have been slammed as ‘jealous’ of what they have to offer the field, I have then been ranted at re how dare non-autistic people expect the same professional standards from them given they have the ‘qualification of living with the condition’ or I’m told how they already know everything they’d get from such courses or could learn it all in a week or few months by virtue of their immense IQ.

One women, who was already a New Age counselor, had been through her dolphin, unicorn, angel phases and had entered her autism one. She felt she was a reincarnation of an autistic boy and so had an inner map of autistic reality. Feeling a calling to utilise this reincarnation to join ‘her people’, she so desperately wanted a diagnosis as validation she drank 15 cups of coffee to ensure she’d be sleep deprived before the assessment and of course so impressed them with her subsequent agitation, anxiety, distractability and impaired information processing she got her diagnosis of AS. She immediately went on to utilise this as a qualification for expanding her business into the autism field.

I know of others who self identify who write that they enjoy their ability to contribute to shaping the definition of AS through participating in as many online surveys and studies as they can to ‘advance the field’. But in which direction and according to whose reality? Should they have to have a formal diagnosis before helping to shape a new definition of AS and how those with it experience it? In a world where people will hatefully fight any questioning of a self diagnosis or peer diagnosis as ‘elitism’ it is likely that soon any info derived through online studies will have to consider this may be what their participants deem as an affirmative to the criteria of ‘are you diagnosed with autism?’

Are people faking AS? Do they have subclinical AS? Do all humans have some degree of AS and if you fixate on those elements enough you can imagine you have AS? If we talk neurodiversity, then these people ARE clearly as neurodiverse as any, autistic or otherwise, so does it even matter?

This is the urban dictionary, not Webster, so it’s as rude and bad mannered as the Urban dictionary tends to be but surprisingly, it has a category for Aspie which, like it or lump it is reflecting how Aspie is being seen ‘out there’. Suggest anyone is faking and watch the sparks fly and the heads roll. There’s some fearsome emotions invested out there.

As a lurker I took one look at the collectivism, the entanglement, the hierarchy, the competitiveness, the conspiracy mentality, the militancy, the narcissistic self righteousness and co-dependent pandering in the autism pride forums that I decided I’d leave pride for those who needed it. As a Taoist, pride seemed rather imbalanced, as a Taoist with Buddhist leanings, humility seemed so much more important.

Donna Williams, BA Hons, Dip Ed.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.

http://www.myspace.com/nobodynowherethefilm
http://www.donnawilliams.net
http://www.aspinauts.com

This item originally posted here:

Autism forums

Donna Williams, BA Hons, Dip Ed.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.

http://www.myspace.com/nobodynowherethefilm
http://www.donnawilliams.net
http://www.aspinauts.com

This item originally posted here:

Who said life is fair?