An Autism Message for Michael Savage From a Fan

To Oppositionists Everywhere Who Speak Without Knowledge

July 21, 2008

Just last week I passed comment to my husband that the radio broadcaster that I enjoy listening to the most is Michael Savage. He's funny. He's outrageously disrespectful. And a lot of the time, he hits core truths and shines a light on them through his outrageousness. He speaks as though he really understand core political issues. He speaks as though he has special knowledge that we may not have been aware of. I was entertained and, I thought, enlightened. Until he attacked a subject that I have been intimately involved in for the last eight years. Autism.

These are Michael Savage's views on autism:

SAVAGE: Now, you want me to tell you my opinion on autism, since I’m not talking about autism? A fraud, a racket. For a long while, we were hearing that every minority child had asthma. Why did they sudden ⎯ why was there an asthma epidemic amongst minority children? Because I’ll tell you why: The children got extra welfare if they were disabled, and they got extra help in school. It was a money racket. Everyone went in and was told [fake cough], “When the nurse looks at you, you go [fake cough], ‘I don’t know, the dust got me.’ ” See, everyone had asthma from the minority community. That was number one.
Now, the illness du jour is autism. You know what autism is? I’ll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That’s what autism is.
What do you mean they scream and they’re silent? They don't have a father around to tell them, “Don’t act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don’t sit there crying and screaming, idiot.”
Autism ⎯ everybody has an illness. If I behaved like a fool, my father called me a fool. And he said to me, “Don’t behave like a fool.” The worst thing he said ⎯ “Don't behave like a fool. Don’t be anybody’s dummy. Don’t sound like an idiot. Don’t act like a girl. Don’t cry.” That’s what I was raised with. That's what you should raise your children with. Stop with the sensitivity training. You’re turning your son into a girl, and you’re turning your nation into a nation of losers and beaten men. That’s why we have the politicians we have.

On his website, Mr. Savage has links to two articles by Thomas Sowell, entitled "Crusades Versus Caution" and "Crusades versus Caution II." I read the first article and was overcome by the propagandistic twisting of the autism situation in this country. I didn't bother with the second. Like all good rhetoric, the first article contained elements of truth--autism can be devastating, crusades can become mindless, advocacy can become swept up in mindless panic, judgement can be rushed on important issues. I have seen some of that in the autism world. I have been "flamed" several years ago when I tried using logic on a webgroup with a parent that insisted that all autism was caused by vaccines, and then couldn't logically separate the two proposed mechanisms of injury--thimerosal v. measles live virus. Or admit that some autism may not be caused by vaccination--my second son was diagnosed before his first vaccine. Rather than respond with logic, she sent death threats.

Yet the extreme views espoused by Mr. Sowell and Mr. Savage are riddled with the very same lack of logic and facts that they accuse the autism crusaders of being possessed by. Here is an example, point by point of their logic breakdowns:

It is unrealistic that 99% of children with autism can be cured by being told to cut the act out. How can that statement come close to being logical when such a large part of the autism diagnosis involves not understanding what people tell you? My son that remains autistic still has severe auditory processing disorder. This means that he cannot understand what you are saying unless he has extra time to process your speech as well as a clear understanding of all the vocabulary you are using. A lot of time he will nod his head as though he understands you to save time. When he realizes that what you said was a directive of something to do, and he didn't do it because he didn't understand you, he will often be very angry with himself. He calls himself stupid or a loser and says he should just die. He overreacts in this irrational way because in addition to having poor understanding of what he is hearing, he also has extremely poor problem solving skills. He doesn't see the easier road--to ask for clarification, break down a task into small steps to make it manageable, in short--to use social and communication skills to make his behavior better and his life easier. He doesn't do these things NOT because I haven't told him to "cut out the act." He doesn't do these things because he doesn't yet have the skills. Simple as that. Do you think his coping skills would improve if I told him "Stop acting like a putz?" Or "Don't be a girl?"
My child, Everett, is not even considered very autistic any more. He is one of the lucky ones. He had state funded 1:1 behavioral based intervention (which, by the way, is a whole SCIENCE worth of "cut it out" broken down into very specific educational pieces that got him where he is today). As a part of this behavior modification, his FATHER and I were trained in advanced behavioral methods. We attended numerous conferences. I took a graduate level course in "don't act like a moron." I had to stop working to implement the full time education it took to parent my son, even with 100% state funding for his 40 hour per week program (thank GOD for New York State). And now we are at a point where my son receives NO special education, NO speech, NO O.T., NO P.T. and we are desperately hoping we can wean him from his classroom aide this year. He still has behavioral issues that need modification due to his documented impairments, yet he is an A-B student entering 5th grade in a regular classroom. Instead of saying, "Stop being a moron. You'll get nowhere in life," his FATHER, a staunch conservative, parents a little better than that. HIS father also believes that his boy needs to learn to be a man. So he spent 30 minutes telling his son tonight that he "Needs to learn to work. Taking care of yourself and your family is the only way to be a man. Be responsible. Pick up your messes. The job is not done until the job is done." It is a near constant refrain. In this manner we get our autistic son to do the dishes, finish his homework and practice his piano. We do not remove his autism. We are training him to be responsible, but it isn't taking his problems away. He is still autistic. He is coping with it. We don't use the word Moron because we are not morons ourselves. Instead, we take our son to have objective, professional standardized assessments so we can understand that there is more behind his behavior problems than an act.
Now to address Mr. Sowell.
The greatest weakness of his article is the way he couches the definitions of autism in such a way as to make you believe that people actually diagnosed may not actually be autistic. Here is an example:
Mr. Sowell writes:
There have already been many casualties in the crusade against autism, and there may be far more if recent recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics are carried out to have every child tested for autism twice by age two.

Think about it: How many people are qualified to diagnose autism? Enough to test every child in America? Not bloody likely.

Of course there are enough people qualified to test every child in America. They are called Pediatricians. They already screen for other developmental problems. If it is possible that each child in America has regular pediatric visits--and even low income children tend to have access to this through Medicaid programs--then as they see the child for well baby visits, they can be expected to screen for autism. Though the "Not Bloody Likely" phrase was nicely melodramatic. Sensational writing. The only problem was the lack of truth behind the statement. I am 100% for early EARLY screening for autism. My third son was screened for autism at 9 months old because of his older brother's autism. If anything, he was MORE autistic, MORE withdrawn, MORE language impaired than his older brother at that age. And yet because we accepted his problems and began therapy right away, he is now COMPLETELY NORMAL. NO services since age four. THAT my friends, would have been "Not Bloody Likely" if he was as old as his brother before being diagnosed (age 2). At nine months old, he was not "putting on an act." We said, "Where's the doggie?" He stared at the wall in a stupor. We smiled and cooed at him. He aggressively avoided looking at our faces. We tried to hug him. He screamed at our touch. We tried to feed him. He refused to eat. I wonder if the "Eat, you moron!" approach would have worked. Hmmmm. Let me think. NOT BLOODY LIKELY!
Mr. Sowell writes further about the potential harm to the child and the child's parents if a child is diagnosed inappropriately with autism, when he or she may just be a late talker. He calls the educational and medical treatments abusive to a child who does not merit a diagnosis. The problem is that he talks as though there are vast numbers of children over-diagnosed, with angry and emotionally abused children and parents as a result. Frankly, I don't see these people. They don't have web groups. They must not exist in a large enough number to have an impact on the autism crusade. I never get emails from them. If Mr. Sowell knows an actual figure of those wrongly diagnosed, state it. Prove it. Talking about a group does not make it exist. If there is such a group, I want numbers. Faces. Names. Something to prove you aren't just pulling this group out of the air as your opinion that they exist. Because so far, your distortion of the truth doesn't give your "say-so" any credence. I don't believe you any easier than I'd believe Hilary Clinton saying she doesn't want to be President of the United States.
Mr. Sowell further disparages the legitimacy by saying that those wrongly diagnosed were diagnosed by a CHECKLIST (with the implication, A CHECKLIST, For God's Sake!). Mr. Sowell wants you to believe that diagnosing a medical condition via a checklist is some kind of crap science. When in fact, there is not a single medical condition recognized to cause autism, with the exception of Fragile X Syndrome. Autism IS BY DEFINITION of the American Psychiatric Association a series of behaviors indicating a mental health condition--not a recognized disease process. You don't catch autism. You exhibit autistic behaviors. And if no one decided to put them in a list, no one could be judged autistic by an objective standard. If a medical professional tells you that your child meets the criteria for autism, you had better get off your butt and get them educated appropriately. What are your chances your child is secretly normal and about to be abused? NOT BLOODY LIKELY!

My Conclusions

In my admiration of Michael Savage, I've been naive. I've assumed that he wasn't strewing his messages with lies, because he so often comments about how he does not lie. I believe he said last week, "I'm the only person who will tell you the truth." If so, then he lies to himself. I have long since come to the conclusions that politicians--both elephants and jackasses, routinely gammon the public with lies. I don't believe anything I'm told anymore if I have not taken the time to become an expert on the subject myself. Fortunately, in the matter of autism, I have done so. And so I have exposed another liar. I may still listen, just for the laughs. But your credibility, Mr. Savage, has been destroyed. If you lie about one thing, you'll lie about another.