Recovery claims and other ponderings

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Just wondering what everyone here thinks about 'recovered autistics'.

I just got done reading Catherine Maurice's "Let me hear your voice" in which she writes about recovering her two children through Behavior Modification. She includes before and after evaluations of both children, a girl and a boy, from several neurologists and psychologists. Most of the 'after' evaluations state that no residua of autism is left in either child. She goes on to include several other evals from doctors who did not know the children's history who mention nothing of autism.

Here's where the pondering part comes in, Is it possible to meet someone who appears totally typical who once was on the spectrum? and, Are they really typical, or just repressing the autistic side of their mind? I suppose anything is possible, but this subject is very near to me, and I would like to know what others here think about this.

I know some here have disdain for the "self diagnosed", but what of all those who lived with the fact, not knowing, coping and living their whole lives trying to appear "normal"? Are their struggles dismissable?

I am leery of "recovered autistics" as there are at least 2 very rare disorders which can be misdiagnosed as austism. (I wish I could recall the names; I just read about them but I forget.) One is a seizure disorder, and when the seizures are brought under control with medication, after a while the child tests as non-autistic, regardless of what the same tests said before the seizure medications came into play. Some parents go on thinking something has "cured" their child of autism. (Some experts suggest Jenny McCarthy's "recovered autistic" son had this seizure disorder rather than autism, as his autistic traits developed only after he began having seizures and disappeared once the seizures were under control.)

Personally, I wouldn't want a cure even if I was sure these things worked.

I never mentioned the word 'cure', and McCarthy's son still exhibits signs af autism.

What I am asking, I guess, is Are there autistics who overcome most of their symptoms? Someone who masters language usage, overcomes social anxieties, learns the itricacies of social interaction, not suddenly becoming neurotypical, that is nonsense. Are there autistics who master their condition? Eliminate the things that would hinder them in life and perfect the parts of their autism that are helpful?

I don't about master but I think there are those out there that have figured out how to "fit in" to the NT world.

I have a horrible time with social interaction and large social settings but I have given presentations to groups of 50+. Do I think I have overcome my aversion to social setting, no. But if push comes to shove I can "shut off" my screaming brain for a time and put on my game face and get through it.
I almost feel like I'm acting in a play when I do it, that I'm pretending when I do it, because the real me would run from the room.

And from what I have read of some therapies, that it sounds kind of like that. That you don't lose your issues, you just learn how to recognize them and work through it.

I've been called and told all the typical things that Aspies get told..."Are you from another planet", "That's just weird", "You just don't get it do you?","Why would you say that?" etc, etc. But outside of my wife does anyone suspect I'm autistic, doubt it.

That's exactly what I mean Fredoak, thanks for your response.

I like that line about 'acting in a play'. It could be said that someone on the spectrum who is not diagnosed into adulthood has been 'acting in a play' their whole life.

In my book "Finding Kansas" I have described what I call the "Alias" factor. I am able to give presentations (last week in front of 70 police officers) and am also able to speak at race tracks where I serve as race directors. When I give the presentation at a race track I am not myself, but rather simply the race director. There are no social grey areas as I have the rules to follow and everything is centered around the race.

I also worked at a video game store before I was diagnosed, but before I worked there going into one was a traumatic experience. Being asked, "Can I help you?" breeched the 4th wall (another concept in my book). It was very bad! However, when I worked at the store, I had no issues asking that question of pain, and I had no problem with eye contact and I was able to drill them with it in hopes of getting them to buy a magazine subscription they would probably never read. I was the regions #1 sales person because I adjusted for that role. During the sale I wasn't me, I was simply the nameless sales clerk and the rules of the game were simple. Push for the sale, but don't badger.

When I have an alias I am able to speak a lot more. Sadly though, at the video game store, when the sale was over I would shut down. My co-workers always took offense to this as I did not have much of a conversation with them. It's not that I didn't want to, it was that I couldn't. Open-ended conversations as impossible for me as it's like playing chess against an invisible player. I always try to predict ahead of time where the conversation will go, but of course this fails more times than I'm right. In an alias though where the rules of the game are known it is easy because it isn't really all that open-ended. When I give a presentation about the autism spectrum, or my book, I doubt someone is going to ask me what type of music I like, or other personal opinion questions on things outside the area I am talking about.

folks that had more severe presentation of Autism who present as PDD-NOS as adults. I still wouldn't refer to them as Neurotypical; rather, as other posters stated, they have learned to play the "game." I was always mildly affected in that I had normal speech and cognitive abilities. However, I would not consider myself recovered. I have a family event tonight that I just found out about this morning. I am already having anxiety. I know and love these people, but my routine is going to be way off, my kid who is likely on the spectrum will be all out of sorts, and this is going to take place at a restaurant that I'm not all that familiar with. It's supposed to be a great event, but I'm dreading it.

Do you mean Landau-Kleffner Syndrome? It's a disorder where seizures disrupt hearing and speech, thus messing up the child's ability to communicate.

Recovery is a very dicey word, in my vocabulary, in relation to autism. To me, autism is a pervasive developmental disorder. It's not an illness or a disease, in my books. I have this live and let live philosophy, that leads me to believe that children should be left alone to develop at their own rates, and be allowed to be kids and to actually have a stress-free childhood.

I like your theory, Kansas, and will read more about it. I will check out your blog and book. This is very interesting to me, and I'm thankful for these responses.

I know different people are wary of certain words, and I try to choose them carefully. Maybe we have assigned certain connotations to words that others don't intend. In using 'recovery', maybe I meant recovering from the setbacks, or the things that would hold one back.

If you spend decades being told you're just lazy, unmotivated and odd, you do what you have to do to survive. If you're told there's nothing wrong with you, that you're just like everybody else and you will get out there and by-god-function whether you like it or not - you learn to fake everybody else's behaviors at least enough to get by. That's what BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION is - torture, to force someone to pretend to be like everyone else. It does nothing to change who you are, or what you feel internally. Who you are is hardwired into the brain and you simply cannot change the manner in which your neurons apprehend and interpret experiences.

And learning to chameleon-mimic social behaviors in order to pass for NT doesn't guarantee you the same level of career stability, economic success, positive interpersonal relationships, etc that your peer group will have - looking 'normal' on the outside will not prevent your ASD from being a lifelong mine field.

You can learn to salute and march right along with the mass of humanity, if you're forced to - but it won't keep you from stumbling and falling, and when you do, the mass will walk right over you.

Recovered autistics just become high functioning autistics. They probably had such severe symptoms that it looks like they have recovered of all autistic symptoms, but no, their symptoms just become more mild.
Or they had a condition that mimicked autism and it really wasn't autism to begin with.

People with autism don't "recover". They learn to adapt and they learn coping skills. Anyone with autism who has "recovered" probably never had autism in the first place.

I really, really dislike Jenny McCarthy. She has put into the mind of parents of autistic children that their kids can recover and if they don't, then it's the parents fault for not trying hard enough or not giving their kids the correct quack therapies or special diets. It is a horrible, horrible thing she is doing.

Jenny McCarthy is the perfect example of that, with the way that she brags about how she "Saved" her son. The woman drives me bonkers.

Well, this is the main reason I'm bothered by her...

http://www.hollywoodlife.com/2010/02/26 ... ad-autism/

The whole bit about even if her son didn't have autism, "she will continue to be the voice of it".

"Recovery" is different from "appearing normal".

If a child has a lot of behavioural, social and emotional problems but then, presumably through various therapies and interventions, those problems vanish without a trace, then that child was not autistic to begin with, but was disturbed for other reasons, whether neurological or chemical. I believe a lot of children are mistakenly diagnosed as autistic who are actually suffering from toxic overload of some sort, whereas others who are autistic are not recognized because they don't fit the stereotypes of how autistic people come across and act.

"Appearing normal" is something that many autistic people, diagnosed or not, can do, especially with an accumulation of life skills and experience, that is, with age.