Hopefully you can see the difference between the things I mentioned, and the things you have.
If you can’t, maybe we should convene a competency hearing for you. Gotta admit, your ability to discern both similarities and differences is clearly lacking, based on what you’ve posted here.
I’ll get back to you when you’ve answered my question.
Obviously, you and I have very different ideas of what autistic people are capable of. I think there are certain jobs where HFA could actually be a benefit. Many people with HFA actually have incredible self-insight and are not the psychotic loose cannons that you obviously think they are.
I agree there are certain jobs that an HFA could do quite well.
But do you think the military will make the effort to find out what they are and place an HFA in one?
I really don’t see a lot of differnce between taking away an adults right to choose his career- (after proving to his Employer he is fit for the job) and hi sright to vote or his priviledge to dirve.
*What * question? This? "*If you had even a high-functioning autistic kid, and scraped together a trust fund to help support him for the rest of his life, would you just turn the money over to him when he turned 18? * " It depends on when the trust fund matured- some don’t release until 21, other even 25. Once it was available by age to any other competent adult, I’d release it to someone who is functioning quite well, even though his *childhood family physician once diagnosed him * as “autistic”.
Qadgop the Mercotan: do you agree with my cites showing how difficult it is to diagnose autism? Would you say that having Jarads childhood family physician diagnose him many years ago as "autistic’ compared with the evidence that he was able to function just fine as an adult, casts some doubt as to that diagoses? I mean, it was 15 years ago, for christssake.
DD, I fear I lack the time at present to review the cites. But I certainly would want more info on a patient than years old notes by his family physician suggesting autism before I got on board with that diagnosis.
Personally, I leave autism diagnosis to folks more knowledgeable in that area than myself. Some family physicians have that skill, I’m sure. But many don’t. I sure don’t.
I’d been going with the presumption that I was talking to an intelligent human being. You’ve successfully rebutted it.
(The correct answer is of course that there are lots of differences, cutting both ways depending on the context.)
This comment is stupid in multiple ways. First of all, if you create a trust fund, it’s not like someone else decides what age (if any) the beneficiary gets the corpus. You do. Second, if you created it in a way that the corpus isn’t distributed until 21 or 25, and you’ve tied it up so you as trustee can’t change that, then of course you can’t hand over the corpus at 18. Third, even if none of that was true, it still has fuck-all to do with the question.
And there are so many different definitions for “functioning quite well” that it kinda gets ridiculous. My wife has a great-aunt who, in her mid-80s, is still perfectly competent behind the wheel of a car, but has lost track of the reality that if she gives $30 to every group that warns her that America is in dire peril unless she coughs up some dough, she’ll quickly be penniless, so her daughter has taken over her financial affairs.
I’m especially amused by your disparagement of the childhood family physician’s diagnosis. Presumably, over the years, the parents of the kid have either confirmed the veracity of that diagnosis, in spades, in their day-to-day living, or it’s turned into a family in-joke: “Remember the time when that quack diagnosed John as autistic? Boy howdy, he sure didn’t know much.”
It’s possible that the parents are trying to control the choices of a perfectly healthy adult child by pulling up this ancient diagnosis of autism that they’d long since disregarded, and if that’s the case, there are ways of his dealing with that through the legal system. But if they know he’s autistic because they freakin’ live with him and his autism, and because he was capable of holding down a low-level job and doing the day-to-day stuff, they didn’t bother to have their informal guardianship of him made official because he didn’t seem to have anything that anyone could sucker him out of, until Uncle Sam comes along and tells him he’d make great cannon fodder, then that’s kind of another story, isn’t it?
At any rate, I’m also amused by your claim that, if you had a child who was sufficiently mentally impaired that you’d feel the need to work hard and do without in order that they had a long-term source of income, that you’d just hand that money over to him at majority. Kinda negates the purpose, doesn’t it?
This presumes that just because he was first diagnosed at the age of three, there has been no subsequent examinations that would confirm the original diagnoses. That is not a conclusion supported by any evidence, and a reasonable person could assume that he had continuing medical evaluations since the original diagnosis.
Yep, and we don’t know which is the correct story, do we now?
“*Assume *”= crap. I noted that there is *no mention at all * of any recent diagnoses or problems. There is no evidence at all of any recent problems or diagnoses. The fact that they only mention a 14 years old diagnoses (quite possibly wrong) by a non-specialized family physician is very telling to me.
Note our esteemed QtM’s post. Autism is very hard to diagnose properly. Did you read the cites I posted?
" *In addition, the identification of autism as a “disease” in infants is impeded by the lack of biological evidence to support such a diagnosis. * *"A more practical approach in research has lead to the convention that “autism” as a disease is a term that actually encompasses a variety of associated cognitive disorders with varying biological foundations. Children that have been diagnosed with autism are in reality afflicted with one or more disorders that to date have not been classified and named. These children therefore, are thrown into a generic grouping and labeled autistic. * "
"Secondly, despite the organic basis of the disorder, the diagnostic criteria have been derived through consensus, rather than being organically based; no biological “test” exists for autism. Diagnostic cut-offs have been hard to define, because the manifestation of the core impairments and behaviours of autism varies greatly from person to person, as shown in the table.9 10 Symptoms vary in any single person with autism, and as autism is a developmental disorder change occurs over time.10 " “However, what makes autism different is the great variation in presentation, the wide range of skills and deficits, and the high rate of associated behavioural, mental health, and often subtle learning problems—hence the need for a range of available professionals”
And, the diagnoses of Autism has changed significantly in 14 years:
And "First, the category of disorders under which Autism falls, Pervasive Developmental Disorders, are now coded in a different location in DSM-IV than in its predecessor, DSM-IIIR. It used to be the case that the Pervasive Developmental Disorders were coded on Axis II, the axis that was reserved for long-term, stable disorders with relatively poor prognosis for improvement. Pervasive Developmental Disorders are now coded on Axis I, the axis that is used to diagnose episodic and more transient clinical disorders. The possible implication of this move is the recognition that symptoms of these disorders can vary and possibly improve with intervention whereas the disorders which remain on Axis II, mental retardation and the personality disorders, are typically long-term and often unresponsive to treatment. "
Here are some cites about how easy it is to misdiagnose Autism:
http://www.aboutautismlaw.com/
“If you suspect that your child has a pervasive developmental disorder, the first step that you should take is to obtain an assessment by a qualified professional who is knowledgeable about autism. If you can afford it, it is best to hire a private professional with extensive experience in pervasive developmental disorders (“PDD”) to assess your child. (PDD is a broader category than autistic spectrum disorder (“ASD”), which is broader than autism.)…One of the advantages of hiring a private expert is that you can ensure that this person has extensive education, training, and experience in autism. An assessment by a person who is not qualified can lead to a misdiagnosis”
Now, my NON-expert WAG is that this child perhaps had Asperger’s Disorder, not true Autism.
http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/aswhatisit.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome
“However, Asperger syndrome does not guarantee one will have a miserable life. The intense focus and tendency to work things out logically, a characteristic of Asperger syndrome, often grants people with the syndrome a high level of ability in their fields of interest. When these special interests coincide with a materially or socially useful task, the person with Asperger’s often can in fact lead a profitable life. The child obsessed with naval architecture may grow up to be an accomplished shipwright, for instance.”
IF this is true, then the Army needs to consider this before taking him on or assigning him. Of course, this is only based upon his childhood symptoms and the fact that since 14 years ago, a LOT has changed in this field. I could be completely wrong mind you. What is really needed is a complete exam by a real expert in this very specialized field. Not a WAG by me, or a 14year old diagnoses by a family physician.
No we don’t. But not knowing what the story is doesn’t mean we don’t know what should be done.
A claim that an adult isn’t competent to make such choices is obviously a pretty serious claim. But unless time is of the essence, it makes sense for our military, our legal system, whatever, to pause the proceedings long enough to make sure someone who’s less than fully competent isn’t being buffaloed into making a decision that they’re not competent to make. That protects the person if they’re not competent to make whatever decision is involved, whether it’s joining the Army, or giving all their money to charity, or whatever.
And if it turns out the person is competent, then they are free to pursue whatever course of action it was that they wanted to pursue, and take legal action against those who falsely claimed they were incompetent.
This is especially true with the military, because the consequences of wrongly inducting a person who isn’t fully competent are potentially lethal.
You know, what is striking about this case is that not one word about conservatorship (guardianship) was uttered in that article. If the parents did have conservatorship over Jared, this would be an open and shut case and would not have become a news story. Some of us here claim that the parents were right for bringing the medical records to the recruiter’s attention, but why didn’t they tell the recruiters that they were his legal conservators? I mean, if any of my kids were diagnosed with something that would affect their ability to function independently when they become an adult, you better believe that I would seek conservatorship over him BEFORE he turns 18. Remember, I have a 4.5 year old right now who is flirting on the boundary of the spectrum, and my wife and I will have a choice to make in about a dozen years from now; but instead, we are taking proactive approach with language and speech classes and will seek further professional treatments when he is closer to 9 years of age, and see if that will contribute towards him becoming an independently functioning adult.
I’m with DrDeth on this one; unless Jared is conserved, then he is an adult with all established rights that any other 18 year old would have. And if the parents had concerns about his autism and his inability to function totally independently, they would not have bothered with furnishing the medical records, they would have furnished proof of their conservatorship over Jared and told them that the enlistment agreement is null and void…end of story. Since that didn’t happen, I think the parents dropped the ball on this one IF AND ONLY IF they could have proven to the court that he could not function independently as an adult and gained conservatorship over Jared. Now the question should be…
Is Jared an independently functioning adult who made his own lawful decision to enlist despite the fact that his parents are trying to interfere with this process by using his medical records since they don’t have conservatorship?
-OR-
Did the parents not even bother to seek conservatorship of their son (who can’t function independently as an adult) and must use the medical records to establish some sort of obstruction towards the recruitment process?
One other thought…If the parents used the media to distort this story to gain support of getting Jared out of his recruitment (to cover up their inability to get conservatorship) and get 2 recruiters investigated, then the parents are scum regardless if Jared is autistic (independently functioning adult or not) or not, then they failed in their duties as parents IMHO.
Anecdote Alert: Out of 150 clients that we work with here in our day programs for the Dev. Disabled, I have about 30 with various autistic diagnosis. Most of them are conserved by their parents, sibling, licensed caretaker, or another relative…and for good reason. But not all are conserved, and some higher functioning clients (3 total) are able to enter into contracts (utilities, rent, etc.) on their own are expected to live up to them, although I feel that all three of these guys wouldn’t be able to pass any recruitment tests…but I am just guessing on what I see (I don’t encourage them to enlist, and they don’t have an urge to go enlist).