re: Mother arrested after daughter, 19, with autism found ‘mummified’ on bedroom floor

I could have done without reading this. a-hole.

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We really need to determine the underlying cause of autism (not to derail the thread), but the rate at which it has increased over time is insane, and I don’t attribute that simply to changes in our definitions or diagnostic testing.

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I’ve done zero scientific analysis on this but the rise in autism has coincided quite neatly with humans use of computers. I think there has to be some correlation there. How much time we spend using computers is changing our brains.

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No idea where to go if he doesn't improve and gets bigger. The options are literally drop them off at the ED like it is said here and let the state deal with it... but you can't see them again or have big money to do a home with 24 hour care and check out privileges for the parents. We aren't poor, we both make livable incomes, but you need to be rich to afford these places. Ah, and the making decent money thing, we make too much to get any help and not enough to afford help. It's fricked up.

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I feel for you, I really do.

There are no good options available, especially as they grow older and become adults in size.

I have seen mothers with bruises and broken bones. How is a mother supposed to stop an aggressive 18 year old who cannot be reasoned with?

It isn’t possible.

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We have a non verbal autistic child. Right now he is mostly manageable, however, if he were the size of my oldest son there is no way we could manage him safely. As of now we don't do vacations, we don't do much away from home, there is NOBODY that will watch him. He has been kicked out of programs designed for autistic and disabled children because he is too much for them to watch... well WTF, you think we have some special training or super powers?

No idea where to go if he doesn't improve and gets bigger. The options are literally drop them off at the ED like it is said here and let the state deal with it... but you can't see them again or have big money to do a home with 24 hour care and check out privileges for the parents. We aren't poor, we both make livable incomes, but you need to be rich to afford these places. Ah, and the making decent money thing, we make too much to get any help and not enough to afford help. It's fricked up.

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You're not alone. Same boat. And even if you could handle him you're not going to outlive him. Then what? Again, you're not alone.

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This is, in fact, a huge problem. The libs wanted to get rid of mental institutions as being inhumane and so we did. Don’t get me wrong, some of those places were awful. But there’s a happy medium. Now, we have parents and other adults trying to take care of mentally impaired relatives without the means or ability because there’s just no other real alternative.

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"Libs" did not want to get rid of mental institutions. They wanted mental institutes to be accountable for their abuse of the mentally ill and wanted the mentally ill to be treated humanely. This was, in the 1950s - 1970s, very mainstream thinking. It is a revisionist's history to suggest "libs" wanted them closed. It is not revisionist to state unequivocally that conservatives picked up the mainstream idea that something needed to be done about the abuses prevalent in mental institutes and their solution was to cut funding which did indeed wind up closing most mental institutes for the poor in the US. Ronald Reagan was largely responsible although access had been declining since the 1950s because mainstream Americans did not think it very becoming to have the mentally ill abused and mis treated the way they were. Americans wanted humane treatment for their fellow citizens, conservatives saw a chance to cut some funding. It really is that simple.

public. hanging.

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I’ve done zero scientific analysis on this but the rise in autism has coincided quite neatly with humans use of computers. I think there has to be some correlation there. How much time we spend using computers is changing our brains.

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Had to scroll up to see if this were an el gaucho post.

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Had to scroll up to see if this were an el gaucho post.

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It is as good a theory as any.

Children, especially infants, are watching increasingly more television and using more tech than previous generations.