Due Process: Grim Odds in Maryland

In The Politics of Autism, I write about litigation under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. School districts prevail in most due-process hearings.  Here are some reasons:

School districts have built-in expert witnesses in the form of teachers and staff.  They also have full access to all relevant information about a proposed placement, and often deny parents access to those programs in advance of hearings. When parents’ experts can observe children in class, districts can limit their observations.   More important, parents have to foot the bill for their experts because of a 2006 Supreme Court decision that IDEA does not authorize reimbursement of witness fees. “While authorizing the award of reasonable attorney's fees, the Act contains detailed provisions that are designed to ensure that such awards are indeed reasonable,” Justice Alito wrote for the majority. “The absence of any comparable provisions relating to expert fees strongly suggests that recovery of expert fees is not authorized.” It goes without saying that this decision disadvantages all parents, and especially those with modest incomes. 

Talia Richman at The Baltimore Sun:

It’s rare for the parents of students with disabilities to prevail in legal battles against Maryland school districts. In the past five years, they’ve lost more than 85 percent of the time, state education department documents show, even after investing tens of thousands of dollars and countless hours in pursuit of a better education for their children.

 ...
Other states avoid such asymmetrical rates. [NOT CALIFORNIA, THOUGH. -- ed.]A study examining due process hearings in Texas found districts prevailed in roughly 72 percent of cases from 2011 to 2015. A similar assessment in Massachusetts found school districts won in a little more than half of the due process hearings over eight years.   

... 

Some researchers believe districts prevail much more often because they have far greater legal and financial resources than a family does. Another explanation special education experts offer is the districts will attempt to resolve cases that are less likely to be won and go to a hearing only if they are supremely confident in their chances. Others believe judges give deference to the judgment of district officials.

“It’s always been a David and Goliath issue,” said special education attorney Selene Almazan.

Project HEAL produced a report analyzing each of the 105 due process hearings from fiscal year 2014 to the second quarter of fiscal year 2019, most of which were initiated by the parents.

Judges sided with school districts in all but 14 cases. No parents won if they represented themselves.


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Rally Speaker Blames Disease on "lllegals"

In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism.   This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing disease to spread.

Gwynne Hogan at Gothamist:

Hundreds of Orthodox Jewish families gathered in a catering hall Monday night in the Rockland County hamlet of Monsey, where they heard anti-vaccine crusaders claim that inoculations are the real health risk, and that measles can help produce growth spurts and prevent everything from cancer to heart disease.
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Just one of the event’s five speakers, who were introduced as “distinguished personalities” and the “cream of humanity’s crop,” was from the Orthodox community. Rabbi Hillel Handler, who has likened vaccination to “child sacrifice” in the past, told the crowd that according to “medical research,” if you catch “measles, mumps and chickenpox, your chances of getting cancer, heart disease, and strokes goes down 60 percent.”

He also said that Hasidim were being scapegoated by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who he called “a very, very sneaky fellow” and a German.

“The Jews are our misfortune,” he said, bringing up how Jews were stigmatized in Nazi Germany. “We Hasidim have been chosen as the target in order to distract from the virulent diseases that are sweeping through the city from illegals.”

...
The final speakers were two of the biggest names on the anti-vaccination circuit. Andrew Wakefield, the author of the fraudulent 1998 paper published then retracted in the Lancet that claimed there was a link between the Measles Mumps Rubella vaccine and autism by looking at 12 autistic children, spoke to the crowd via videoconference.

“I want to reassure you, I have never been involved in scientific fraud,” he said.

“What happened to me is what happens to doctors who threaten the bottom line of the pharmaceutical companies and who threaten government policy in the interest of their patients and that is what happened.”

Where could Rabbi Handler have gotten the idea that migrants bring disease?

....however, for strictly political reasons and because they have been pulled so far left, do NOT want Border Security. They want Open Borders for anyone to come in. This brings large scale crime and disease. Our Southern Border is now Secure and will remain that way.......

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 11, 2018

General Anesthesia During C-Sections

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss various ideas about what causes the condition. Here is just a partial list of correlates, risk factors, and possible causes that have been the subject of serious studies:

• Pesticides;
• Air pollution and proximity to freeways;
• Maternal thyroid issues;
• Autoimmune disorders;
• Induced labor;
• Preterm birth;
• Fever  
• Birth by cesarean section;
• Maternal and paternal obesity;
• Maternal diabetes;
• Maternal and paternal age;
• Maternal post-traumatic stress disorder;
• Smoking during pregnancy;
• Antidepressant use during pregnancy;
• Polycystic ovary syndrome.
• Infant opioid withdrawal
• Zinc deficiency

Maayan Huberman Samuel and colleagues have an article in The Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders titled: "Exposure to General Anesthesia May Contribute to the Association between Cesarean Delivery and Autism Spectrum Disorder." The abstract:

Cesarean section (CS) has been consistently associated with susceptibility to autism spectrum disorder (ASD), however, the underlying mechanism for this association remains vague. Here, we studied various pre-peri-and-neonatal factors among 347 children with ASD, 117 children with other developmental delays (DD), and 2226 age, sex and ethnicity matched controls. We found that CS is significantly associated with an increased risk of ASD but not DD (p = 0.019 and p = 0.540 respectively). Furthermore, we show that only CS performed with general anesthesia (GA) elevated the risk of ASD with no significant difference between indicated and non-indicated surgeries (aOR = 1.537; 95% CI 1.026–2.302, and aOR = 1.692; 95% CI 1.057–2.709, pdiff = 0.865). We therefore suggest that exposure to GA during CS may explain the association between CS and ASD.

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In The Politics of Autism, I look at the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism.  One result of this corrosive myth is the recent upsurge of measles outbreaks.

From CDC:

From January 1 to May 10, 2019, 839** individual cases of measles have been confirmed in 23 states. This is an increase of 75 cases from the previous week. This is the greatest number of cases reported in the U.S. since 1994 and since measles was declared eliminated in 2000.

The states that have reported cases to CDC are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Tennessee, and Washington.

*Cases as of December 29, 2018. Case count is preliminary and subject to change.
**Cases as of May 10, 2019. Case count is preliminary and subject to change. Data are updated every Monday.

Eight in Ten New Jerseyans Know Someone with an ASD Diagnosis

In The Politics of Autism, I write:

The number of people with a stake in the issue is going to mount. I am not saying that there will be a true increase in the prevalence of autism. As we saw in chapter 3, it is unclear how much of the apparent change involves awareness and diagnostic standards. Even if there has been a true increase in recent decades, there is no way of knowing whether it will go on. But the rise in the number of autism diagnoses and educational determinations will translate into a growing population of people who have lived with the autism label, and who think of themselves as autistic. Most in this category will have family members and other people who are close to them. They may be guardians or caregivers, or they may just be friends and relatives with a deep concern. Either way, autism will be part of their lives, too. Overall, the share of Americans who know someone with autism will surely top the 39 percent recorded in 2008. One study found that 60 percent of respondents in Northern Ireland knew someone with autism in their own family, circle of friends or co-workers. There is no reason to think that the figure would be lower in the United States.

A release from Rutgers (h/t Alan Greenblatt)

Eight in ten New Jerseyans say that they know someone who has been diagnosed with Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), according to the latest Rutgers-Eagleton Poll, which was conducted in collaboration with the New Jersey Autism Center of Excellence at Rutgers University.

Sixty-eight percent know an ASD-diagnosed child outside of their family, 48 percent know an ASD-diagnosed adult outside of their family, 31 percent have a child family member with ASD, and 18 percent have an adult family member.

Yet, despite these connections, few interact regularly with individuals who have Autism: about a quarter interact with an individual with Autism weekly, one in five have monthly interactions, three in ten have less frequent interactions, and a quarter have no interactions at all.

Six in ten New Jerseyans (62 percent) have seen or heard ASD referred to as a behavioral problem. A similar number (55 percent) think that a child with Autism does not have the ability to control his or her behavior.

Just over half have seen or heard ASD referred to as a brain disorder (54 percent) or mental illness (52 percent). Fewer have heard Autism referred to as a nervous system disorder (39 percent). When it comes to treatment, two-thirds of residents (67 percent) think that ASD is best treated with a combination of both medication and behavioral therapy.

“The American Psychiatric Association has already included sensory issues in the DSM-5 as part of the criteria for diagnosing Autism, yet the public still perceives Autism as a behavioral problem or mental illness more than they do a disorder of the nervous system,” said Elizabeth Torres, associate professor of Psychology and director of the New Jersey Autism Center of Excellence at Rutgers University. “This misperception of what Autism is and is not is especially detrimental to treating it in schools. Without neurologists on hand, teachers and aides may not know how to cope with the somatic and sensory-motor issues that we have measured in research settings.”

More than eight in 10 support the federal government providing financial assistance for individuals with Autism and their families.

Results are from a statewide poll of 1,008 adults contacted by live callers on landlines and cell phones from March 29 through April 9, 2019. The sample has a margin of error of +/-3.5 percentage points. Interviews were done in English and, when requested, Spanish.

Autistic Adults

In The Politics of Autism, I write that many analyses of autism speak as if it were only a childhood ailment and assume that parents are the main stakeholders. But most children with autism grow up to be adults with autism.

At USA Today, Larry Strauss writes about his mother, the actress Charlotte Rae:

My older brother suffered from a severe developmental disability and mental illness. He did not speak until he was 6. Was not toilet trained until after that. This was the 1950s and early '60s, and there was little support for parents with children stricken with autism, schizophrenia and epilepsy. My aunt and uncle urged my parents to institutionalize Andy. A child like that could destroy their marriage and our family.

I wasn’t with my parents when they disdained those warnings, but I watched them calm Andy when he would freak out at the sound of screeching subway wheels or a dog on the street or pigeons at the park or the approach of garbage trucks, which he seemed afraid would swallow him. I watched them indulge his interests in order to draw him out. I watched him watching records spin round and round on the phonograph and I saw him take an LP with him into his bed and sleep next to it. I watched him take pictures with an Instamatic camera, snapping through 24 exposures in a few seconds, and I went with my mother to the drug store where she had them all developed and printed as if the random images might unlock something in Andy’s mind.

In the short-lived 1975 comedy The Hot L Baltimore, she played the eccentric mother of a never-seen son with a developmental disability.

Cos Michael has an article at Autism titled "Why We Need Research about Autism and Ageing."

Research into any lifelong condition usually follows the lifespan of individuals with that condition as a way of understanding its trajectory and to provide a point of reference against which the success of interventions can be marked. Yet, with only a few exceptions, autism research has generally excluded autistic people over the age of 40 years (Howlin and Moss, 2012; Povey et al., 2011). We know virtually nothing about what happens to us, autistic people, physically, cognitively, emotionally and socially as we pass through middle and older age.

There is so much to learn. What is the long-term outcome of autism interventions such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) or behavioural interventions? Understanding of the experience of older generations has the potential to affect the support offered to younger people.

What we do know is that there is a much greater risk of premature mortality in autism (Heslop et al., 2013; Hirvikoski et al., 2016); on average, autistic people with additional intellectual disability die 30 years before non-autistic people (Heslop et al., 2013) – with epilepsy identified as the biggest cause of premature death in this group – and those autistic people without an intellectual disability die 12 years earlier than typical adults. We do not know why the risk of premature mortality is so high. Without research into its potential precursors, professionals lack the tools to combat this high death rate. Why invest resources in researching autism interventions in earlier years and then ignore their long-term outcomes or monitor the trajectory of autistic lives to their conclusion?

Education Department Will Appeal on Equity in IDEA Rule

In The Politics of Autism, I write about special education and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

The US Department of Education will appeal a judge's decision concerning minority students in special education. Christina Samuels reports at Education Week:

Under Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the department has moved to put off the Equity in IDEA rule by two years for further study, saying it might prompt special education quotas.

But U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan's decision March 7 vacated the Education Department's delaying action. She ruled that the delay is a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how federal agencies propose and implement regulations.

Since that decision, there had been little word from the department—other than the notice of appeal, dated May 6—about what it planned to do in the wake of the judge's ruling. DeVos has been asked about the decision by lawmakers and recently said the department was "moving towards implementation."

In response to the U.S. Department of Education’s decision to file a notice of appeal of the March 7, 2019 judicial decision in COPAA v. DeVos, theCouncil of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA) issued the following statement:

“COPAA is aware the U.S. Department of Education has filed a notice of appeal in COPAA v. DeVos. We hope this is a procedural measure; COPAA is in the process of learning more. Of course, states are still required to carry out the Equity in IDEA regulations regardless of the legal proceedings and we urge them to come into compliance as required by law. Ideally, the Department will avail themselves to states and provide the technical assistance and support states need as they move forward to help districts with this important undertaking.”

Vaccines and Kennedys

In The Politics of Autism, I look at the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism.  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has helped spread this dangerous falsehood.

Former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, former Repesentative Joseph P. Kennedy II, and Maeve Kennedy McKean at Politico:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—Joe and Kathleen’s brother and Maeve’s uncle—is part of this campaign to attack the institutions committed to reducing the tragedy of preventable infectious diseases. He has helped to spread dangerous misinformation over social media and is complicit in sowing distrust of the science behind vaccines.
...
No matter what you might have read on social media, there is no scientific basis to allegations that vaccines against HPV pose a serious health threat. And numerous studies from many countries by many researchers have concluded that there is no link between autism and vaccines.

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President Kennedy signed the Vaccination Assistance Act in 1962 to, in the words of a CDC report, “achieve as quickly as possible the protection of the population, especially of all preschool children ... through intensive immunization activity.” In a message to Congress that year, Kennedy said: “There is no longer any reason why American children should suffer from polio, diphtheria, whooping cough, or tetanus … I am asking the American people to join in a nationwide vaccination program to stamp out these four diseases.”

...
Those who delay or refuse vaccinations, or encourage others to do so, put themselves and others, especially children, at risk. It is in all our interests to make sure that immunizations reach every child on the globe through safe, effective and affordable vaccines. Everyone must communicate the benefits and safety of vaccines, and advocate for the respect and confidence of the institutions which make them possible. To do otherwise risks even further erosion of one of public health’s greatest achievements.

From Matt Carey at LBRB:

To the Kennedys: I am a father. I have an autistic child. Robert Kennedy positions himself as an ally, a champion of parents like myself. Let me make this clear: Robert Kennedy does not speak for me. He does not speak for more than a few autism parents. He certainly doesn’t speak my son or other autistics. He has been part of the effort to weaponize fear of disability to frighten people about vaccines. As such, he has added to the stigma my son faces.

There is another aspect to this you may not be aware of: the anti-vaccine community is closely tied to the worst in the alternative medicine movement. Robert Kennedy regularly speaks at autism parent conventions where therapies that can only be called abusive are promoted as “cures for vaccine injury”. Mr. Kennedy could speak out against these therapies. He could stand up and make himself heard and stop this abuse. Instead, he has remained silent.

Employment Programs

n The Politics of Autism, I discuss the employment of adults with autism and other disabilities. Many posts have discussed programs to provide them with training and experience.

Beth Pinsker at Reuters:

EY is among a handful of major companies recruiting and hiring individuals with autism spectrum disorders and supporting them at the office. These jobs tend to focus on specific technical skills that can suit individuals on the spectrum who are challenged by social interactions.

The numbers are small so far - Microsoft has about dozens involved in its program, while Deloitte just hired eight into its inaugural round. Dell started with three hires last summer and is doubling this year.

The hiring need, on the other hand, is exponential. Some 1.1 million computing-related jobs are expected by 2024, but U.S. graduation rates are not nearly keeping pace, says Lou Candiello, head of military and disability recruiting programs at Dell. “We need to think different about attracting talent,” Candiello said.

With an estimated global population of 70 million on the autism spectrum - 80 percent of whom are unemployed or severely underemployed - the neurodiverse community is a huge pool to tap.

In aggregate, programs for autistic workers are helping about 200 people a year, while thousands more graduate high school and head “straight to their couches,” said Tara Cunningham, chief executive of Specialisterne USA, a nonprofit organization that helped launch the Autism @ Work network with Microsoft, EY, JPMorgan Chase and SAP. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands more graduate and never enter the workforce.

Jared Lindzon at Fast Company:

Ultra Testing [is] a New York-based software testing and quality assurance startup that employs over 60 workers remotely across 20 states, 75% of whom are on the autism spectrum. Not only was the company open to hiring neurodiverse employees, but it actively sought them out.
...

“We’re going up against global IT firms and performing significantly better,” says Ultra Testing’s cofounder and CEO Rajesh  Anandan, citing contracts won away from IBM and Capgemini. “We’re staffing these teams with fantastically capable talent who just haven’t had a fair shot before.”

Anandan founded Ultra Testing alongside his former M.I.T. roommate Art Shectman after discovering research on the overlooked strengths common among autistic individuals. Anandan’s wife, who worked with autistic children at a community mental health clinic in Oakland, had also pointed out how much energy is spent trying to improve the skills that are lacking rather than nurturing the children’s often remarkable natural talents.

“Individuals on the autism spectrum are more likely to have strengths around pattern recognition, logical reasoning ability, enhanced focus, and so on,” says Anandan. ...
Despite these strengths, however, only 35% of 18-year-olds with autism attend college, and only 15% of those who graduate find employment. As a result, nearly 80% of young adults with autism work part-time, earning an average salary of $9.11 per hour, according to Integrate Autism Employment Advisors, a nonprofit that helps those on the autism spectrum find employment.

"Sorcery"

In The Politics of Autism, I look at the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism.  One result of this corrosive myth is the recent upsurge of measles outbreaks.

New #vaccine exemption @TexasDSHS numbers tell much of the story. I'll tell the rest: Children of #Texas have been placed in harm's way for the financial gain of special & outside interest groups. Calling on our TX elected leaders to say "NO MAS" and stand up for our children! pic.twitter.com/60coHonYtx

— Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD (@PeterHotez) May 7, 2019

Make the case for your sorcery to consumers on your own dime. Like every other business. Quit using the heavy hand of government to make your business profitable through mandates and immunity. It’s disgusting.

— Jonathan Stickland (@RepStickland) May 7, 2019

I deeply appreciate everyone’s support today, including @HoustonChron @ChronMed never thought I would see a #Texas legislator launch an unfounded personal attack. Time for some House ethics rules (and some adult supervision) https://t.co/QHsGB2K0Wa via @houstonchron

— Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD (@PeterHotez) May 7, 2019

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In The Politics of Autism, I look at the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism.  One result of this corrosive myth is the recent upsurge of measles outbreaks.

From CDC:

The states that have reported cases to CDC are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Tennessee, and Washington.

*Cases as of December 29, 2018. Case count is preliminary and subject to change.

**Cases as of May 3, 2019. Case count is preliminary and subject to change. Data are updated every Monday.

Dr. Richard Pan, a California state senator, writes at LAT:

Some of the blame rests with unethical doctors, who are willing to take patients’ money and grant inappropriate medical exemptions to misinformed families, thereby putting other children at risk. A Voice of San Diego investigation of medical exemptions at San Diego Unified School District showed that almost a third were issued by one doctor who advertised medical exemptions. Two other physicians who issued large numbers of medical exemptions are on probation with the Medical Board of California.

The state Legislature, of which I am a member, has an opportunity to greatly improve the situation. Senate Bill 276, sponsored by the California Medical Assn. and the California American Academy of Pediatrics, would require review by public health officials before medical exemptions from vaccination requirements are approved. It would also create a database of medical exemption requests so the state’s medical board can better investigate unethical physicians.

Thirty years ago, measles outbreaks were caused by insufficient access to vaccines; today they are caused by misinformation and fueled by doctors who should know better. The World Health Organization recently declared vaccine refusal a global health threat, noting that it has fueled measles outbreaks and deaths around the world. Last year, Europe had 83,000 confirmed cases of measles and 72 deaths. And the U.S. is now at risk of joining the failed state of Venezuela as the only country in the Americas to lose its “measles elimination” status.

Openly Embracing the Vaccine-Autism Myth

In The Politics of Autism, I look at the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism.

A week ago, a Louisiana state senator linked vaccines to autism on the floor of the chamber. Sam Karlin reports at The Advocate:

State Sen. John Milkovich, a Shreveport Democrat, used a bill that would expand a voluntary statewide immunization database as an opportunity to launch into a diatribe about vaccines, which he suggested are dangerous and cause autism.

Vaccines, which do not cause autism, are “incredibly well studied” because of the “myths” surrounding their links with autism, said Dr. Joe Kanter, assistant state health officer with the Louisiana Department of Health.

 “We’re trying really hard to counter that with outreach and education,” Kanter said.
Milkovich claimed “autism did not exist” when he was growing up, and that “tissue from aborted babies is now used in vaccines.” He also suggested aluminum and mercury in vaccines are dangerous.

“Many of you may know some of the leading researchers in America say that autism is a result of vaccination,” Milkovich said. “Did you know tissue from aborted babies is now used in vaccines. Did you know that vaccines use aluminum which is shown to be a neurotoxin? Did you know vaccines in America is preserved often with mercury, which is beyond neurotoxic?”

Jonathon Freeman at myarklamiss.com:

"It is not that vaccines are causing Autism. We just gone from a very small criteria of what is Autism to a larger spectrum," said Lindsey Fortenberry, nurse practitioner Health Care Express.
...
Addressing one of those misconceptions of mercury being in vaccinations, Fortenberry said Milkovich was refering to a perservative ingredient used in making vaccines called Thimerosal that allows for larger quantities to be shipped. However, Thimerosal was removed from all vaccines in 2001. Except for the multi-vial dose of the flu vaccine.

"In the year 2000, one in 150 children were diagnosed with Autism. As of this year, about one and 68 children are diagnosed with Autism. Now if you related that to my comment that Thimerosal was removed from all vaccines in 2001 and we've seen an almost double fold in the amount of cases of Autism. That doesn't really correlate well. I would ask the Senator not only show where that research came from to show that the Thimerosal causing these problems when there's been no Thimerosal in these vaccines since 2001. I think that's the most important thing, if you ever speak out about something just to know what you're talking about and to make sure your source is reliable and be very educated on what you're speaking about before you speak about it," Fortenberry said.
...
According to the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, several vaccines, including the one for chickenpox, are produced by growing the virus inside of human cells. However, those human cells come from two cell lines from that were obtained legally in the 1960s. Since then, the cells grow independently and do not require further cell lines. They were descendent cells, not the cells of aborted fetuses.

Autism Politics is Like Faculty Politics on Crystal Meth

 In The Politics of Autism, I write:

The most basic questions trigger angry arguments. For instance, into what category do we put autism in the first place? In 2013, President Obama said that “we’re still unable to cure diseases like Alzheimer's or autism or fully reverse the effects of a stroke.” The language of “disease” and “cure” offends some in the autism community. “We don’t view autism as a disease to be cured and we don’t think we need fixing,” says Ari Ne’eman of the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network. “We do feel comfortable with the word disability because we understand what it means.” From this perspective, autism is difference that requires accommodation, not an illness that requires eradication. Adherents of this position liken autism to homosexuality, which psychiatrists once deemed to be a  disorder. Conversely, some parents take offense at opposition to a cure. “Anyone with the mental and verbal ability to challenge autism research is not autistic on a scale that I care to recognize,” writes autism parent James Terminello. “Opposition to finding a cure is particularly hurtful to parents who still mourn the loss of the child that could have been. A line has been crossed.”

Alisa Opar at The Washington Post:

On one side are parents of autistic children with severe traits — including intellectual disability, limited language ability and self-harm — who say autism is a medical condition that needs often-intense treatment.

On the other side are supporters of “neurodiversity,” who maintain that the condition represents a neurological difference and a disability — one that society should accept and accommodate rather than try to prevent or cure.

The article notes the founding of the National Council on Severe Autism.

“There’s a wide abyss between someone who is very mildly impaired and someone who is really severely impaired with intellectual disability and all the different kinds of comorbid conditions that tend to cluster at that end of the spectrum,” says Amy Lutz, a founding member of the organization and mother of Jonah, 20, who has severe autism and is prone to aggression and self-harm. “There’s no one speaking directly for these families and about this severe end of the spectrum.”

Many self-advocates have responded with anger to the organization’s creation. “NCSA lifts up and advances depictions of autism, which paint autistic people as burdens, as toxic and as catastrophes,” says Julia Bascom, executive director of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. “These attitudes harm us, increase stigma and misunderstanding, and make life harder for everyone, including our families.”

...
 The controversy over the NCSA gets at a central point of contention in the autism wars: Is autism a difference, diagnosis, disorder, disease or disability? These are the “D-words” that really matter in the autism community, says Simon Baron-Cohen, professor of developmental psychopathology at the University of Cambridge...Which word someone uses to define autism is more than an intellectual exercise. It affects how the public views people on the spectrum and their quality of life, as well as access to job placement programs, housing and health care.