Regarding: “Autism’s Road to Recovery”

Here’s an article from the Chicago Tribune that gives a brief synopsis of the Autism/Cure debate. Up until few months ago, I didn’t even realize this was a debate. My honest assumption was that a cure meant: “alleviate some of the physical symptoms and suffering”. I never thought about “re-wiring” the brain. I didn’t realize that the sensory issues/physical symptoms and the wiring of the brain aren’t mutually exclusive to some.

I know that diet changes and supplements did alleviate the physical symptoms in our case. Our kid was still the same kid, just less angry and sad- and in the case of gluten, way more verbal. I did often ask myself, could it be considered Autism if the cause of all of these sensory issues and motor planning issues is food allergies?

In the meantime, perhaps the key to “recovery” lies with some of the very people who oppose it: the high-functioning Aspergerians, who can communicate the way their brains work.

I know that in my case this is completely true. I have learned so much from the personal blogs that I’ve been reading these past few months. I am grateful for the ones I’ve had the blessing to come across. Reading those blogs has opened my eyes to the hysteria surrounding autism that, while it didn’t consume me, did shake my confidence every now and then. Those blogs also opened my eyes to alternative communication devices. For a while there I was so concerned with my child’s speech that to me more talking = more knowledge gained. I’m glad that my eyes were opened to that faulty logic.

Or ask Cellini’s son, Jonathan, who was once diagnosed with autism but now is a mainstreamed 3rd grader. He was once non-verbal, but he recently told his mother he always thought he was talking.

“I just couldn’t understand why you guys couldn’t hear me,” he told her.

I found this so amusing, I had to call my husband at work to tell him about it. I wonder what things Tremendo has interpreted like this and I wonder in what ways he’ll tell me about them.