12 Aug 2016, 7:55 pm
13 Aug 2016, 12:05 am
13 Aug 2016, 12:59 am
The great problem I see is that Ms Braxton has come out with a rather outlandish idea, if she wants people to pay attention then she needs to argue a good case using evidence. So far I can not see any evidence or hard facts so I say we should not believe her. The problem these days is that a halo effect exists these days, people think that as a person has a talent for one thing then they have a talent in another area.
For example Bono from U2 has a good ability to sing and make songs, but I have to ask why does his ability to sing make him more able than "Mr Average" to understand the complex issues behind world poverty. But I think that many people will pay more attention to Bono than other people as he is a pop star. I see the same problem with Ms Braxton, I think that people may pay her a lot more attention than she deserves due to the fact that she is a pop star.
I have seen what she said about God punishing her by giving her son autismDaily Mail article. To my mind this is outlandish and offensive.
Firstly we will not debate the existence or power of God, lets save that for another day in a different forum here. Maybe the one devoted to religion and philosophy. However it is rather medieval to imagine that God goes around striking people down as punishments on earth for a range of crimes. If you read the bible you will notice that in the new testament that the key story is about getting your life straightened out again and getting a better relationship with your fellow man and God.
It reminds me of the 1980s when some people (including medical doctors) were saying that AIDS was God's judgement on gays. One medical doctor who was shocked and troubled by this make the mocking reply that this was medieval and that maybe shortsightedness was God's judgement against people who read too much.
Ignoring the fact that the new testament God is not so keen on thunderbolts if we assume that God wished to make a special example of her, why would he do something to her son. Imagine a vengeful god who wanted to punish a singer who had done X, Y and Z, they would strike them mute or make them sing out of key. So we have to ask why would a God want to harm an innocent as a means of delivering a punishment to their mother.
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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.
13 Aug 2016, 5:05 am
So far all we've heard is the mother's side of the story, and the DSM seems to place alot of emphasis on behaviors in terms of how they are viewed by people outside the autistic person and not enough on their inner experience of the world and how they feel in it.
In order to truly consider somebody cured we'd have to know that from the individual themselves.
If they are straining to hold these changes which "put them off the spectrum" then this is just masking and not true cure. If they still experience the world as difficult and overwhelming (even if less so than before) than I would deduce that they are still autistic.
The DSM criteria probably needs to be updated now that so much more information has come to light about the inner experience of being autistic. With so many of us who are now older and still finding certain things in life difficult (and more able to describe it than before), with all the new information by us, for us about women with Aspergers, and the new information about just how broad a spectrum it is, it seems the DSM is slow to keep up.
I often wonder who these people are who decide the DSM criteria. Are any of them autistic themselves, or are all of them neurotypical? I suspect the latter. And if that's the case, then they are missing a very important part of what being autistic means.
It's problematic when parents decide to speak as proxys for their children because some things invariably get lost in translation. They are not inside their child's head. There again all they can really go on is what they see in the child's behavior and that's only part of the story.
If autism is in fact a hard-wired neurological difference then I don't see how it's logically possible to "cure" it anyway. That would be like saying that you can "cure" a computer of being a MAC or a PC. It is what it is and no amount of wishing or software changes will make it something different. It might help its limitations to be less problematic but it doesn't magically make it something else. Somebody on Youtube used this analogy and I think it fits perfectly.
There is neuroplasticity, but I doubt that neuroplasticity is capable of completely re-writing a person's entire underlying neural network. Everything I've read suggests that neuroplasticity creates new neural pathways but doesn't take down the original ones so that implies it's compensatory, not a replacement.
Neuroplasticity includes trimming pathways that are no longer being used. If we didn't take down old pathways, we would all be stark raving looney. In fact, one theory about why autistic toddler lose verbal skills is that they fail to trim the baby pathways while setting in the more mature pathways and its too much to handle. (I don't know if that's been debunked or not.) People with schizophrenia have too many pathways. Their brains are too active, not too inactive. Trimming keeps us sane.
Just a note from a biology geek. I totally approve of the bulk of your message.
That's quite an interesting theory. As part of my language development modules on my degree we were taught that there are phases of language children go through. (An example from slightly older children is that children will first copy words with correct verb ends but when they develop the ability to use rules for verb ending, they drop previously learnt irregular endings and over extend regular endings.
It was suggested to us that autistic children may develop typically (or closer to typically) until a certain phase but then follow a different developmental path from then onwards. so, the children would be trimming old pathways (and thus losing words) without creating the new pathways that neurotypical children do.
It would definetly be interesting to research into whether it might be either of those. Or perhaps both in different types of autism.
I think over connectivity could make a lot of sense. I lose words temporarily when I get overwhelmed even though I definetly can use those pathways at other times. I also quite often have the wrong word come out.
13 Aug 2016, 9:08 am
13 Aug 2016, 10:48 am
old_comedywriter
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14 Aug 2016, 2:23 pm
14 Aug 2016, 5:39 pm
ASPartOfMe
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14 Aug 2016, 6:02 pm
14 Aug 2016, 6:19 pm
14 Aug 2016, 9:04 pm
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15 Aug 2016, 3:07 am
15 Aug 2016, 2:31 pm
15 Aug 2016, 3:11 pm
16 Aug 2016, 4:42 pm
17 Aug 2016, 8:51 pm
She said "has no signs of autism" and that's entirely possible.
Thanks for proving my point.
She does not have to say the exact words "He was cured" to mean she thinks has was cured. She is presumably NT and presimably does not use exacting language. She came as close to saying those exact words without actually saying them. If a person is on the spectrum he or she is autistic. If the person is not on the spectrum anymore he or she is not autistic anymore. If he or she is not autistic because of some action such as therapy then that action "cured" that person. That is what she is claiming happened. What other interpretation of her words can there reasonably be?
I Disagree. Words are of utmost importance.
Its open to interpretation but I tend to think of "cure" as this illusionary concept of change imbibed by some sort if elixer or procedure. Highly unfeasible. I don't know of Ms Braxtons interpretation but I would suspect that whatever it is it is not the same as the alleged change she is talking about in her son. Her words are important. She claims he is no longer on the spectrum, she claims he no longer shows signs of autism.
I would imagine most people here myself included know he is and always will be autistic and Ms Braxton might even think that too for all we know but she wasnt speaking to that she was speaking of what I am almost certain are diagnostic criteria for autism. Different things. The distinction is subtle but important.
In fact she didnt even go so far as to claim he no longer had autism.
Words matter. They are very important as they convey meaning and intent.
It does irk me when people jump to conclusions and blurt our headlines like this that are misleading.
What a bogus argument.
Actually, I think it is an interesting argument.
I do not know Toni Braxton, nor her son, and I tend not to follow "celebrity" stories, but, if one looked back at my previous post, I can imagine myself saying my daughter "shows no signs of autism" (if I was talking about time periods because she can go days in which this statement is entirely true. And weeks in which it is largely true), but I do not think she is cured. I am not autistic, so I guess I can't use precise speech
, but it would be a conscious choice of words for me. And I do believe my daughter has at least one foot "off the spectrum" in a diagnostic sense, so I might also say that. But I do not think she is cured.NT people can use language thoughtfully and with intent. It is errant to assume that because someone is *presumably* NT that they are haphazard and imprecise with their choice of words. Nostromos' argument is worth consideration. She may have deliberately chosen the words she chose because they are the best way she can think of to explain her reality (and her son's).
I must also point out, again, that I do NOT think my daughter has been cured, and I am 100% certain that at the time of diagnosis, she was 100% autistic. But I also do not think she would be able to be properly diagnosed at this point based on her presentation today. You are making things much more black and white than they actually are. I also think it is presumptuous for anyone on this board to think they know her son better than she does just because they share a neurology with him. I do not walk around telling parents of kids with ADHD that I know their kids better than they do. I may understand certain realities of their experience better than they do, because I know firsthand what it is like to have an uncooperative brain and executive dysfunction, but I do not know their kid better than they do. If she says her kid no longer demonstrates signs of autism, without *evidence* to the contrary, we must accept the possibility that her statement is accurate. Our speculations are not evidence.
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