Actually, science knows. Speech production isn’t the product of a single neural system; it’s the result of many neural and muscular systems all working together. In any kid, autistic or not, it takes time for all these separate systems to jointly reach the level of development necessary to produce speech or progress in speech. So a kid’s language development is going to appear to take place in spurts rather than as a slow and steady process, even though the actually underlying neurological development is occurring gradually.

Think of a symphony orchestra that’s starting out completely from scrach; none of the players initially know how to play their instruments. Under the direction of qualified instructors, they practice intensively and gradually learn how to play. But the orchestra still can’t produce anything that sounds like music. The players continue to improve, and one day, voila! music! To an outside observer, it looks like some sort of special, discontinuous event must have produced the change; we all have built-in prejudices of thought (what Francis Bacon quite eloquently called “idols”) that make us look for Big Causes. But in fact there was no such event; the difference that enabled the orchestra to finally produce music was one of degree, not kind.

The same holds true for just about any aspect of a child’s development: physical (”growth spurts”, cognitive, social, linguistic, or emotional); the pattern seen is long periods of “no progress” followed by “sudden leaps.” Yet this pattern is the result of an underlying process of slow, steady, gradual development; we just can’t see that development directly.

When a child is developing typically, we don’t really think all that much about this; we act like the kid has some sort of built-in calendar that’s directing his development. But when a kid is autistic or otherwise developing differently from the published schedules, we get seduced by our “idols” into thinking that the developmental events that he does experience must have Special Explanations, such as the interventions we’ve been performing. In reality, we’re just seeing the normal (but wonderful) process of oridinary development, just not following the schedule we’d expect. But the temptation is strong to think that the whitewater rafting trip the orchestra members all took was what made them capable of playing Beethoven’s Fifth. As Prometheus always points out, autism involves developmental delay, not developmental stasis. Assuming the latter turns ordinary, predictable (but still wonderful) events into apparent miracles that require gratitude to be directed somewhere.

Thank you so much for sharing your experience.

Please allow me a bit of off topic here.

I wish you a Happy Father´s Day

Best Regards

María Luján

They struggle with this mundane, strange world full of weird stuff that they can’t understand. The language is strange to their little fairy ears, the customs and habits are strange, it’s all just as bizarre to the fairy child as the fairy world would be to ordinary people.

With time and effort and patience, a fairy child can learn to adapt and can even thrive. Recognizing that the child is special, unique, weird, funny, eccentric, odd, beautiful… These things can’t do anything but HELP him or her adjust to their environment.

Of course, they’ll always be fairies…

I am saying that when they give all the credit to the above, it’s wrong. I refuse to believe they are only doing biomedical treatments. It’s when I see parents go on and on about the treatment, but don’t mention all the other stuff they do, or even how they parent.”

Belle
when you said this it reminded me of something I wrote a long time ago.

Children with Autism typically inhabit a world of chaos, our world. Their impaired ability to share in our common sense interpretation of experience leads them to impose their own uncommon sense of order and meaning. This can lead them to act in ways that are quite at odds with our ideas of appropriate behaviour. So we cajole, threaten, plead and generally respond in ways that add to their confusion and confirm them in their own version of reality. We seem quite mad and not to be trusted.
Then their Autism is recognized and we change. We follow more consistent programmes of behaviour management. We stop punishing them for non-compliance. We lose our sense of powerlessness and frustration. We think we know what is going on now and are calmer and more predictable. We may start them on a course of medication or a special diet or visit a therapist. We begin to lose our own guilt and anger and no longer project them subconsciously onto our offspring. And they improve. Surprise! Surprise! They may still be autistic but their autism is no longer so disabling and we are able to enjoy our children and teach them to enjoy us.

I think we are on the same wavelength, you and I.

DoC—You’re way too nice and flattering of me. Thank you, but don’t totally believe him, I can be just as mean and ornery as the next person, just ask my family!

David H.– I am not saying “that parents who say their children are improving due to chelation, or some other biomedical intervention, are wrong.”

I am saying that when they give all the credit to the above, it’s wrong. I refuse to believe they are only doing biomedical treatments. It’s when I see parents go on and on about the treatment, but don’t mention all the other stuff they do, or even how they parent. Then I laugh to myself because my child is doing as well, if not better, and I won’t tell you it’s because at one time she did 25 hours a week of ABA, 12 hours of preschool a week which included 1 hour of speech and 1 hour of OT, and 1 hour of vision therapy, plus 1 hour of speech, 1 hour of OT, 1 hour of music therapy, and 1 hour of hippo therapy outside of school. I will tell you that I firmly believe these all helped her, but I don’t give them all the credit and the cure all that what every family should do. Her siblings pay a big part in how well she is doing, and I won’t go around telling families to keep procreating to cure their child. There is more to it than one treatment, and I would love to see how well these children would’ve been doing without the biomedical treatments, but that is not possible, so the parents who go around attributing their child’s recovery due to chelation or biomedical treatments crack me up.