Thanks for both the video recommendation and the link to the article. I will see if the library has the video.

I found the article very interesting and it really sums up a lot of the "battles" in the autism community.

yeah, i'm really trying to understand these battles and found the article to be probably the most concise yet. sometimes it's hard for me to understand why people get so angry, not just about this, but a lot of things. i think i've just been encountering a lot of angry people lately.

That is very, very common. On one side I hear from autistic adults who have horror stories about therapies and cure attempts and then on the other sides autistic adults who wish that their parents did more.

Then from the parental standpoint, children who could be considered recovered and others who make very little progress regardless of the amount of intervention.

What I've determined is that autism is different in every single person on the spectrum. Sure some things might be similar but it never presents 100% the same.

My daughter, who was one word echolalic at three, head banged, stimmed all day, wouldn't notice if people came and left, covered her ears in fright and lined up toys obsessively will now greet you with a smile, say "hi my name is ava, I'm four", want to play with you and will talk your leg off. All of this in 18 months. We just did your standard speech and occupational therapy plus an integrated developmental preschool and family involvement (my sister worked with her one-on-one for 40 hours/month for about a year).

I agree with you Melissa on this article..thanks Dedra for passing it along and the video.

I am on the learning curve here too...my head is about to explode form all the info, debates, and which is right/wrong ectera.

I know one thing for me, when I get caught up in all of this, is that AP reminds me everday what my job is with my son as his Mother; Dr. Sears says "all the special needs child needs is a good dose of AP...."

and so do we all! i never experienced AP as a child. i am so glad to get it from my friends here!

aww..where is the group hug smilie?

If all goes as planned, we'll have more smilies this week!

great! i need a barfing one, a hugs one, a tomato flying one, and a ROTFLOL one! he, he!

and OH! a PEACE smiley!!!

you know i'm totally kidding you, don't you melissa?

LOL - We had a lovely member volunteer to go through and give me links to a bunch of smileys saving me oodles of work. I'm not sure what all is on there but it is a big list!