Police: Autistic Boy Lived In Filth, Ate Only Chocolate

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I didn't say one couldn't. My mom was herself borderline poor at times.

You are not always in control of the situations. Some students are not allowed to change schools easily.

Of course no one has complete control over their situation. Be that as it may, I wouldn't endorse homeschooling wholeheartedly. Essentially, the parent/guarduan takes it on themselves to become an educator as well as all the other job titles involved with parenting. It may work well in some situations, but not all the time.

she did not seem to intentionally try to harm her son, but it is sad that she did not realize what the consequenes of her actions would be.

Which constitutes criminal neglect.

Whether or not the boy was deliberately abused is irrelevant.

Truly NO EXCUSES, EVER

This would only true if done deliberately



NO. That is relevant.



Can YOU live up to that? No excuses ever? For whatever you did wrong for not knowing better?

This woman needs help, not punishment!

But hes diagnosed autistic? How? By the wizards? Since tuesday?
It took me 5 years and half a dozen medical types to get a diagnosis... if I had known it could be done that fast I would have bought a feckload more chocolate...

Anybody actually know how high/low functioning this kid is? Or for that matter seen the mother? Maybe hes just miserably uneducated and not autistic at all.. (think "wolfboy".) Maybe shes much the same?

Try contextualising these points...

There are dozens of threads hereabouts about people who will only eat x or y food type, wear this or that clothing, stim uncontrollably if someone even mentions lettuce or whatever.. .. why should this child be any different just because of misguided moral outrage?

None of us have ever done something stupid like trash a house/ bring a dead animal back for amateur vivisection? Again.. endless threads say otherwise... None of us ever let the housework slide in favour of an obsession, or through an aversion? Or even through overwork?

As a parent of two autistic sons, I've seen for myself how quickly a tidy room/house becomes a bombsite full of unfinished foods and discarded toys/whatever was interesting, and how long it takes to right that afterwards. For that matter, as an autistic adult, living with another autistic adult, I've seen for myself how quickly a tidy room/house becomes a bombsite full of unfinished foods and discarded toys/whatever was interesting, and how long it takes to right that afterwards......*ahem*

I've seen what happens when you drop your guard even for an instant.... and I know how much pressure you are under with autistic children.. (or children at all, for that matter.)

We, as autistics, should know full well how rampantly messy and destructive we can be, especially as children. We should be a little more circumspect about shouting "foul". Those of us without childcare experience should certainly think twice... We should also be more aware that this story isnt about "abuse" in the proper sense of the word. Has the child been beaten? Raped? Set on fire? No. This is about neglect.. and not just the neglect of the mother, who could well be utterly incompetent as a parent, or utterly unable to cope or just utterly inbred and stupid. This is a case of neglect by the social services, and that ret*d of a landlord.

I find that if I clear off a table or a counter, then almost instantly junk collects on it. My work is in vain, yet I must continue in repetition because it is my job to do the housework.

Here's a follow-up to the story. The mother is arrested, the son is in protective custody, and the house will soon be condemned.

http://www.wishtv.com/global/story.asp?s=8363397

In some states it's not so easy to change schools, although i didn't want to for the last few months we have home schooled my son because of bullies at his school, they wouldn't let us change schools unless we moved from the district , he was in a special separate classroom for learning disabled, it was so bad he was threatening to kill himself and was eating spoiled food to make himself sick so as not to go. He also refused to bathe, because the school would send him home if he was filthy.(just try and forcibly wash a twelve year old who is the same size as yourself) They did offer to let us sign him over to the state to be put in an institution so he could "get help" my sister went somewhere like that in high school she was worse after being there ,as of a few weeks ago he with being home schooled is happy no longer acting depressed, taking part in family activities bathing, doing chores, playing,(he would mostly lay around and not move or talk, didn't even stim like he normally does) and eating as normally as he ever has(eats mostly rice, baked chicken , bread with ketchup, bananas, applesauce and pasta). Next fall we plan to send him to a different school, although I'm concerned because there is really not going to be a support system there for autistic kids. So changing school is not always so easy.

I do think this is a failure of society to help people with difficultys, but then a lot of people are happy to let others fall as long as they themselves are ok.It would be nice if there were some support to help people learn basic life skills and parenting .

Also as an autistic parent with one two children one autistic and the other gifted(but still lacking most social skills) and a husband with Aspergers I could see how people can have their lives spiral out of control, things get messy here but never with decaying food or bad smells, just cluttered.

If all the boy ate was chocolate, then I would have thought he would have died before the age of 8...but I guess this must be a minority case.
Hmm...and the conditions he was living him...he would have probably been very sick from disease.

The things people do sometimes....I don't understand it AT ALL.

Well said! I am actually feeling a mixture of disabused, sad, and shocked that people on wrongplanet, with every reason to understand how this kind of mess, ( if it really is such a mess as the media is making out) , can happen, are so hostile about any attempt to explain it in any other way than criminal neglect, abuse, etc.

As you say, how did anyone know he was autistic if he had never been to a doctor? Perhaps the well documented credulity, which makes us so easily exploitable/open to abuse etc, of AS people might partly explain this wholesale swallowing of a media-packaged "horror story".

And the prejudices about homeschooling are completely astonishing too. Or perhaps not; that's why people treat us as if we need policing just for doing it.

I think this may be a first, but I'm in total agreement with slowmutant. It's irrelevant if the house was just a little flithy, or a lot filthy, the sentence in the article that said " no working plumbing" screams unlivable conditions to me.

Before anyone jumps on me about not knowing what it's like, I am a parent of 2 autistic sons, one of them is profoundly autistic. My house is certainly not spotless, and their diet is not perfect, but it's a far cry from the video that I just saw. I may lack any kind of empathy for adults, but I've tons for small children, and animals. I feel very bad for that boy. Autistic, or not he should never have had to live that way. Though, it does make me wonder if it was somehow easier for the mom to get away with raising him that way, because he was autistic.

One of the things that always dissapoints me about this place is the lack of empathy for adults, every human is valuable if only from a point of view that leaving the worst off to their own devices makes things worse for everyone else, I can never understand putting animals above humans, they certainly would support their own species first, and children grow up to be adults, its like pro life or so called people who support fetuses but ignore the baby once it is born. Kids are cute, babys even more so teens not so much, but when they grow up to be adults that can't care for themselves just toss them on the street or put them in jail same for the mentally ill, they are not as functional as us so we don't care, that attitude is so prevalent it makes me sad ... maybe she should have not had a child but no one obviously cared till it was much too late.

Having empathy for adults is something that I need to work on, I'll admit to that. I am trying, but in this case I have no details to go on. Details mean everything to me. The why, when, what, and how of the mother would allow me to make an opinion as to her plight. Unfortunately, the investigators, and reporters weren't interested in the mother's side, so we probably won't hear it.

I'm 100% sure that mom's an Aspie. I suspect that she didn't want any attention from other people or to be a burden to other people and that she had been bullied so much as a kid that when she got her son, she just wanted to protect him as well as not botherin or burdening others with him.