On 7 May, 20:03, "Tom"
comcast.net> wrote:> "catherine yronwode"
herb-magic.com> wrote in message
>
> news:463DD55E.2ED742EE@herb-magic.com...
>
>
>
>
>>> Tom wrote:
>
>>>> Good day to you all. Just a brief question...
>
>>>> My daughter and I have recently been diagnosed with Aspergers
>>>> Syndrome, so I've been buying books and doing some research. However
>>>> - there seems to be a lot of nonesense written about Aspi's being
>>>> 'Indigo children' etc. I'd like to know how you'd debunk this myth,
>>>> or alternatively (if you believe in in) how you'd justify the thinking
>>>> behind it?
>
>>>> Is this Neuro-Typical nonesense, or is there any evidence that
>>>> supports the idea that Neuro-Atypical's have talents that 'seem' to be
>>>> magical or extra-sensory?
>
>>>> Your thoughts would be appreciated.
>
>>> "Indigo children" are supposed to have psychic powers. Only nobody seems
>>> to
>>> be able to demonstrate that *anybody* actually has any. That fact pretty
>>> thoroughly debunks the myth that lots of children are suddenly being born
>>> with them. Some people with autism spectrum disorders show remarkable
>>> abilities, such as lightning calculating, synesthesia, prodigious musical
>>> skills, and so forth, but none of these powers, despite their unusual
>>> nature, are demonstrably due to extrasensory perception.
>
>>> There has been a large jump in the number of cases of diagnosed autism
>>> spectrum disorders. Lots of theories have been put forward as to why
>>> this
>>> should be so. Certainly part of the reason is that it's a fairly newly
>>> defined disorder, having only been identified in the early 20th Century,
>>> and
>>> its diagnostic criteria have been expanded recently. However, that would
>>> not, in itself, be sufficient to explain the startling rise in reported
>>> cases. Many people have suggested that the problem is environmental,
>>> with
>>> mercury being the most commonly accused culprit. The evidence for this
>>> is
>>> somewhat sparse also, and colored by the fact that many of the big
>>> pharmaceutical companies had, until very recently, been using a
>>> mercury-based preservatives in infant immunizations. Thus, they could be
>>> open to an enormous lawsuit were it proved that mercury caused a huge
>>> epidemic of autism. This means that a lot of political controversy is
>>> going
>>> in, which can't help but color the research.
>
>>> When it comes right down to it, nobody is really sure why there are so
>>> many
>>> more cases of autism spectrum disorders than there used to be. And that
>>> is
>>> a clear invitation for new age pseudo-mystical theories. Anything that
>>> seems amazing or perplexing gets a mystical interpretation all its own.
>>> Faces on Mars, autism, quantum mechanics, all sorts of things.
>
>> As usualy, you are looking at this phenomenon through your anti-mystical
>> glasses, Tom.
>
> The querent asked for how you'd debunk the myth of indigo children. Well,
> that's how you'd debunk it.
>
>> There are indeed many interesting theories making the rounds to account
>> for the "epidemic" of autism.
>
>> In addition to the fact that per capita ratios of autism seem to be
>> growing, another factor that molds public perception of the frequency of
>> autism in the population is that the ratio between autism and other
>> forms of mental retardation has changed. Now that we have fairly good
>> in-utero tests for Down's syndrome and affected fetuses are being
>> routinely aborted, autism is becoming a relatively often seen form of
>> childhood mental retardation, especially on the streets, out of
>> institutional settings.
>
> Actually the disgnostic trend seems to be going in preciselyt the opposite
> direction. Children formerly diagnosed as metally retarded are being given
> an autism spectrum diagnosis instead, and as it turns out, many, if not most
> of them, have a rather high intelligence. What they lack, in large part, is
> a common form of communication with neurotypicals.
>
>
> over the last 50 years>
>
>> In the next 30 years of my life i have met, heard about, and seen at
>> least 50 autistic children. Some current national estimates state that 1
>> out of 150 US children are autistic, wheras in Denmark, only 1 out of
>> 727 are.
>
> A good part of that difference may be that the diagnostic criteria for
> autism are different in the US than in Europe. The DSM-IV and the ICD-10
> are not identical. However, the discrepancy may not be all just paperwork.
> Still, I don't see anything mystical in what you're saying here, so I'm
> puzzled about why you referred to matrial I posted as "anti-mystical" by way
> of contrast.
>
>> Like many others, when i see that kind of spread in the numbers, i am
>> inclined to look for environmental causes. The Mercury idea is mildly
>> plausible -- but it will only remain plausible if the level of autism
>> per capita rapidly falls back down when mercury stops being used in the
>> immunization medicnes.
>> Also, i am not sure how a mercury contamination
>> theory can account for the fact that autism strikes more boys than girls
>> -- at a ratio of 2:1. Perhaps a viral infection might be the cause...
>
> Possibly, but then we have to consider the genetic component. Suppose one
> critical factor is a particular genetic vulnerability to mercury and that
> this factor is most often found on a y-chromosome. Then we see very few
> cases of autism when there is no mercury in the environment but a high
> number of boys affected when the levels of environmental mercury reach a
> certain point.
>
>> I checked out the Wikipedia entry on "Indigo Children" too (thanks for
>> the tip, Steve) and despite the claims of "extra-sensory perception," it
>> looks to me like the term Indicgo Children is not so much a sign of
>> Tom's despised "new age pseudo-mystical theories" as it is a way of
>> softening the harsh diagnosis of mental retardation, and that it is
>> intended to be applied just as the term "Special Children" was applied
>> (with no mystical connotations) in earlier decades.
>
> I don;t dispute that. A great deal of new age pseudo-mystical theories are
> meant to lessen the pain of harsh reality. Religion is supposed to do that.
> That's one of the big reasons why it's so popular. There's a very good
> reason for the old saying "There are no atheists in the foxholes". The
> foxholes are scary places where you may suffer and die. Religion serves as
> a very real emotional comfort in such places. However, the comfort of a
> religious belief doesn't make it true.
My major concern stems from a programme I witnessed on TV regarding
Indigo children, where a New Age group had formed to try and train up
their Aspi kids with a programme designed to 'enable them to better
access their psychic powers'. The children (of all ages) were filmed
sitting huddled together in a crowd (and we hate crowds) under bright
camera lights whilst the head supposidly psychic woman of the group
gave them lectures on how they were special and had been born to use
their psychic gifts for the saving of mankind. The woman was
obviously (to me anyway) getting a huge amount of satisfaction from
all the attention she was getting by exploiting these children. This
really angered me!
The parents of those kids should be proud to have Aspi children.
There is a new culture being generated by Aspi's that is similar to
those enjoyed by the blind and deaf communities. We have our own 'in
jokes', and a way of thinking we can relate to with other Aspi's. We
are proud to be on the spectrum and most of us would not want to be
cured of our Autism as we would lose the benefits it conveys. It
might be a challenge to communicate with NT's but I think it is more
difficult if you are told and accept as a child that this is because
you have 'superhuman' abilities, or if people are trying to
comminicate with you whilst holding erroneous views about your
abilities.
Far from the Indigo label being something that brings comfort to
Aspi's and their parents - I think it might be something that is
harming Aspi's, and I think NT parents who do this should think of the
added challenges that this 'psychic' label will pose their Aspi child
in adult life - all because (imo) they want a child they can brag
about with other NT parents.
Maybe they should ask Bill Gate's mum how much she pities her poor son
cause he's on the spectrum?
It's my view that Autism is a genetic inheritance that is part of the
gene pool because it produces specialists, and the race needs a
certain amount of people who can specialise, obsessively sometimes, in
an 'interest' such as computers, or maths or physics/music/art etc
etc. At the present moment, silicon valley would probably fall apart
if all the Aspi's left their jobs.
Sorry about ranting a bit people.
>> I still think that a major factor behind the creation of these
>> euphemisms is an attempt to format the parents' thinking so that they
>> don't just dump their mentally retarded kids in an institution.
>
> That would be a good thing. But don't presume that even a severely autistic
> individual is mentally retarded. Check out Amanda Baggs.
Very very true:-)
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