Same Child Different Day: Voted one of the best autism blogs in the industry!

What an Honor and a Surprise.  I opened my email today to find that Same Child, Different Day has been voted by BlogNation.com & Autismblogs.org as one of the best autism blogs on the 'Net!

What an honor.  We even got a cool badge thingy!

Autism and Medical Marijuana

In my last post, I talked about how we worry our autistic son won't be potty trained before Kindergarten. Matter of fact, I've suggested in another post that there are lots of things we worry about with our kids living with autism; behavior, speech, stimming in public, muscle tone --- they are each things we and they struggle with daily. As parents, we'll go to practically any length to support our kids.

You can believe in cures or not, or you can subscribe to the thought that they simply are who they are. When we say we are willing to advocate for our kids, what do we really mean?

Well, a Rhode Island mom has chosen to go to what others might consider extreme lengths to manage her child's condition. Marie Myung-Ok Lee has helped her son to become the youngest recipient of a medical marijuana license. She first purchased THC-infused olive oil to make cookies for her son, in an effort to stave off his biting and pervasive violent behavior.

Myung-Ok Lee swears this is helping her son and that this is just the intervention he needed.

What is your take on this mother and her radical approach? Is this curing or simply sedating?To what extreme lengths would you go, have you gone or are you considering?

Please share your thoughts and feelings.

~Jon

Florida "Teacher" Suspended for Autism Vote Reinstated

OMG! What are they thinking? Recently Wendy Portillo, a kindergarten teacher from Port St. Lucie, Florida, decided to put to a vote from her students, whether or not an autistic child should be allowed to stay in the classroom. The kids voted 14-2 against the child, and the teacher was later suspended from the classroom.

Good first step, right? Yeah, well...

...seems the school board has decided to REINSTATE this dummy and relocate her to sixth grade. Yeah, that'll help.

This stupidhead is still being allowed to teach because she has tenure, and doesn't see the error of her ways. And the school board was freaking unanimous in their decision to let her back on board. Can you believe it?

So, you have a six year old kid in your class who is disruptive of the other kids, and you ask them to vote on whether or not the child should be allowed to stay in. No parental involvement. You don't ask the school clinician. The principal isn't brought on board. You just arbitrarily ask your students to make the decision. I'm sorry but, who is this moron?

If the kid was a distraction because of his clothing, or wheelchair, or burn scars, or speech impediment, or --- God forbid --- skin color, would this teacher have committed the same moronic decision? Hard to say, since it happened once with this child. But I guess worse than her choice was the choice of the school board to --- again I say --- unanimously decide that, sure, she's a great teacher and should be allowed to traipse back into a classroom and be allowed to wield her judgemental opinions on any child that happens through the door.

All this after a judge upheld her loss of tenure! Woe unto any child who doesn't fit this anus' mold (if you can't tell, she's pissed me off). And "teacher"? What is it that she teaches her students? Intolerance? Judgement? Discrimination? Stupidity? The voting process?

Please link this story, post about it, make it known, Tweet and Retweet it...Email (you can get a list of departments by clicking here) or phone the Port St. Lucie school board (772-340-7100 by the way).

Please sound off...let me know what you think! And I'll link your stories back here if you post them, k?

Thanks for indulging me.

~Jon

Autism: Discontinued State Insurance Coverage, continued

I completed the article I mentioned here. It's been submitted to the newspaper serving our state capitol, and I'll let you know if/when they run it. While I manage the progress, I'll be vacant from this blog, but I will post a link to it on "Same Child, Different Day" in the end. If for some reason the deal falls through, I'll try again somewhere else and repeatedly; I will let you know the outcome. At the very least, I will post the article on the "Same Child, Different Day" blog, and my Old Stand-by, Associated Content.

I'll keep you posted.

~Jon

Autism: Discontinued State Insurance Coverage

I had another post planned, but it will have to wait. I'll be taking a hiatus for a couple weeks as I'm currently working on another writing project.

It would seem that today our State medicaid office has decided that Nolan has received all the speech therapies he needs for 2009. Because we have private insurance through my work as well, they feel they have been providing him more services than he's entitled to.

In order to make things fair for him and all the rest of the recipients of speech services (regardless of need or cause), one Medicaid representative (I'll keep her name to myself for the time being) has made the unilateral decision to yank our son's services away from him. These are services he has been getting for two years now, and because the therapies have been "prolonged" in their words (and because we parents have been thoroughly trained in the therapy process), we can now stop being parents and take over as his therapists, utilizing the school-trained therapists (who get paid to do this) for guidance.

Some soulless, anonymous asshat in a, barren, similarly soulless office has decided that all children who receive therapy services need the same amount and quality of services, and once a limit has been reached, said services are withdrawn by the bureaucracy. I'm all about saving money. But just because my health insurer is providing a degree of coverage, should Medicaid stop covering the remainder because it's not fair to everyone else?

Apparently so.

Anyhow, I could go on here forever, but I have an article to write. It's one of the things I'm good at. Oh, I'll remain objective and fair, and I will keep much of my emotion in check (just to make it a balanced report). But I have to take a little time away from SCDD.

Just because I'm taking leave for a couple weeks or so, doesn't mean you should stop commenting. I need your feedback and input. Please. Keep commenting and I'll keep checking; I just won't be posting for a bit. So here I go, off to the paper-and-ink pages.

Ugh.

~Jon

Dealing with Autism in Public: An Open Letter to "That Mom"

A reprint of an article I published on the user-produced site Associated Content

"The other day that mom with the little boy who was making so much commotion in the fast food restaurant noticed you staring at her. He was a handful, wasn't he? His screaming was incessant and the way he was challenging his mother: unacceptable. It's understandable that you would never allow your own child to holler at you like that, or bounce between the booths. You found yourself wondering what would possess her to bring an unruly child like that out into public in the first place.

As your respectful children stood beside you in silence, you wondered when he would just be quiet. And you wondered what kind of mother she must be. If you only knew what that mom wonders.

She wonders what she can do to get him to stop screaming. Sometimes it lasts all day, and lately, it's been almost every day. Then, while you put your kids back in the car, she wonders if he'll keep his seat belt on for the entire ride. You will get them home and they'll head right upstairs to play together nicely. She wonders if he'll decide it's time to begin switching the lights on and off repeatedly, or throw to everything that's on the desk onto the floor.

When your kids fall down, you can ask them where it hurts and they can tell you. It hurts the other mom that all she can do is hold her little boy and wonder when he'll stop crying. Later, while you wonder what story you will read to your child tonight, the mom you know nothing about will once again cry herself to sleep in her husband's arms.

You wonder later why God would give any child to "that kind" of parent, yet she's thankful that God chose her. You judge the stranger based on that one incident, while she wonders why you didn't just ask if you could help. She probably wouldn't have taken it, but she would have appreciated the gesture.

Your four-year-old has mastered the art of conversation. She finds it triumphant that her son mumbles, "go school" and "want eat." You already wonder what your child's high school prom will be like. Meanwhile the other mom wonders when her four-year-old will potty train. You wonder who your little one will marry some day, while the mom with the rambunctious son worries that he may not graduate from high school. You plan to send your child to the best university, and the lady that you never met wonders if she'll have to care for hers as an adult.

While she's not jealous that your kids obey, talk and dream, she does wonder what it would be like to be able to call her son "normal." He is who he is. There's no altering that, and his mother wouldn't change him for the world. But feeling your eyes burn through her melts her soul. She does the best he can, and wonders why you judge them both. She doesn't ask for your sympathy, just your understanding.

Her family puts a lot of time and effort into helping him become the best somebody he can be. You don't see it, but that's all right, because his mom sees it every day. She sees the victories as well as the defeats. You cast your judgment based on the one day you saw the unruly child in public. No one faults you for that, because the other mom used to do the same thing, back before her son's diagnosis. All the mom asks of you today is compassion and consideration.

Tonight, when you tuck your kids into bed, be thankful for the children you have and for who they are. Understand that, while you are getting butterfly kisses from your little angel, there are parents wondering when theirs will be able to say the words, 'I love you.'"

~Jon

Denis Leary's Autism Comments

I'm taking a little diversion from talking about the booklet so I can share with you a concern. There's been a little gap since my last post because I've been working on an article for Associated Content, and the subject matter may interest you.

Apparently, Denis Leary of Rescue Me, and the voice of the saber-tooth tiger Diego in the Ice Age movies, has released a new book (Why We Suck: A Feel-Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid), and it's causing some stir. Most specifically, Chapter 6 entitled "Autism Schmautism" has raised the ire of the autism community, and autism advocates like Jenny McCarthy and Holly Robinson Peete.

Since the October, 2008 release of quotes from his book, Leary has said the quotes were taken out of context but has apologized. Sort of. I won't get into the commentary here, but you can read my article over at Associated Content.

There. I feel better now.

~Jon