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ADD wasn't called "ADD" until around 1980. Here's some of the early history of AD/HD. How could you have heard of it before it was named "ADD"? When I was in school, they mostly called it "scatterbrained" or "inattentive" or "hyperactive".
You probably saw some autistic people institutionalized, and just didn't know it. They'd have paid no attention to you. They might have been just sitting, standing, rocking, tapping their fingers ...
How is this a disability? How is this a serious problem? Has America become so enfeebled and petty that "speaking out of turn" has turned into a disability and a disease.
OBEY!
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Originally Posted by standupandbecounted
I know for a fact that some of these kids are labelled because the parent wants special accommodations at school or extra income or insurance. I know this.
Yeah, really funny how no other country in the universe has problems with ADD, AHAD, Asparagus, Depression and a host of other "disorders."
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Originally Posted by JohKnip
Thank you. Aspergers Syndrome is on the Autistic spectrum, and is generally a functioning form of Autism.
Is that like "functioning alcoholic?"
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Originally Posted by imcurious
The "Aspie" (gag) poster who wrote that she has behavioral issues at home but not at school or work . . .gee, does that mean you control yourself under some circumstances? I guess that means you are able to and just don't do it when you don't want to.
I think most of these disorders are just really bad parenting.
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Originally Posted by standupandbecounted
That's why the 'spectrum' has been broadened to the extent it has, so it will take in more kids whose parents want perfect children and think something MUST be wrong since their children aren't perfect.
You're forgetting the financial reward.
I remember a few years ago reading the annual report from Forest Pharmaceuticals. It had an article that started out asking:
Did you know that 37% of Americans have never used any prescription drugs?
Did you know that only 41% of Americans have ever used a prescription drug in their lifetime?
Did you know that only 17% of Americans currently use prescription drugs on a daily basis?
So I'm thinking these are really bizarre questions to be asking, but then in reading the article, it became clear that their goal is to get every man, woman and child in the US using 1-3 prescription drugs every single day of their lives.
Let's face, growth in the pharmaceutical industry is dependent on getting medications prescribed, and once one or more medications are developed for existing diseases and "disorders" growth (ie profits) becomes stagnant, unless you invent more diseases and "disorders" that require the use of prescription drugs.
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Originally Posted by Jerseyt719
Well, something is going on in this country and it is shady.
I do not remember 1 autistic person growing up and I went to a number of schools. We moved quite a bit.
I also only remember 1 child that was what we would call today, "ADHD". There are far too many kids labeled ADD that are simply kids that need to be disciplined at home and the parents haven't.
I also know one child that has been labeled with Aspergers and I don't buy it. Knowing his home and family, he is allowed to be lazy and he is spoiled.
I never heard of it. It's amazing how these things never existed before 15-20 years ago, and it's even more amazing how the US is the only country that has these problems.
Yeah, really funny how no other country in the universe has problems with ADD, AHAD, Asparagus, Depression and a host of other "disorders."
Lol.
BTW, Asperger's/Asparagus/Alfalfa wasn't even known in the U.S. until 40 years after its initial discovery in Austria. The earliest literature on it was all in German. Not to mention, the first person to translate into English was British.
Did America totally jump on the Asperger's label? No doubt about it. Is it only recognized in the U.S.? No.
After all, anyone from all over the world who eats too many vegetables that begin with the letter A may acquire it. People from countries beginning with the letter A are also more prone to acquiring it.
Last edited by nimchimpsky; 04-03-2011 at 09:37 AM..
I am the first to admit that Asperger's gets overdiagnosed. I did NOT want to have that diagnosis but finally after three doctors saying the same thing I had to just accept it. A lot of parents and teens jump on the diagnosis--there's no doubt about that.
That said, just because there are professionals who don't believe in it doesn't mean it's not real. There are professionals who believe homosexuality is a mental illness. There are professionals who believe that teaching deaf children how to sign will harm their language skills. There are professionals who believe all sorts of things that have been extensively researched and proven wrong time and time again. Even professionals are human and are capable of being wrong sometimes.
Are you a normal person?
You obviously had an ability to learn, you're not learning disabled, you probably needed to learn from your own motivation to learn. Are you disabled or disabled only in the sense that certain environments are not conductive to learning for you?
Different isn't not normal. My whole point is that many kids being given this label are socially immature more than anything. They aren't driven by peer pressure or society, they are self-driven. They don't know the social cues because social cues are arbitrary but also they just aren't that social.
As they grow up, they figure out that they need some social ability and they figure it out. But at age 10 or age 15, they may have very few social needs and just want to be left alone.
It's the school itself that is the problem. Forcing kids into age group classrooms and expecting all to act the same. What's normal after all? Apparently not the day dreaming kids, not the kid who sits and thinks of things he's going to invent and is planning all that out. Not the bored kid who can't stand sitting still one minute longer.
Why is normal only those who can sit for hours and obediently follow instructions even when the teacher drones on and on or just repeated the same material they did 2 weeks before? Either because that's their nature or because they're drugged so that all they can do now is to sit still.
A lot of people being labeled with Asperers are actually within normal ranges, they aren't particularly odd, they aren't injuring themselves or others, they can learn. They aren't anti-social but they may be asocial. Their jokes might not be funny but they try because when they try to joke is when they're making some effort on their own to fit into society. Or it was something funny to only them because socially they're just not as with it. They never will get why some have the need to constantly perform for others but they'll do what they have to do when they need to.
ADD wasn't called "ADD" until around 1980. Here's some of the early history of AD/HD. How could you have heard of it before it was named "ADD"? When I was in school, they mostly called it "scatterbrained" or "inattentive" or "hyperactive".
You probably saw some autistic people institutionalized, and just didn't know it. They'd have paid no attention to you. They might have been just sitting, standing, rocking, tapping their fingers ...
Or multitasking. My oldest child was labeled by one psychologist as ADD. But luckily the pediatrician said no drugs and was not into the ADD diagnosis.
Inattentive might not be what it looks to be. The kid IS paying attention to the teacher but also to the fly on the wall, the birds playing in the bush outside the classroom, talking to the kid in front of him, being bothered by the kid in back of him, thinking about his plans to score higher in his current favorite video game AND wondering how the weekend is going to be -- and since he's paying attention to all these things at the same time, he didn't get what the homework assignment was.
It might be inherited but there was no ADD in the one room school houses. For examply my grandfather thought the one room schools were better for learning. He said one teacher would have different groups of students, broken down by ability not age. He could be in one group, second grade but while doing the drills listen to what was being taught to the sixth grade group. Or maybe you missed somethng from the first grade and you could catch it while she was teaching that group.
Kids now are artificially grouped by age. And you have 20 kids in a room who are required to sit for hours and that isn't natural for all kids to do. Nor can all adults sit for hours.
You obviously had an ability to learn, you're not learning disabled, you probably needed to learn from your own motivation to learn. Are you disabled or disabled only in the sense that certain environments are not conductive to learning for you?
That's my definition of disability. It doesn't necessarily mean inability to function. It just means inability to function without the proper accommodations. Motivation can overcome even the hardest of disabilities. I learned braille in 3 months and sign language a year but no one was debating whether my deaf-blindness was a disability--even though I had figured out a way how to function regardless of it. Disabled people figure out a way to get by day-to-day, but that doesn't mean their disability is some made up label and they're all just being lazy. For example, Deaf people learn sign language. Some Deaf people become excellent lip-readers. Does that make them any less deaf? No. They're still deaf. Can they cope in regular society? Yes. But they're still Deaf.
I have to ask though--how do you know if I am learning disabled? You can't know that just from reading forum posts. I might be totally awful with numbers and you have no idea. You're making assumptions. How many people are you making assumptions about in real life? How many people are you assuming don't have Asperger's because you're assuming that they can do X, Y, and Z with no little or no trouble, when in fact, it causes them great difficulty? I don't mean to sound overly accusatory but I just want to point what many people do. They make a set of assumptions and then based off of those assumptions, which may or may not be accurate to begin with, assume they know something about the person--when in fact they really only know what's in their own mind.
When I say Asperger's is a real disability, I'm not saying that in the sense of giving all Aspies an excuse to be rude and lazy. I'm just asking that people acknowledge that for Aspies, being social and doing other things IS harder. But by acknowledging that you can give someone support and help them so that they CAN reach their full potential and not just sit around making excuses. And when real Aspies get the support they need, fakers won't be able to throw around the Aspie label as an excuse because they'll see real Aspies being successful in the real world.
Quote:
Different isn't not normal. My whole point is that many kids being given this label are socially immature more than anything. They aren't driven by peer pressure or society, they are self-driven. They don't know the social cues because social cues are arbitrary but also they just aren't that social.
As they grow up, they figure out that they need some social ability and they figure it out. But at age 10 or age 15, they may have very few social needs and just want to be left alone.
It's the school itself that is the problem. Forcing kids into age group classrooms and expecting all to act the same. What's normal after all? Apparently not the day dreaming kids, not the kid who sits and thinks of things he's going to invent and is planning all that out. Not the bored kid who can't stand sitting still one minute longer.
Why is normal only those who can sit for hours and obediently follow instructions even when the teacher drones on and on or just repeated the same material they did 2 weeks before? Either because that's their nature or because they're drugged so that all they can do now is to sit still.
A lot of people being labeled with Asperers are actually within normal ranges, they aren't particularly odd, they aren't injuring themselves or others, they can learn. They aren't anti-social but they may be asocial. Their jokes might not be funny but they try because when they try to joke is when they're making some effort on their own to fit into society. Or it was something funny to only them because socially they're just not as with it. They never will get why some have the need to constantly perform for others but they'll do what they have to do when they need to.
I understand your point and I agree with it. A lot of people that are diagnosed as Aspie do fall within normal ranges and are just being given a label so they can get a pass at not fitting completely into their parents narrow definition of "normal". While acknowledging that, though, we can also acknowledge that some individuals do fall far enough to the sides of the Bell Curve that they do warrant some sort of intervention. People who have Asperger's to a point where it can't just be "fixed" by widening the range of normal a bit do need some support. Sometimes even the outliers may appear "normal" but we don't know how much work they are putting into passing as "normal." That's why diagnosing Asperger's requires lots of testing and close evaluations, so doctors and other specialists can look past what the person appears to be and get a better understanding of what's going on inside their head.
The bulk of Asperger's is inside the person's head. By that I mean that it affects their thought processes, emotions, and understanding of the world in ways that people on the outside can't necessarily always see. It's only visible to other people through body language, reactions, and social interactions in Aspies who are not good at passing as normal. But there is a whole population of Aspies that do pass as normal because they have figured out the social rules the world goes by, and they've figured out how to "suck it up" when they have to, but inside their head, they are still having very different thought processes that lead to their "normal" behavior compared to the neurotypical population.
The bolded explains why mothers are so off-the-charts defensive when doubt is brought up. They need so desparately to keep their secrets that they may have failed in some way.
Ok, but look at the bandwagon Jenny McCarthy started by believing a DOCTOR and his bogus 'study'. It goes both ways.
And you know what? It's those doctors who do 100+ tests and are raking in the cash who believe so strongly that the masses are afflicted with aspergers. Of course they do, they are making millions off all these diagnoses and people bringing kids in by the truckloads to be tested.
That's why the 'spectrum' has been broadened to the extent it has, so it will take in more kids whose parents want perfect children and think something MUST be wrong since their children aren't perfect.
As far as doing a search, you can search anything and find people who believe the same way you do. It doesn't take an expert or knowledgeable person to start a webpage or post whatever they have on their mind. There are more quacks on the web then there are authorities on any one subject.
And there are those posters on this site who deem themselves professionals when they are not!
what exactly is a "normal" person? because I haven't met one yet! As for Aspenger's? We used too have a cruel name for it as in "retard"! Now we know the difference and it's no longer funny! Anybody who thinks that a child who has devolopmental issues needs their head examined!
I still think "Aspie" is too cute and clubish . . . I don't buy that it is used simply as an abbreviation. A.S. could be used.
Aspie!
How FUN!!!
So I guess you think a Yorkshire Terrier should be called a Y.T.? Aspie is a term of convenience, as you've already been told. It flows better than A.S. even though it's more letters to type.
Are you an Aspie? You do seem to be irritated by minutiae.
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