{"id":1446,"date":"2006-06-05T09:59:49","date_gmt":"2006-06-05T09:59:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/06\/on-killing-autistic-children.html"},"modified":"2006-06-05T09:59:49","modified_gmt":"2006-06-05T09:59:49","slug":"on-killing-autistic-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/06\/on-killing-autistic-children.html","title":{"rendered":"On Killing Autistic Children"},"content":{"rendered":"

A NYTImes Op-ed<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

According to her friend, Dr. McCarron was in despair in recent weeks because Katherine’s language had regressed markedly. Every parent of a child on the autism spectrum knows this feeling: I’ve done everything possible; why isn’t he better? The answer is simple: Because this is the way autism works. There are roadblocks in the brain, mysterious and unmovable. In mythologizing recovery, I fear we’ve set an impossibly high bar that’s left the parents of a half-million autistic children feeling like failures.<\/p>\n

I don’t mean to sound pessimistic about the prospects for autistic children. On the contrary, I see greater optimism in delivering a more realistic message to families: Children are not cured, but they do get better. <\/p>\n

And better can be remarkable. At 10, my son is a far cry from the toddler who melted down when the sand was the wrong texture for drizzling. These days he embraces adventure, rides his bike, and repeats any story he tells five or six times. I remember thinking maybe we’d laugh someday at the lengths we went to when we were teaching him language \u2014 the flashcards, the drills, the repetitions. Now he’s 10 and talking at last in his own quirky ways, and we don’t laugh about the drills (though we laugh about plenty of other things). Language is a victory. So is connection and purposeful play. So are the simpler things: a full night’s sleep, a tantrum-free day.<\/p>\n

Parents working toward these goals will one day be surprised and delighted by their children’s funny new obsessions, odd fixations, and tentative but extraordinary connections with other children. Being more realistic from the start might make it possible to enjoy the journey and to see it for what it is: helping a child who will always function differently to communicate better and feel less frustrated. To aim for full recovery \u2014 for the person your child might have been without autism \u2014 is to enter a dangerous emotional landscape. For three children, the disconnect between parental determination and limited progress may have been lethal.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Steve Drake of Not Dead Yet, who passed this along, remarks:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

Note – this op-ed is a step in the right direction, given that the author
doesn’t give nearly enough "credit" to specific organizations for their
nightmarish portrayal of autism.  She also glosses over the fact that
Karen McCarron spent only two weeks as the primary caregiver of
her autistic daughter – after months of separation – before allegedly
killing her.  But it is a step in the right direction.  –Steve<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A NYTImes Op-ed According to her friend, Dr. McCarron was in despair in recent weeks because Katherine’s language had regressed markedly. Every parent of a child on the autism spectrum knows this feeling: I’ve done everything possible; why isn’t he better? The answer is simple: Because this is the way autism works. There are roadblocks…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nOn Killing Autistic Children - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/06\/on-killing-autistic-children.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"On Killing Autistic Children - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A NYTImes Op-ed According to her friend, Dr. McCarron was in despair in recent weeks because Katherine’s language had regressed markedly. Every parent of a child on the autism spectrum knows this feeling: I’ve done everything possible; why isn’t he better? The answer is simple: Because this is the way autism works. There are roadblocks…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/06\/on-killing-autistic-children.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-06-05T09:59:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"On Killing Autistic Children - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/06\/on-killing-autistic-children.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"On Killing Autistic Children - Via Media","og_description":"A NYTImes Op-ed According to her friend, Dr. McCarron was in despair in recent weeks because Katherine’s language had regressed markedly. Every parent of a child on the autism spectrum knows this feeling: I’ve done everything possible; why isn’t he better? The answer is simple: Because this is the way autism works. There are roadblocks…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/06\/on-killing-autistic-children.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2006-06-05T09:59:49+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/06\/on-killing-autistic-children.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/06\/on-killing-autistic-children.html","name":"On Killing Autistic Children - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-06-05T09:59:49+00:00","dateModified":"2006-06-05T09:59:49+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/06\/on-killing-autistic-children.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/06\/on-killing-autistic-children.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/06\/on-killing-autistic-children.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"On Killing Autistic Children"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}