Magical thinking

I was reading this study, and it went a long way to explain the Jenny McCarthy branch of autism parenting. Basically the theory is that the more out of control your life is, the more likely you are to see patterns when none are there and believe irrational things.

Our brain doesn't like situations that leave us out of control, so we're more likely to jump to conclusions without evidence and engage in ineffective rituals to create order where none exists. When your child is diagnosed with an incurable condition, and this is the sort of thing you see? Oh yeah, you need some magic.

I remember seeing that video before Mr K got his diagnosis, and it scared the bejeezus out of me. I remember thinking how glad I was that all he had was a little speech delay. Um, oops. While there's a lot of truth in the emotions and the feelings those mothers have, I don't think it's the whole story. I still have hope that at the end of this parenting thing, I'll have an adult who manages to make his own way in the world.

At any rate, I've tried my best to substantiate any suggestions before I go off and try some crazy Jenny McCarthy "cure." It's not that I don't think she believes she cured him, it's just that there seems to be a simpler explanation to what he had in the first place.

Woo hoo! There was no mention of the dreaded McCarthy, so I did not have to demonstrate my crazy rapid exiting skills. There were snacks of wheat and dairy and parents talking about whipping the school district into shape. Life was good.

Why I Hate Jenny

Tomorrow there's a meeting for the local autism society. I'd like to attend. I hope that they're not all Jenny McCarthy heads, because that would just piss me off. Not that there's anything wrong with hoping you'll find that magical solution. I hope for it, too. I'm just not going to follow after the whackish advice of someone who just a couple years ago was an "indigo mom" with a crystal child.

Jenny McCarthy claims she's cured"recovered" her son and that people now tell her he was misdiagnosed. Uh huh. Which people? Who's verified this cure? There are plenty of people who gain enough skills back to no longer be considered eligible for services, and not all of them think it was a condition caused by vaccination.

She claims that she tried anti-fungals, gluten-free casein free diet, vitamins, and "metal detox." And then she went on to give him ABA (applied behavioral analysis) and speech therapy. Of all of those things, guess what? ABA and speech therapy are the only ones that are known to work. And being the rich chick that she is, I bet she could afford the 25 hours per week of year round intensive therapy that has been shown to make a huge difference.

But if you believe her, it was the first step - the filling her kid with chemicals to remove the imaginary chemicals and bugs step - that did all the work, and the ABA and speech therapy were only effective because of it. Uh huh.

I feel like this is exactly the sort of thing that prevents us from having useful dialog about things that just might work. The developmental pediatrician who examined K said that a lot of kids with autism also had GI issues and that some of them did see improvement with gluten free/casein free diets. She figured it was hard to behave if your stomach hurt all the time and you couldn't articulate it.

I'm sure that some kids with autism really do have particular vitamin deficiencies, particularly if they have a GI issue. But that doesn't mean that everyone should megadose. At best it's ineffective. At worst, dangerous.

Yes. There are kids who have reactions to vaccines. But getting paranoid about it leads to more kids getting diseases and dying from those complications. And getting vocal about it makes the CDC have to get more vocal in the opposite direction. I'm sure the CDC does know that some kids react poorly to shots, such as kids with chicken/egg allergies. Let them do their job and find those high risk groups instead of whipping the public into a frenzy.

And also - could we stop spending so much time arguing about causes and get to the funding of therapy? I'd like my son to have his 25 hours per week, year round early intervention, thanks.