I know how they feel.

Ah hae mah doobts!

This comes as no surprise. It took us nearly 4 years to convince the school to make a referral for our daughter (yes a girl with ASD) and another 2 1/2 years after that to get a diagnosis of Asperger's. The system makes every effort to prevent a diagnosis and the school still don't believe it because she is also Gifted and Talented (like her Dad.)

As the father of a 4 year old boy recently diagnosed with ASD, this doesn't fill me with confidence about looking for a suitable education place for him. So far, the support to get diagnosis, at nursery and with the SPECTRUM team has been great, but these children need a lot of support and teacher training along with extra support staff is vital.
We MUST get to the bottom of this 'epidemic' - the MMR link is unproven, so just WHAT is the cr@p in our environment that is screwing up so many lives?

Although getting a diagnosis will be helpful in some respects, such as identifying the causes of the condition, it's unlikely to help with future education.

Politicians are following a "presumption to mainstream education" policy, and have removed the Record of Needs to replace it with a very much diluted document, the Co-ordinated Support Plan. The fate of children who have severe and complex special needs is sealed. Over time, we will see less special needs educational esablishments, and more children being placed in a mainsteam sector that neither understands or supports their needs adequately.

#3.
A paediatrician once said to me that if they were to study genius' and those eccentric university professors they would find a huge amount had Aspergers or could be placed somewhere at the high functioning end of the autistic spectrum.
I'm not sure about the link to MMR. I think it has been around long before vaccination, but that children in the past never got a diagnosis. I worked with 3 people whose children were diagnosed as autistic, two of whom hadn't accepted the MMR vaccination as a result of the firsts experience. One had one child with autism and her other child diagnosed with ADHD with some autistic features. Interestingly, her husband had ADHD as well. The other had no family history of note but both her children were autistic.
I think Prof Baron-Cohen probably has it right when he says believes that 'genetics, better recognition, and environmental factors such as chemicals and exposure to hormones in the womb, especially testosterone, are more likely causes'.

Whatever the reasons behind autism and Aspergers, my heart goes out to the families living with this diagnosis for their children because it is an uphill battle at the moment to get the care and education, plus family support, that these people need, and they are having to fight for themselves every step of the way. My workmates with the autistic children were chronically tired, depressed and anxious, and feared for the future of themselves and their children.

#5

We've been told our daughter will not be getting a CSP or even an IEP :(

An illness affecting one in every 58 children . How on earth can any "Expert " make such an assumtion.
What we are actually seeing is the new face of evolution. All the crap people have been eating has been shown to cause brain damaged kids, couple this with the lack of parental care that kids experience today, many not even knowing their fathers while more and more are being farmed out to baby sitters for the day, only seeing their stressed out parents at night.

Of course the answer is to pump them full of ritalin
or Amphetamine, yes parents you are stuffing your precious little bundles with speed. Do the parents of ritalin takers have any idea of the long term side effects ? they are disastorous.

Lets stop looking for these mysterious new conditions occuring in our kids , its a change in diet and social rearing that is causing the vast majority of the little tasmanian devils we all enjoy sitting next to on the bus.

Billy you are 100% correct, to much c**p being fed to children to much mollycodling to much "cleaning"

no natural stuff anymore the parents are top blame.

#8. Before Billy posted this comment he had spent the evening drinking too much red cola, and eating Skittles by the fistful, a lifelong habit he learned from his mother, after his father left her when she was pregnant with young Billy.

The National Autistic Society Scotland runs an Advocacy for Education Line to help parents get the right education for their child. You can access the service by calling 0845 070 4002 and selecting option 3.

I wonder, was Carol Stott one of the Cambridge Six disavowed by their head of department?

I blame the teachers.

This article is misleading and damaging. The study in question was examining how different methods of diagnosing autism can affect the results. One method showed 1 in 58 kids had autism but the other 2 methods showed a much lower figure. Also the 2 team members who apparently suggested a link to MMR have since rubbished this, with one of the women stressing that her own daughter will be vaccinated with MMR on July 17th.
See attached:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007...
I prefer to take medical advice from health professionals rather than the media! My own daughter will be vaccinated with MMR next week.

It does seem to be one of the new growth industries.

#15
It would only be a growth industry if someone was out there offering a service to the parents of children with autism.

Suzi@16: exactly - also services to lawyers of parents of children with autism....