Is surgically altering an autistic boy’s voice cruel or kind

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I have Tourettes, and this is well, scary.

I have some vocal tics, but not too much to hinder me from doing things, but obviously enough to embarrass me. I would ask what he wants first, if he doesn't want it, it is cruel. But I kind of understand. I hate my vocal tics and sometimes, I want to lose my voice so I can't do them anymore, not saying that I do. After all, it is a temporary thought.

I wish I knew what to do...

the cruelty depends...
if ontop of his already young age the lad lacked mental capacity [ie,has some level of intelectual disability] it shoudnt have been done.
when he became an adult he coud have been supported to give his opinion on it and if he wanted it then specialists of his coud have made a legaly binding 'best interest decision' on his behalf.
but no one who is very limited in mental capacity shoud be given the operation as they have no ability to give their view with informed consent,that from own view woud be immoral and very wrong to do.

lots of people with severe and profound autism shout or make other loud vocal noises to as a form of communication,vocalisation and sensory seeking;am one of them and live with a lot of people who do the same thing.
woud personaly hate to be given the op because itd be taking away the communication and sensory seeking needs of mine.

KOR, I support your view on this.

But I am wondering about this particular case. Did he have very limited mental capacity? I don't remember seeing that he did in the article. And his communication abilities were so much improved after the operation that it leads me to believe that maybe he did not have severely limited mental capacities.

I think they should have done it as early as possible. At 2,000 per day @ 90 dB, I'm surprised he was functional enough to even live. I would honestly have committed suicide. His parents are saints for even keeping him in the house with them and not institutionalizing him. I have no idea how they were able to do it. Without this surgical correction, THIS PERSON HAD NO FUTURE.

Seriously? No future because he has a tic that makes him yell randomly?

You need to check yourself, because that post shows some seriously bigoted ideas. Those are the kinds of dead-wrong ideas that are turning us into second-class citizens. The idea that it would have been logical for him to commit suicide or for his parents to put him in an institution--I don't know who told you that kind of thing was okay, that it's natural to think so little of somebody who has tics, but you need to stop listening to them.

I think so long it's his OWN decission it's fine.
But when other trying to push him into treatment he doesn't want, that's behavioural control and wrong.

But I belief you have the right to change yourself in any way you like.

That is more than two ninety decibel tics every minute of the day... if he was up for 16 hours a day.

Hey, I never said it couldn't be an annoying, frustrating, generally distracting problem. I just don't think it means that someone with a tic like that would have "no future".

For this particular kid, surgically reducing the volume of his voice worked, and the result was an improvement for him since the tic became less distracting and eventually less frequent. I don't have a problem with that; it's when we take this case as a precedent, and start doing the same thing to the voices of kids who yell as a stim, or to communicate, or even due to tics that can be treated some other way. If we do that, if we think it's okay for every loud autistic child instead of just for this one particular child in this one particular situation, then we would be literally silencing autistic people who need to be heard.

Many disability rights advocates are worried about this case, and I can see their point--they don't want this procedure to be used to make disabled people "less annoying" or "easier to handle", the way they do with drugs and restraints. I don't think this boy's rights were violated (not least because this procedure is most likely reversible if necessary)--but I do know that it would be a violation of the rights of many other children in superficially similar situations, and it troubles me that it might be applied this way.

Like I already said, I personally believe so long it's the choice of the child and he wanted that it's fine, you have the right to change your body and not allowing that ppl is also wrong. BUT when it's forced on ppl and it's used as a behavioural control, that's absolutly wrong. I actually think the same about psychiatric meds and children, they should be asked and not forced into a behavioural control they don't want. It's not about the environment, it's about oneself I believe and if a child doesn't want to change the environment has to live with it.

Parenting is all about controlling kids and getting them to behave in many societies. The Germans in the 19th C were the first people to publish books about parenting. The goal of their parenting was to be able to control your children "with a glance." I kid you not.

You know in complex ethical issues someone is always comming with Godwin's law at some point:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwins_Law
and it is natural that after that the entire conversation changes.

I ask myself why ppl are not able to stay on the topic without doing so?

The user was talking about the kid who had the surgery and you jumped on him for what he said so it made it look like you were opposed to his surgery contradicting what you said earlier in the thread.




I thought the same too growing up and then I realized there is a difference between controlling and just being a parent and doing discipline and what is best for your kids. Parents who don't give their kids limits and let them do whatever they want end up to be out of control kids and then it's hard to even correct them and direct them how to behave and act when they are older. There was a parent on Dr. Phil who thought she was being great to her five year old child by not giving her rules and setting any limits and then she couldn't understand why her daughter was so out of control and couldn't be good. Dr. Phil set her straight telling her kids need limits, kids test their limits to see where their limits are and he described it as walking into a dark room and feeling for the walls and that is what the girl is doing but there is no wall so her life is chaos and there is no end. It's also not good for their future and who knows where they will end up in their teens or adulthood. I thought the mom was an idiot because she was so clueless when everyone else knows it's bad parenting. But I never heard a follow up on the story so I don't know if the mom finally started to be a parent and that she actually learned something.

I disagree about "limits" and "discipline." Dr. Phil is a PhD doctor. A philos doctor. The notion that kid's need limits and discipline, is anathema to me. Children copy their parents... if their parents are loving and attentive, that is what the children turn into... loving and attentive adults. Parents that have no discipline, but who are quick to restrict, punish, and discipline their kids, have children that have no discipline, but who are quick to yell and punish. Or can we suggest that parents that are obese have children that are obese? Parents who went to college have kids that go to college much more than parents who didn't go to college?

Kids do need limits; but it's more a matter of teaching them how to set limits themselves. I can only talk about it from the child's perspective, but I didn't learn much from being forced to do things through overly harsh rules, strict punishment, etc. The more I was forced, the less I learned. I learned best when I understood why. If they tried to force me to keep my room clean, for example, I just felt overwhelmed and helpless. If they had taught me how to clean a room and why it made sense to clean rooms, I would probably have understood how it helped me to think better when I had an uncluttered environment. But they figured that just forcing me into a more desirable behavior pattern would do the trick. It just stressed me out, and eventually I would break down and cry. It didn't help that at this point my mother usually made fun of me for being so "dramatic".

That's part of why I'm so troubled by the use of ABA to teach autistic children things. ABA focuses on behavior without considering the purpose of cognition, understanding, context, flexibility, or generalization. You may be able to teach someone to do something by using ABA, but it'll be rote learning. It's like teaching a parrot to recite a hundred mathematical formulas and then claiming that the parrot has become a mathematician.

It was a fortunate I was able to figure out in my teens parents don't punish their kids just to punish them or they don't take things away from them and privileges just to torture them and watch them suffer and they don't tell kids what to do just to tell them what to do. Sure there are parents out there who are truly controlling. Maybe the mother on Dr. Phil had a controlling parent or she just simply didn't like rules so it clouded her view and it effected her as a parent about how she raised her child. She also expected her daughter to make her own rules and make her own limits without her interfering.

If you don't tell you kid what to do or set them limits, then they will run out into the street without you stopping them, doing things that are harmful or may cause them injuries or death, eating unhealthy and getting over weight or anemic, getting dirty and never taking a bath because you don't want to "control" them. What about kids who bully and you do nothing to stop it because you don't want to be "controlling."Or kids running around in the mall or restaurant and you do nothing to stop it because you don't want to be "controlling" or if your kid likes to play rough like doing hitting and choking and pulling hair and you do nothing to stop it because you don't want to be "controlling." Parents don't need to do any of these things for their kids to do it.

If you are fortunate to have a child to always listen when you tell them to not do it and have a talk with them about it and they never go behind your back to do it thinking they will get away with it, then I guess you don't need to do any consequences and I suppose those people would believe kids don't need punishments to learn despite being parents themselves because they had those kids so they think all kids are like that. But I know most kids just break rules and disobey and after you tell them to stop or not do it, especially when you tell them you will leave if they do this and bam they do it anyway and you follow through with your threat by leaving. I have never heard of a child who never tests their limits and tests their parents to see if they are serious. Wait, I take that back, there is a user on here who mentioned he didn't test his limits as a child and he always followed the rules and never tested his limits and it gave him problems in the future because he didn't test his limits. I also heard online kids who don't test their limits are the ones who are abused so they are too afraid to even test their limits and that causes problems for them in the future. This came from a social worker who has worked with cases with abused children and none of them tested their limits due to the abuse they were suffering. It's wired in their brains to test limits and it's how they learn and develop. Without it, they are facing problems in the future like this one WP user here mentioned about himself.

From my experience, kids who lacked discipline were bullies and snots and brats. Their parents just didn't watch them and always believed their lies and they were unsupervised. So the kids always took advantage by denying they did something and their parents always believed them so they knew they could get away with anything because they can just deny it and their mom and dads will take their side and assume the other parent or kid is a liar. My mom just said they were lazy. I think it was just easier for them to believe their kids than do their job as a parent and didn't want to be the bad guy. Then to see someone jump online and say kids don't need consequences or limits or discipline scares me. I just think they don't have kids and if they do, that is scary. Then I imagine them being one of those parents and their kids are like the kids I knew growing up. Mean and bullies and their parents have no clue and refuse to believe other people when they inform them about what their kids did or they probably do let their kids bully other kids. We had lot of those parents in our neighborhood. They thought bullying was normal and part of being a kid and allowed it and it's the way life is. One mom thought other kids needed to toughen up but if any kid dared to tease her child, "Stop, you're being mean to my son." That kid was a smart ass and a snot and always got into trouble at school and his parents knew he had problems but thought praying to god would make him a better person and he fixes all your problems. They never disciplined him. Them telling him '"That isn't nice" never stopped him from doing it again. There was no consequence so why listen?

What you describe here is 100% the opposite of the ABA that my daughter received. As in parenting, it is all in the "practitioner." Some are good. Some are bad. And many of the more progressive ones have found ways to adapt it that are really quite fascinating (and helpful). I find that many people have a very rigid and out-dated view of what ABA is today. Not that there aren't still horrid practitioners out there. I am sure there are. But blanket statements can no longer appropriately be applied.

Regarding discipline: You do not need to punish a child to teach him or her discipline. But you do need to have very clear limits. There also needs to be consequences when those limits are breached. But I think some people equate "punishment" and "consequences" with beatings, degradation, and humiliation, as if they are one in the same. They are not. Some people may punish or enact consequences with beatings, degradation, and humiliation, but that is not the only way and IMHO, not the best way. My kids have never been beaten, degraded or humiliated, but I have many rules/limits and am in favor of discipline. Heck, sometimes you even need to force your kid to do something, because sometimes the wisdom you gain by the time you are an adult outweighs the wisdom of a child. That's the thing about being a parent. You have to make decisions for more than one person, and sometimes the little person is not going to like what you decided. But sometimes you need to carry on anyway.