Denis Leary Sorta, Kinda Apologizes for Offending Autism Community
Comedian Denis Leary, best known for pushing the envelope of convention, apologized yesterday “to all parents of children with autism” after the mother of a stricken Saugus 6-year-old dared him to spend just one hour of challenging daily life with her son.In other words, Leary is sorry if you read out-of-context bits of his book and got mad. On the other hand, he stands by the book's discussion of autism as a whole. This, presumably, means that he really does feel that many people are inappropriately describing themselves or their children as autistic to avoid feelings of inadequacy (at least, that's how I interpret some of Leary's statements).“I have nothing but admiration and sympathy for the people I know who are raising children with autism. In fact, they were the inspiration for the chapter I wrote about the subject,” the Worcester native and author of the provocative forthcoming book “Why We Suck” said in a statement to the Herald.
“To them - and to all parents of children with autism - I apologize for any pain the out-of-context quotes from my book may have caused.”
Now: here's the big question. Could Leary be correct at some level? ARE some people self-diagnosing themselves as autistic (or seeking autism diagnoses for their children) to explain away social and/or academic difficulties that are completely unrelated to autism?
While I sincerely condemn Leary's nasty tone and insulting language, I do wonder whether whether he is voicing a frighteningly real possibility. In short, as autism gains publicity, is it possible that the term "autism" is being misused to mean "inability to thrive in today's world?"
Comments
Ummmm..
When you have a nonverbal, nonresponsive child, sitting in the corner stimming with paperclips; or a child that has a vocuabulary of 50 words and can barely be understood; or a child who is so socially challenged as to not be able to function with peers… These are all autism/aspergers and no amount of parental “get over it” bs is going to change that. Unless a healthcare professional is engaging in fraud, these are all challenging and difficult scenarios that receive the diagnosis of autism/aspergers. There may be some that get the diagnosis through some illegitimate means… but I bet it is less than 1%.
ohhhh…maybe we should vote the kids off the island who aren’t autistic enough to meet the lay public’s preconceived notion of autism, neurological similarities be damned.
If you subscribe to a pejorative, regressive view of the autism spectrum, go for it. That is, if you’re on the autistic spectrum, you must be “in your own world.” Too much eye contact and joint attention? Can’t be an autism spectrum disorder.
Personally, I have a more progressive outlook. And I resent the negative implication. My child has something of a borderline diagnosis, and not only did I not seek it out, I’ve been seeking out an un-diagnosis (i.e. second opinion), to no avail.
I’m sincerely shocked that you would pay respect to such a regressive and insulting POV.
interesting comments.
I’ve heard from at least one practitioner that it is tempting, when a child presents with borderline symptoms, to provide a diagnosis – because often the diagnosis opens the door to services and treatments that would be very tough to get without a diagnosis.
I’m also aware that it can be VERY tough for adults to find anyone qualified to diagnose an adult with Asperger syndrome. As a result, there are certainly a number of self-diagnosed adults out there.
Given these realities, I would not be surprised to find that a small percentage of those with Aspergers or HFA diagnoses are really very borderline indeed.
Does that mean that people are out there begging for or faking autism diagnoses? Now THAT I very much doubt.
Lisa (autism guide)
As a parent of (3) autistic children, I am not calling for his head. I am just amazed that he could tread on this topic in any way and call it comedy. Does he know the struggles of getting a diagnosis, getting a mis-diagnosis, getting a knowledgeable enough doctor to commit either way or having to change your (10) yr olds diapers. He should beat(and never stop beating) his editor for letting him add this chapter.
And for the masses of you who telling us to GET OVER IT….All that most of us, who live this daily, are asking you and/or Dennis to do is get better informed before running your mouth.(or writing a book….)
Fact: Autism has been around since the early 40’s
Fact: 1950 autism was 1 in 10000, 1981 1 in 2600, 1996 1 in 350, Today 1 in 150….
Fact: ADD / ADHD cases are up 10% since 1998, 7% in school aged children.
The chapter is the least of my worries and frustration. What does make me want to puke is the lack of compassion and the grotesque mobidity of the majority who follow him. Be proud of that fan base Dennis.
Then blog against diagnosing for services, but don’t impute bad motives to well-intentioned parents.
And at age 2, he isn’t academically challenged or some sort of underachiever. He’s two! That’s when the American Pediatrics Association recommends screening. That will be the norm one of these days. So no, we’re not explaining away under-achievement. Sheesh.
Moreover – no, I’m not done here – when he does enter school, I have no reason to believe he will be academically impaired. Like most verbal spectrum kids, he was early to identify colors, numbers and letters. He’s AUTISTIC, not RETARDED.
So let’s dispel these idiotic and insulting myths, rather than pay respect to them.
And in response to your earlier post about the far reaches of the spectrum, you appear to presuppose that spectrumites are etiologically distinct. I believe they are not, at least with respect to PDD and classic autism. I believe the difference between PDD and classic autism is in many cases one of degree or quantity, rather than quality. And so, no, I don’t believe my son’s borderline dx is a misdiagnosis or a dx for services; rather, I believe he has the same thing as classic autism, only to a much lesser extent. And for the record, he has not one, but two borderline diagnosises (sp?). And if I brought him to some one else, he’d probably have three.
And if you can’t tell, I’m tired of being on the defensive because I’ve “accepted” my son’s diagnosis, as though the reasonable thing to do is to dodge doctors or ignore them. And that’s the scary part of this narrative – what happens when people start dodging doctors to avoid the scorn of the Denis Learys of the world? Yay denial!
Actually, I’m not necessarily against diagnosing for therapies. I’m quite certain there are times when it’s the smartest call for everyone. After all, if a child has speech delays and other issues, but doesn’t QUITE fit the criteria, he still needs support in the areas of challenge. And if the local district and/or agency won’t provide those services without a diagnosis – well, who am I to tell the doctor or parents “your child doesn’t deserve those services?!”
In fact, it seems to me that that’s precisely what we’re discussing: the possibility that autism really may be overdiagnosed because services are improving (and because it’s now fairly well understood by the general public).
As regards any individual child’s diagnosis, I certainly have no business making a judgement in any direction!
It does seem, though, that we (Laura and I) may disagree somewhat about the spectrum.
I, personally, believe we may find that there are distinct causes and symptoms that will allow us to break up the “spectrum” into more discrete diagnoses. If/when that happens, I think we’ll wind up with a better understanding of the disorders – and a better sense of which treatments will work for whom.
Lisa (autism guide)
I think there is a bit of that sometimes. If I look at myself in the context of also relating to my LD kids, I would have LD (Learning disabilities). If I look at myself in context to my child with autism, I have autistic tenancies. If I look at myself in context to a boy I work with who has ADHD, I could have those traits as well.
I believe that there is a little bit of everything in all of us, because we all stim, we all struggle in school in at least one area, we all have problems sitting still sometimes and focussing on what needs to be done.
Does that mean I have LD, am autistic or have ADHD? I could find doctors that would possibly diagnose me with whichever I choose to be diagnosed with, but that doesn’t mean it’s what’s going on.
For the most part, I believe diagnosis are done correctly, and in my view, if it gets my kid the help he needs to succeed and be the best he can be PLUS my child would have to fit the DSM-IV criteria for diagnosis, then go with it. Without some of the diagnosis, we are setting up the kids for failure.
My 3 cents worth anyway.
Caroline
Laura,
I love your “vote them off the island” image. I too have a verbal son who is considered “high functioning”…wow, tell him he’s the lucky one. He agonizes every day about this disability. Is being a little bit autistic like being a little bit pregnant?!?
No, I do NOT think that a parent would want the autism label just to get services….it is simply going too far.
ug. This just perpetuates the Savage lunacy: “Jonny, act autistic for government $!”
Diagnosing for services should not be condoned, for many reasons, including:
1) It’s intellectually dishonest.
2) It causes unnecessary alarm.
3) Resources are not unlimited.
Robin,
LOL
I feel like I’m being punk’d today…
Here’s my analogy, and it isn’t entirely original: eyesight. Assume there is a legally blind person and a moderately nearsighted person.
Are you going to say to the moderately nearsighted person: what you have has nothing to do with eyesight because you’re not blind? Or: even though what you have has nothing to do with eyesight, we’ll call it an eyesight deficit so that you can get corrective vision?
By the same token, it’s incorrect to say that the nearsighted person is blind.
Here lies the confusion: “Autism” exists as a discrete diagnosis, i.e. “classic autism”, but it also exists as a spectrum. No one is saying that PDD is autism. We’re saying it’s on the spectrum. We’re saying it presents with some but not all of the symptoms of autism.
For example, my son presents with hypotonia and dyspraxia, in addition to his speech delay and poor gaze monitoring and lack of imagination. I’m supposed to say all these things add up to nothing, even though the deficits fall into the same domains as autism and two doctors have verified this?
I’m being punk’d.
Guess I see it differently, Laura. While it’s true that resources aren’t unlimited, with something like the autism spectrum the lines often smudge. Sometimes kids are denied services when they really could use them.
To follow your analogy – let’s say that the nearsighted person isn’t nearsighted enough to get a “vision-relate diability” diagnosis, and thus he’s considered “typically sighted.”
As a result, he can’t see the print on the books well enough to read fluently, which means he falls behind, is called “dumb,” and is told he’s just lazy and could do better if he really wanted to.
Meanwhile, the person with the “vision-related disability” diagnosis gets an IEP, classroom and test accommodations, and books on tape.
It’s true that the near sighted person is NOT blind. But of course his disability does matter, and does need treatment and support.
What if a child had similar disabilities to your son, but for whatever reason the professionals who evaluated him did NOT give him a diagnosis (depending upon the practitioner, this can certainly happen). Wouldn’t that child still need the same supports?
Of course, according to the law the schools are not supposed to provide supports acording to diagnosis, but according to individual needs. But in some districts, a diagnosis can make all the difference.
Lisa
I am sure that there are parents that get services for their children that are borderline autistic. I know a parent that sends her child to an expensive private school at the taxpayers expense and the child’s disability is dislexia. And has anyone here heard of Munchausen syndrome by proxy?
Actually, PDD is a category, not a diagnosis. PDD-Nos is one of them under that category.
I suppose it would depend on who has the medical diagnosis and if it was a 20 minute visit, I’d question that too; and which only have a school assessment qualifying the child for an IEP based on their criteria for autism. Since there is no blood test for autism, sure, the margin for error is right up there, regardless of what we see in our own kids.
True story: I knew a mom who thought her child had autism, and the child needed surgery for swollen tonsils and she refused. Child protection got involved, actually stating Munchausen syndrome by proxy (thank you, I was trying to figure out how to spell that!) the school nor the docs thought autism at all but the mom insisted/ persisted and that’s why child protection got involved.
As for Leary, take his wishy- washy book and wishy washy apology for what it’s al worth.
We’re talking about this as if ASD diagnoses were not arrived at after great searching, expense, and study. The reason they need to be diagnosed by experts, particularly AS/HFA, is because it’s not simple and it’s not obvious, but those years of study and experience and training actually count for something. I am not saying psychologists know all, but why is it that some random person who has never met my son can say that the neuropsychologist with years of experience who spent days testing my son and hours interviewing me is wrong? And why do we care?
I saw Daniel Rosen, a very well-known AS expert, speak recently at an AS conference, he spoke about various vectors of ASD. A given child might be severely affected in terms of rigidity of thought and theory of mind, while being relatively mildly affected in terms of obsessive interests and joint attention.
I think that if these diagnoses were biological or genetic–something we could see through a microscope or even diagnose with the observation of a fixed set of clinical criteria (as opposed to the “three or more” language of ASD), these arguments about whether it’s real or not would be valid. But you know what? ASD is a set of syndromes and a spectrum to boot. Our kids are not all the same, and we can’t say “this is what it always looks like” because it doesn’t always look the same, especially AS/HFA.
My teenager was diagnosed at a time when testing below 4 yrs of age did not yet exist. His EYS teacher referred us to a psychologist where I filled out a 27 pg questionaire. She conducted a series of observations of my son alone, interacting with me, my husband, etc before concluding that he was autistic. We then consulted a psychiatrist & a pediatric neurologist who, after extensive observation & interaction, affirmed his diagnosis so this was not arrived at lightly. My current dilemma stems from moms of the newly diagnosed who deride me for not jumping on the ‘latest & greatest’ in therapy treatments that weren’t around during my son’s early years. I’ve never stopped reading & learning but I’ve also learned to be more skeptical of treatments & claims for a cure when we don’t yet know the cause. Because the current support groups are filled with the aforementioned ‘newbies’, I find myself on my own once again rather than sitting through talks on designing IEPs & toileting.
Guys like Leary, Michael Savage & the like aren’t worth our time & they prove the old adage: Better to keep your mouth shut & let people think you’re a fool rather than speaking & removing all doubt.
“ARE some people self-diagnosing themselves as autistic (or seeking autism diagnoses for their children) to explain away social and/or academic difficulties that are completely unrelated to autism? . . .
In short, as autism gains publicity, is it possible that the term ‘autism’ is being misused to mean ‘inability to thrive in today’s world?’”
Absolutely. This “Asperger’s” thing largely reflects the changing ways of society and a desire for conformity. What’s wrong with wanting to hang out with people who are older or younger? What’s wrong with having a few personality quirks, even if they don’t sit well with others? Why should those who don’t have the same interests as their (chronological) peers go through life thinking that they have a social disability? I also don’t understand why people get so self-conscious about being different. They should like being different. A few flubs also come with the territory for young intelligent introverts. If you are an intelligent introvert, then don’t think that the colossally stupid things you did are because of a disability. Chalk it up to experience and move on.
Anyway, this whole “services” thing involves a lot of negativity and needs to be avoided whenever possible. Your kid won’t grow up to be a social and/or professional flop because he or she has personality quirks. Bill Gates didn’t. Gavin Rossdale didn’t talk until he was 4 years old.
I’m not talking about real autism. Those with real autism need the aid. In fact, many kids should be taken out of special ed so that the kids with real handicaps can have more individual attention.
I know that these views aren’t politically correct. However, I feel sorry for the majority of kids who are being told that they have deficiencies because it isn’t flattering and doesn’t feel good, and in many cases it doesn’t have to happen.