Any thoughts on this???

[Guest guest]

The NIH recently held a conference on autism

http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/funding/programs/10autism/detail.htm

There are a few facts (translate -fact = what we know today not tomorrow) that

you may want to read...but I want opinions on this fact here under What are the

characteristics and predictors of the school-aged children who move from

nonverbal to verbal?

A retrospective review of the literature on cases and studies of individuals who

began speaking at age 5 or older (Pickett et al., 2009) highlighted the

following factors:

" Age (most children who started speaking were between 5 and 7)—none over age

13 "

I hate quotes like this!! How can they say ZERO autistic kids who didn't speak

by the age of 13 have NEVER spoken? What about those that are misdiagnosed?

What about those that never got appropriate therapies? What about

Ketchum who just started to speak at TWENTY FIVE YEARS OLD???

http://littlemermaidmelanie.wordpress.com/

OK granted you might say " but , you yourself say that is

misdiagnosed as autistic, so she wouldn't count " But was diagnosed ALL

HER LIFE up till adulthood by numerous medical, speech, and educational

professionals as autistic, and not just in one state -but in various

states...and some of those that diagnosed her were and I believe still are

considered to be " experts " on autism. So answer that!

Clearly if Mel's parents didn't continue to dig for more answers as to why no

progress, her daughter today would still be considered a " non verbal autistic "

adult and clearly she would have remained nonverbal... and not upset that one

stat.

It's funny -we have more parents of almost teen and teen children diagnosed with

autism on nutriiveda then young- or perhaps those are the parents that fill out

the survey. But nutriiveda alone proves that stat 100% wrong as you can read

here and on the testimony page at PursuitofResearch.org.

But am I the only one that is not sleeping to notice that autism used to have

almost NOTHING to do with expressive speech??? More about not wanting to talk,

or not being able to understand what is said rather than not being ABLE to talk.

Autism a half a century ago was more of a psychological diagnosis, perhaps

language was affected, but not ability to speak. How dare anyone say that a

child diagnosed today with autism that doesn't talk by 13 years old...when did

they start counting the years because clearly it wasn't from 50 years ago! I

mean it would be one thing if this conference was held at the Boonstown Autism

Support group in a backroom of Dennys on Main Steet in Doohicky USA and stated

by a local 6th grade teacher based on what he has seen in his own experience of

13 year old children with autism in his own class...but...? I don't buy it as

fact or even possible...Not even for today!

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[Guest guest]

100% agree with ,! A good friends son is 7 with Autism started talking this

year!! Of course sounds upset we dont just get upset regarding our own

kids, all non verbal kids break my heart!!!Caroline