I have heard it all before, in fact far too many times. Kids with autism are not brats!  Kids with autism are not simply acting out!

And, to all those who would say that, I say: Walk a day in their shoes (or their parents’ shoes) and then tell us they can control what they do or say like everyone else.

No, in my opinion, the only people who should “cut out the act,” are people like radio host Michael Savage, who make unsubstantiated claims that 99 percent of kids with autism are misdiagnosed. Like far too many people in our society – people who have no idea whatsoever of what they are talking about — he is displaying a total lack of empathy and ignorance!

Children with an autism spectrum disorder are children who, through absolutely no fault of their own, were born with a disorder that would impact not only their own lives but those of everyone around them. And, while it is true that individuals with mild symptoms of autism are able to function creatively and normally in our society, those with a more severe form on the spectrum will likely never know what it is like to live a normal life.

In other words, those with a severe form will never know what it is like to graduate from college or university, never know what it is like to have a regular competitive job or career, never know what it is like to bring up a family, or never know what it is like to retire and travel in their leisure years.

That is not to say they cannot have a productive life. They can. My son is 43, married to a wonderful woman who has physical and developmental disabilities. They are companions. He takes care of her, doing the shopping, cooking and cleaning. He also volunteers at a local nursing home. But, he still misses all the normal milestones that other people experience. He is of average intelligence, so make no mistake about it, he knows what he is missing. We talk about it often, particularly now that he is in his early forties — at just the right time when all of us think about where our lives have been and where we want to go.  

So, to suggest these individuals simply need “to cut out the act” is nothing short of cruel and abusive. While some are calling for Savage to be fired, I am not sure about that. It is the essence of free speech that people can make cruel and abusive statements. There are plenty of shock jocks that represent all manner of nonsense.

The bottom line is we simply don’t have to listen to them if we don’t like it. As a result, what I would recommend instead, is for listeners to boycott the radio station.

H/T a regular reader.

Parents, are your children getting the best education possible? Whether yes or no, this is your chance to tell it like it is. CBC says they will be conducting an in-depth survey about attitudes to education across Canada.

If you have a positive story, tell it. But, if you have a horror story or a story about frustration and endless wrangling with your child’s school or school board, tell that story as well. Here is what the CBC says it wants to know to compile their school report:

“Got an issue or story that you think we should know about? Tell us. We’re surveying parents and educators to bring you an in-depth look at education across the country.The results will be compiled and investigated for our education series, to be featured on CBC radio, television and our web site this fall. Send your story below. Then, fill out our 10-minute education survey.”

Above all, let’s not sugar coat this report. Tell it like it is. Perhaps some good will come out of it. Perhaps we will find out the differences between programs and services in each province and territory. Perhaps we will find out how effective or ineffective the publicly funded schools are compared to independent schools. And, last but not least, perhaps we will find out how effective school choice is in those provinces that allow public funding to pay for charter schools or provide vouchers to independent schools.

Or, will this survey be biased one way or the other? For example, why is a parent’s education level relevant? Remember, this is self-report research. It will already be biased in that only certain people will find the survey and only certain people will respond. While there is nothing wrong with self-report, why is a parent’s education level relevant in this case? 

Read the rest of this entry »

Surely, even in the month of July, there are important issues out there that journalists can present to readers and viewers — topics that do not fall into the categories of old news, one-sided news, strange and politically correct news and/or unsubstantiated innuendo and gossip.

Why, for example, is the Canadian media dragging out an old anti-conservative story that was supposedly news last summer  — such as why Mark Warner was not allowed to run for the Conservative Party in downtown Toronto where Bob Rae is now the Liberal MP — if only as an excuse to discuss unsubstantiated innuendo against CPC strategist Doug Finley.

Moreover, why is the Canadian media writing so critically about what Liberal MP Garth Turner said about separatists? I may disagree with Turner’s current politics but I thought we had free speech in this country. And, exactly what did he say that is not true? Or, is that the problem? What he said was simply not politically correct.

Let’s take a look at a few examples of what I am talking about.

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Alberta Girl’s letter to the editor and my link to the Harper Government Record of Accomplishments was published in the Hill Times. Well done. We have to keep getting the word out.

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Statistics often get a bad rap and there is perhaps a very good reason for that when people cherry pick only the news that is favourable to them. Newspapers not doing enough background research on “news” can be a problem as well. Which definitely looks like what happened at the Toronto Star earlier this week with the release of the “Pan-Canadian Assessment Program’s” first report. 

For example, take a look at an article in the Toronto Star dated April 29th, 2008. Titled “Ontario Grade 8s top the class,” it gives the definite impression that Ontario students are tops in reading across the country, right? In fact, that notion is reinforced with this quote that:”The bold showing may reflect Ontario’s rigorous new curriculum, suggests Michael Kozlow, director for data for Ontario’s testing body, which took part in the new nation-wide Pan-Canadian Assessment Program.”
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Bill Curry of the Globe and Mail quotes Finance Minister Jim Flaherty as saying “I don’t pretend that it’s easy to draw the line.” The line he is talking about is between independent films that are socially acceptable and contextual compared to those that include “gratuitous violence, sexual content that lacks an educational purpose, or denigration of an identifiable group.”And, I would suggest that most people over the age of 18 know hate and pornography when they see it. 

Yet, independent film makers like “David Cronenberg and Sarah Polley are leading a campaign against the bill, describing it as a form of censorship.” To my mind the only censorship that is involved is access to public money, our money, taxpayers money. Moreover, as Curry writes:“Canadian Heritage officials said the law will trigger consultations on new rules that will expand the criteria for denying the [tax] credits….”

In other words, once it is law, C-10 would allow Heritage officials to: (1) deny certain tax credits for certain films so that public money, taxpayers money, is not paying for them; and (2) provide for public consultantion to set new rules on what is art compared to hate, gratuitous violence and pornography.

So, while David Cronenberg and Sarah Polley and others say C-10 is about censorship,  I would suggest it isn’t because the law would NOT stop anyone from making independent films.  Rather, what C-10 would do is provide a mechanism to deny public money.

C/P at Jack’s Newswatch.

Yesterday, Barbara Yaffe wrote in the Vancouver Sun that neither of the main parties were doing much to impress the voters. I sent her an e-mail questioning her comments. Although I can understand that Canadians are not impressed with Liberal “gotcha” politics and their desperation to get back into power to be “entitled to their entitlements,” the notion that the Conservative government isn’t doing much is ridiculous and misleading. Perhaps if the media got the message out about exactly what the governing party WAS doing or HAS DONE, Canadians would indeed be impressed!

So, I will remind all mainstream journalists, here are some of the things the Harper government has done so far.   I will also remind mainstream journalists that this list of accomplishments does not contain any spin or promises. It is reality. Moreover, there is no manipulation or misleading of the facts because the only sources I used were from government websites and government search engines and the mainstream media itself.

The bottom line: The conservative government has been in power only a little over two years. If Canadians are not impressed, then I challenge the media to get the message out explaining exactly what the Harper Conservatives have done.

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C/P at Jack’s Newswatch.

Autism is an extremely complex disorder and very difficult to diagnose.  In fact, it is usually only diagnosed after many years of investigation and only after the earliest stages of physical and cognitive development have passed. While most children who are eventually diagnosed as having an autism spectrum disorder will have been noticeably different since birth, occasionally, children who were otherwise normal developers start to experience autism-like symptoms.

Some parents feel those unexpected or sudden symptoms are related directly to one or more vaccinations. While I won’t get into the disagreement in the scientific community about the causation of those later symptoms, parents are convinced there is a direct correlation.

So, given the assumption that something adverse can happen to a child that has otherwise developed normally (which produces autism-like symptoms), that seems to be what happened to Jenny McCarthy’s young son.  From what she has reported, he was experiencing normal development until a series of vaccinations seemed to affect him adversely. She treated those subsequent autism-like symptoms with a gluten free, lactose free diet, along with vitamins and other supplements and, very positively he returned to normal development.
However, that kind of good outcome is not typical no matter what diet a child is provided. In my opinion, given my work with autistic children and adults prior to my retirement, I would suggest that McCarthy’s son did not actually have autism.  But, regardless of the diagnosis in fact, I am pleased that her son is now normal and, being the mother of an adult son with autism, I can certainly understand her enthusiasm. I know if I had found a cure for my son, I would have shouted from the mountain tops. And, that is going to be precisely my point.
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Robert Fulford has an excellent column in today’s National Post on how “creativity begins with discipline.” When Fulford refers to discipline, he does not necessarily mean discipline as related to behaviour, but as in the ability to persevere in the face of all odds to get a job done to the absolute best of our ability. Why might Fulford be using the term discipline in that way? Perhaps because the concepts of best, outstanding and excellent have been lost or the notion of being excited about learning is too often a thing of the past. While there are hundreds, if not thousands, of excellent or outstanding teachers out there, too often they are limited by the system in which they work.

For example, for some reason, unions, and I am speaking of the teachers’ unions here, when teachers are appraised they now (in McGuinty’s Ontario at least) only use two categories: satisfactory or unsatisfactory. It is as though something were wrong with doing well or better than your peers.  While student evaluation is now usually based on a fuzzy system of evaluation, student report cards can say: limited success, some success, considerable success and/or a high degree of success.  As Fulford suggests, the change in tone and dumbing down of our education system has been gradual and subtle — to the point where it seems as though we have now settled for mediocrity. Read the rest of this entry »

I am certainly no fan of Michael Ignatieff, but Brian Flemming’s column in today’s Halifax Daily News reveals an incredible bias against anyone who displays his or her higher education.  The implicit messages in Fleming’s piece, apart from the obvious criticisms he makes about Ignatieff and his changing positions on Iraq and Afghanistan, is that former professors are: (1) too narcissistic; and (2) wet behind the ears as far as understanding active politics.

Well, anyone who has ever finished university, particularly professional schools like nursing, police and security, teacher’s college, law or medicine, or graduate school, will be hooting with laughter right about now. Doesn’t understand politics? In a university (or college) setting? That is, without a doubt, one of the most political environments on the face of this earth. And, yes there is a lot of narcissism on all sides of the teaching process. Most will agree that when you are standing in line on the night of convocation, it’s not the subject matter you will remember, it’s the relief that you “made it through the political process” and finished.  That is the reality.

Yet, Flemming says:

“[A] glaring omission is Ignatieff’s failure to recognize the animal side of politics. [That] good political judgment includes not just the exercise of the intellect, but a feel for what the electoral herd wants from its top elks.” 

And, his final put down: “We’re waiting with bated breath, Prof. Ignatieff.”

Too much the “intellectual” is also a criticism you hear about both Liberal Leader Stephane Dion and Prime Minister Stephen Harper.  Yet, you rarely heard that view about former PM Pierre Elliott Trudeau, also a former professor, or Jean Chretien, who was a lawyer.  

We’ve got enough differences without trashing anyone’s background. I may not like Mr. Ignatieff but I would be the first to complain about this kind of nasty petty criticism if it was about Mr. Harper. In my view, having personally worked (taught) in both university and active political settings,  when it comes to talking to the electoral herd, contrary to what Flemming suggests, Ignatieff’s teaching DID prepare him for politics.

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