Would you 'cure' your children?

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As an Autist, I am productive and contribute. More importantly, I'm an Autistic Scientist and sacrifice beyond what another can know. This is not just what I am, but who I am.

On this Forum lets remember Autism is a gift too; that is, being an ASD individual IS hard! I promise, it's hard. But Wrong Planet is overflowing with gifted Autists who are most certainly hard working and give without end.

My son is severely autistic, largely non verbal and is physcially aggessive on a daily basis, often hitting and kicking me. Everyday is a battle and I can't do anything that takes my attention from him without him going into a violent tantrum. He is only 7 and I dread the future when he becomes stronger. If someone came along with a cure I would take it for both of our sakes. I don't agree with changing the essence of a person anymore than most of you, but if it comes down to me and my child's emotional and physcial wellbeing than yes I would take a cure. In fact I would welcome it.

Excellent post LabPet---anyone who has not read it should read it. I just had a student of mine do a small essay on Stephen Wiltshire---truly a remarkable man. Whereas I am an autistic savant, he is one of the few prodigious savants---talk about genius.

This is for redplanet:

I attended a book signing on autism a week ago. The author's son is classic autistic, and was mainly nonverbal until recently. He is now seven years old and is in the second grade at a regular school. He had given his mother (the author) so much concern with his "wild" tantrums, etc. that she did not know where to turn. One day, when he was giving her problems, she picked him up and set him down on the couch and more or less screamed at him something to the effect of why can't you be normal. She then saw his face turn into grief---as if he knew he had failed her. She began sobbing. She picked him up and carried him into the bathroom and set him down gently and she said, "Alec, Mommy is coming in for you." With his case of autism so severe, she knew the only thing she could do was go into his world. From that point on, things began to get better. He can now speak. He can do many things the so-called normal kids can do. And he succeeds. It took time, but it happened. I believe that with the love that you have for your son, you too will find him. Please believe that. Let that be your hope. My youngest son is 8 years old, and my wife doesn't know what to do with him at times. He screams, he can be very defiant, he can roll off the couch and curl into tight little balls, he can...well...you understand...Oh...and he can be loving and not know when to stop hugging us tightly. And he still has occasional accidents in his pants. He is going for a diagnosis of autism this summer. As his father, I feel responsible for his autism---if that is what he has---since I am autistic---the genes are in my side of the family. Since I am autistic, I feel I have a special bond with him. My oldest son also has issues, but he doesn't want to be diagnosed. You just have to keep loving and be supportive. Seek therapy if you need to. As autism-gift oriented as I am, I myself have recently undergone therapy for parenting issues involving my autism. You and your son will make it---you must hope for that---it will happen.

By the way, the book I referred to is called Autism's Hidden Blessings by Kelly Langston.

I would never do such a thing, even if someone forced me.

Thanks so much Labpet and Glider - your posts have given me so much hope and made me feel supported which is wonderful. I took a real risk posting on this thread as it's a sensitive subject and rightly so, but I feel strongly about this issue. I'm also on the autistic spectrum (although obviously not as severely as my son) and only discovered this recently, so I hope this will help me connect to my son as you have to yours Glider. The book you mentioned sounds really inspiring and I will definitely look into that. I totally love my son and respect who he is - autism has so many gifts and it's a different way of being rather than disability. If I had seen this thread a year ago I would have answered a firm "no" as I think my son has every right to be the person he is, but things have got so tough this last year that I have to be honest. Sometimes you have to truly experience the worst of a behaviour to understand how you could wish a child to be different. I don't want my son himself to change as I've never known him as a NT, but the violence would not be missed. I'm working with his school on ways of managing this, and getting help for myself, and who knows maybe this time next year my answer on this thread will be "no". I really hope so, but I respect anybody for their opinion as at the end of the day nobody truly knows another person's situation enough to judge their feelings.

Thanks so much for your really supportive posts.

hyperthetically, i wouldn't condem them to that kind of hell

If I had kids I do not think that I would try to cure them, but as adults if they wanted to try to get cured I would not try to stop them. But I would not be happy about the idea of them trying to get cured, I suspect that there will never be a true cure for AS or any other ASD.

When I think of the cure I tend to recall a photo of a man with his head clamped in a thing ready for 'treatment' with a gamma knife. I am aware that somewhere in south america there is a mental health place where they are trying to 'cure' aspies by dosing their brains with gamma rays. To me that is the ugly reality of the current cure.

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Health is a state of physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity I am not a jigsaw, I am a free man !

Diagnosed under the DSM5 rules with autism spectrum disorder, under DSM4 psychologist said would have been AS (299.80) but I suspect that I am somewhere between 299.80 and 299.00 (Autism) under DSM4.