a 'fake' disorder

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http://autism-association.com/autism/autism-medication/

what do you think about the 'fake' disorder theory ?

Unlike most 'ret*ds', we're actually eloquent enough to voice our concern and disgust at the way we at times are viewed by people and the media (I wonder if the coverage you guys get in the US will ever creep over here?); and so therefore they presume us to be 'fakers' or normal'. Riles me up. Just because some people are diagnosed incorrectly, doesn't mean EVERYONE has been.

If that's not missing the point...

Then again, Tom Cruise cured his dyslexia, apparently.

That was a poorly written article. I'm not quite sure what the point of it was. I think the gist of it was that the author was creating a straw-man argument - claiming that there are those who would argue that autism is not a disorder and, for these people, treating autism with medication is anathema, and that these people are writing books and making lots of money and shame on them. It is ironic that the author of such an articel would then caution the reader to ignore "pundits".

I'm not sure what 'autism medicine' is. Is this cure stuff, or stuff for treating co-morbid behaviors, such as AD/HD or aggression? I just don't get it, I guess.

This is why I think we need to get it out the hands of Psychs (and their departments). It's too subjective. It needs to be in Neurology solely (let Psychs deal with the co-morbid conditions) and researched as such (after all, it is brain dysfunction). There's still too much view that if it is a Psychological disorder (which people still see it as because it keeps falling under their auspices), it is ambiguous and can never truly be proven or concretely disproven as a "theory." It's also seen as strictly a behaviorial problem that you can be trained or drugged out of with the right Psych tools. We might not like that, but it's really the way it is. As it sits now, the diagnosis process is too nebulous and prone to error. That's why it continues to be challenged the way it is. Once it's concretely shown what is happening in the brain, that will dissipate.

I agree with squaretail that it is poorly written and about its intent.

In terms of what medications, I'm assuming that they are talking about behavior meds like the recent experimentation with the anti-schizophrenic Abilify.

It was a poorly written article as was everything else I read on their website. What a waste of bandwidth!

I don't think there really is "autism medication". What I have been told is the meds are for the co-morbid conditions like ADHD and Bi-polar. Or as the neuro I went to said she thought I should be given anxiety meds because I have Aspergers. But then she is saying I have anxiety which was purely based on her opinion that she thinks I "should" have anxiety based on some incidents I told her about. So it comes back to-there are no autism meds anyway. The author was definitely a moron!

I wouldn't take anti-autism/anti-asperger pills that's for sure.

I agree that it is very poorly written. I think the author is just making a claim that people who advocate a one-size-fits-all pharmaceutical miracle cure for autism are hoping to get some money out of it at the possible expense the autie (since many of these meds have dangerous side-effects).

That reads like a high school paper that was written off the top of someone's head without doing any research on the topic they were writing about. Very poor at source citation of information too.

Maybe this is just me but one thing that bothers me is that when they show autistic people on the television it seems to me like they try to make them look handicapped. That kid who had that 1 good quarter of the basketball game and received a lot of attention from the media and being autistic and doing that looked like he had down syndrome on TV. Does anyone else seem to notice this?

J-Mac did have some unusual facial features and his short stature (relative to his siblings and parents) makes you wonder about his genetics... But yeah, I agree. You don't see any passably NT autistics on the TV, except for (occasionally) Temple Grandin and lately, Daniel Tammet (though the latter doesn't quite fit the criteria because his functioning in life is not affected by his autistic traits).

"In some instances, there are those who actually have the gall to spread the conspiracy theory that many of these disorders have been invented so as to bring forth a political agenda. Now, how this political agenda is going to result in any party getting elected is mind boggling, but, as long as there are those willing to pay for the books that put this nonsense forward, authors will make the claims"

That line in your link was a load of bullcrap. Counselors and pharmecuetical companies create all sorts of false disorders or even exagerate "symptoms" of a disorder (either real or made up) in order to slap a lable on someone so they can sell them pills. It has nothing to do with an election, it's purely and simply about exploiting people to make money.

I also wann add, we should come up with a new word other than Asperger **Syndrome**. Syndrome implies that we're a burden or a disease. I'd prefer to call myself Aspergian.

The only problem with the use of the word Asperger's *syndrome* is that most people don't know what a syndrome actually is. A syndrome is not a disease, it is a just a classifier used to group together people with similar traits.