OCTOBER IS BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH

Julie K. Silver, M.D.

***An Interview With Breast Cancer Survivor Dr. Julie K. Silver

Book Review:  What Helped Get Me Through 

Book Review: Taking Care of Your "Girls"

Book Review:  From the Heart: Eight Rules to Live By


Are Breast Self Examinations Unnecessary?

***There is No "Normal" With Breast Cancer

Walnuts Slow Breast Cancer Growth

***Cancer Epidemic is Preventable

New Poll Finds Women Unaware of Some Breast Cancer Risks

***Drinking Alcohol Promotes Cancer

Fly American and Help Save Lives

***Breast Cancer Disparities

Choices in Breast Cancer Treatment


DIET BITES

As a forty-year-old woman you don’t often feel that a second lease on life is attainable. As a forty-year-old woman struggling to get up the stairs because of an excess 70 pounds around my middle I knew this just wasn’t an option. I had to turn my thinking around completely and gear up for the greatest challenge of my life as I faced the fact that I was overweight and unhealthy.--Tosca Reno

Weight loss remains a tough nut to crack, but with the right match between program and person, the right social support system, a level of determination and commitment, it can be done.--Jonny Bowden

33 percent of Americans – some 71 million people – are on a diet.--Wendy Chant

When weight loss is rapid, there are even more negative effects on body. Sometimes this is only noticed later, after weight loss stops and you hit a plateau.--Cathy Wong

Did you know that your diet may contribute more to global warming than your car does?--Sally Kneidel

Learning to think like a thin person involves a retraining of the brain known as Cognitive Therapy--Judith Beck




THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION:

   WHAT REALLY MATTERS?


The Debate--What Did You See?

The Debates--Will There Be Assurance?


What Do Barack Obama And John McCain Have In Common?

Who Will Be Our Visionary Leader?

Primary Care Crisis Will Doom Universal Coverage And You

Presidential Candidates On Long Term Care

Why We Can't Conserve Our Way Out of High Gas Prices

Who Will Write Our New Energy Laws?

Climate Change: A New President's Challenge

Political Promises, Healthcare, and Our Big Fat American Diet

Yin, Yang, Yikes, and Yuck!  May the Final Campaign Begin

Turning The Nation Around: From The Bottom Up

Social Security Retirement Age to Climb

Can Obama Save The Endangered Species Act?

With Gustav Republicans And Democrats Show Their True Colors

Conservative Women May Decide The Outcome of the U.S. Election

Why Obama Beat The Clintons

Where The Presidential Candidates Stand on Social Security And Medicare

Obama-Biden '08: Sounds Like "No We Can't"

Obama's Next Challenge--Going From "Yes We Can" To "Yes We Will"

She Was No Michelle O

On Presidential Candidates And National Conventions--Who Do YOU Trust?

Carpooling With Barack Obama


Who Will Be President For 1,460 Days?

Poll Speculating On Presidential Politics: How To Pick A Winner

The Big Night--Does Obama Need A Tune Up?

Why Are Americans Waiting For The VP Pick?

Oil Speculators And Presidential Politics


McCain, Obama, And The Politics of Homogenizing Autism

Retirement Professionals Overwhelmingly Prefer McCain To Represent Retirees' Interests

Senator McCain To Share His Cancer Plan

The Creation of The Federal Mortgage Insurance Corporation


McCain Is Clear of Skin Cancer

On The Eve of a New Election--Former Vice President Al Gore Leads The Way Forward 

Candidates For President Speak Up On Cancer

Barack Obama's Wholly Un-American Speech

Campaign '08 And The Politics of Meaning


"We" An Idea Whose Time Has Come

How Much Would Universal Coverage Cost Us?

Barack Obama Dares Us To Recover

Who's Winning The Race Online?



FUTURE FEATURES

Charles Barber

Jonny Bowden

Kate Bracy

Eric Braverman

Brenda Della Casa

Maynard S. Clark

Glenn Croston

Julie Gabriel

Mark Goulston

Trisha Gura

Jessie Gruman

Nancy Grant

Mark Hyman

Annabel Karmel

Dean Karnazes

Shobha S. Krishnan

Matthew Lesko

Davis Liu

Brian Moore

Michael Ozner

Steve Parker

Alex Pattakos

Lucy Puryear

Mark Reinfeld

Arthur Rosenfeld

Stacey Rubin

Fritz Scheffel

Tracey Seaman

David Servan-Schreiber

Tanya Steel

Julie K. Silver



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Blog Action Day (October 15th) is an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. Our aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.  This year's theme is Poverty and its ensuing repercussions.  Basil & Spice authors will proudly participate in this worldwide awareness effort.




HOT REVIEWS

Coming Up:
Chicken Soup for the Soul: Divorce & Recovery
Prisoners of Our Thoughts
Unexpected Blessings




Robin Roberts's Eight Rules to Live By

Mark Goulston's The 6 Secrets of a Lasting Relationship

Marisa Weiss and Isabel Friedman's Taking Care of Your Girls

Dawn Jackson Blatner's The Flexitarian Diet

Julie K. Silver's What Helped Get Me Through

Amy Weschler's The Mind-Beauty Connection

Barry Sears's Toxic Fat: When Good Fat Turns Bad

Sloan Barnett's Green Goes With Everything

Jenny McCarthy's Mother Warriors

Kenneth Bock's Healing the New Childhood Epidemics: Autism, ADHD, Asthma, and Allergies

Carolyn Bernstein's The Migraine Brain

Eric Braverman's Younger You

David Servan-Schreiber's Anticancer: A New Way of Life

Newt Gingrich's Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less

Suzanne Somers's BreakThrough

Woodson Merrell's The Source

Lisa Lillien's Hungry Girl

Jennifer McCann's Vegan Lunch Box

Jessica Seinfeld's Deceptively Delicious

Tosca Reno's Eat Clean Diet Cookbook

Dean Ornish's The Spectrum

Oz Garcia's Redesigning 50

Khaliah Ali's  Fighting Weight

Nicholas Perricone's Ageless Face, Ageless Mind

Martha Stout's Paranoia Switch

Patrick Walsh's Guide to Surviving Prostate Cancer

Peter Walsh--Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat?

David Zinczenko's Eat This Not That For Kids

David Zinczenko's Eat This Not That

Manny Alvarez's The Hot Latin Diet

Children's Nutrition Books

Kerry and Chris Shook's One Month to Live

Julie K. Silver's Super Healing

Mark Ukra's The Ultimate Tea Diet

Greg Isaac's 10,000 Steps A Day
« The Back Room Kids: Shame, Guilt, And The Autism Myth | Main | Do You Label Your Children? »
Tuesday
22Jul

Autism: A New Cultural Competency

William Stillman is a nationally recognized autism self-advocate, speaker, and author of numerous special needs  parenting books including Demystifying the Autistic Experience, The Everything Parent's Guide to Children with Asperger's Syndrome, Autism and the God Connection, and The Soul of Autism. Stillman has advocated for persons with different ways of being since 1987, and he serves on several advisory boards including Autism National Committee. He also writes columns for The Autism Perspective and Children of the New Earth magazines. In his work, Stillman seeks to passionately transform perceptions of autism from those defined as "afflicted sufferers" to those with valuable gifts to offer the world. His Web site is www.williamstillman.com.

William Stillman--

           As an adult on the autism spectrum, it is with frustrating frequency that I grapple with the misunderstanding and misinterpretation of my words and deeds; some, it seems, always rush to judgment and presume the worst in me when the exact opposite is true: I usually act out of consideration and selflessness in deference of others. It is this near-daily confluence (or clash) of ideals that can be absolutely maddening to me. And because of my forthrightness, it is a similar mindset that spurs my inability to reconcile disingenuous, duplicitous or deceptive behavior in others. I say what I mean, and mean what I say—shouldn’t everyone do the same?

            So, in recent weeks, when I’ve seen national news stories about children with autism being excluded from church, removed from airplanes, and kicked out of restaurants for “autistic behavior,” I presume—not the worst—but a conflict in neurodiversity, a lack of autism cultural competency, at the root of such incidents. This culminated perhaps most succinctly when it was brought to my attention that a radio talk show host referred to autism as a hoax, a fraudulent excuse for bad parenting, and concluded that children with autism are “brats” and “idiots.”

            You can only know what you know—until you know better, or differently. And ignorance need not hold negative connotations if one endeavors a greater appreciation and respect. Autism is oftentimes an invisible disability, meaning, many of us get by, blend, and “pass” for normal because there’s nothing particularly telling about our outward appearance at first glance. It is obvious when someone is physically compromised because they are blind, deaf, or use a wheelchair—it’s visible and tangible, and, in observation, we are more likely to make compassionate accommodations. So when a child melts down in the middle of the mall, screaming and thrashing, it may not be unreasonable that the average layperson leap to conclusions not unlike the radio talk show host.

            Here’s where autism cultural competency comes into play. A grossly overlooked and disregarded nuance of the autistic experience is the acute, overwhelming, and oftentimes painful sensory sensitivities experienced by the vast majority of autistics. For example, I filter out nothing and absorb everything around me, just like a sponge. There’s very little that escapes my attention, from the distant cries of an uncomfortable infant to the whirring of an overhead ventilation system to the sudden shock of a nearby stranger’s cell phone setting off. It can be exhausting to endure. Most neuro-typical or average persons automatically and naturally discard such superfluous sensory information and are unbothered by it. However, I can appreciate how the autistic child could overreact to a shrill church choir or pipe-organ ballistics; the blaring aircraft intercom that makes you want to jump out of your skin, though you must remain restrained in your seat; or the cacophony of voices, clattering cutlery, and swell of food aromas in a neighborhood restaurant.

            The obvious response to such sensory sensitivities to is compel someone, through myriad means (like force), to be less sensitive; to “snap out of it” and conjoin with the real world. My reply is to suggest, “What do you think I’m doing every time I step outside my front door?” The world hurts. Yet I don’t want to be less sensitive than I am. It serves me in my work as a consultant specializing in interpreting autistic hieroglyphics. Whereas neuro-typical professionals require hours of data collection, assessments, and observation time, I need ten minutes or less in the presence of the autistic one to know precisely how to counsel his parents and educators in autism cultural competency; that is, fostering an appreciation for the autistic experience from the inside out. Oftentimes, I can intuit this information simply from looking at the child’s photograph—now that’s sensitive. My intuition never fails me. And I wouldn’t want it weaned out of me either. It has value and purpose.           

            Understanding autism cultural competency includes making compassionate accommodations when and where possible in consideration of someone’s sensory sensitivities. This requires not only awareness but compromise. I know of parents who insist that their children with autism go to Disney World though each child clearly protests while there—further stigmatizing others’ perceptions of the autistic “brat” when, in fact, the behavior is clearly communicating, “I’m in pain and don’t want to be here!”

            I encourage parents, instead, to focus on prevention instead of intervention; partnering with their children well in advance of an activity or an environment to equip the very sensitive one with strategies, techniques, and devices to pull it off and get through it as successfully as possible, averting the assaultive irritants that conspire their undoing. And I implore the average onlooker not to jump to hasty and judgmental conclusions but to believe that we all have good reasons for doing what we’re doing, and we all are doing the very best we know how to on the spot and in the moment—even the child who outwardly appears to be the product of “bad parenting.”        

 © 2008, William Stillman

Just In From William Stillman>>

The Back Room Kids: Shame, Guilt, And The Autism Myth

Everyone Has Autism

The Real Autism Epidemic


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Reader Comments (8)

Hi William, thanks for this wonderful post. I'd just like to add that those intense tantrums can be caused not only by sensory issues, but also by the child being somewhat "stuck" in an idea, upset because he/she cannot change the situation to conform to the way things "have to be". In my son's case, rigidity and inflexibility is the main challenge, along with learning language. Even though the reasons for his tantrums may appear silly to other people, his suffering is real. So I do wish that society becomes more aware of autism and understanding when they see a child behaving in what appears to be an "unreasonable" way. The parents are working very hard to help the child sort things out. Telling the kid to "cut it out" or slap him like in the old days won't do.
July 24, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterLeila
Leila, thank you for your very thoughtful commentary. Yes, I agree wholeheartedly that there may be many issues coming to bear upon someone's autistic experience beyond acute sensory sensitivities (which is why I qualified it in my piece by suggesting that understanding "includes" sensory, implying not exclusive to). I am grateful for your parental perspective.
Isn't curious that what's called for is simply acquiescing our own agendas and compelling ourselves to be more sensitive---to listen more carefully with our ears as well as our eyes?
July 24, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterWilliam Stillman
As a mother of a 10-year old son with PDD_NOS who was not diagnosed early on but at the age of 9, I can totally identify with the sensory experiences. My son could not stand loud noises. In school he had to wear some big headphones to lunch because the score board in the gym was used for the bell. I took him to an indoor circus once and he did not want no part of it. Our family had gone to NBA and MLB games and the fireworks or a loud halftime show would absolutely upset him. His father would often take him out of the area during loud times. We went to a concert once and he spent most of the time walking around the outside of the Xcel Energy Center walking all thelevels but at least he got to meet Kenny Chesney. My husband had no idea who he was, but my son did.
My son also has a fascination with the PBS character "Thomas" and the trains. We lived in a trailer and he would build a carnival in the living room put the tracks all the way down the hall along with VHS cassettes and then build another carnival in our bedroom. I'm just glad there are sites like this where I can read and see there are families like ours going through this.
July 24, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterLorelei
Lorelei, thank you for taking the time to tell of your exquisitely sensitive son, and for validating my compassionate plea for understanding.
July 24, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterWilliam Stillman
Hi. I listen to Mike Savage every day. I know he can be a jerk, and rude at times, but ultimatly he tells it like it is. He is not afraid to go up against the big drug companies who are the real villiens here in my humble opinion. There is a pill for every thing. That is the message he wants to convey. Back in the sixties when I was a young child, the school wanted to put me on Ritlen because I was so hyper and unfocused. I threw fits and melted down on a regular basis. I remember my father telling me that I could not be taken any where becaus of my out of control behavior. I could talk and did so whith ferver. Was I autistic? No.I was never diagnosed, but I can asure I am not autistic eventhougth I would be by todays standards . I say what I mean and mean what I say, I tell it like it is, and I find that ofends most people who are insincere. I have more compassion and empathy then the average person so it seems. I spent my early adult life hanging with people who did not have my best interest at heart so I would not be alone. I was always a loner as a child,because other childern could not understand me. I was continually at odds with every one. I threw fits and generally was very hard to controll or take out in public. I was kicked out of camp, and left alone at school.My adult life has not been much better allthough I don,t throw tantrums in public any more. I still prefer my own company rather then spend time with shallow fair weather friends. I am perfectly fine with being social, I just don,t need to be. I was a brat a lot of the time. I wanted things my way or I was going to throw a fit. I did get disiplend, and I am not sure that is the right thing either, because it made me angry. But in this day and age there are a lot of parents who would rather have a magic pill, then take responsibility to research the diagnosis a little more.Thats really all Mike was saying. So what label should me and kids like me, have? Because not all misunderstood,emotionaly chalenged childern are autistic or add hdda or whatever other kind of labeling are they? I mean I had a fastination with my stick horse, and I would run around with a towl in my pants for a tail and whinny pretending I was a pony. I would pretend all kinds of things and I used my imagination. Something I don,t see many childern doing these days. I became an adult and I now take responsibility for my self completly. Not down playing real autisum. Just giving another picture. Should I have been labled Autistic?
July 25, 2008 | Unregistered Commentershel
Shel, I appreciate your comments and your forthright honesty in disclosing very personal information about your own history. Knowledge is power, and if there are elements of the autistic experience that make sense for you, use it; but use it to your positive advantage to further your understanding. If I could concur with Mr. Savage on any point, it would be that autism is very much a multi-billion dollar industry.
July 25, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterWilliam Stillman
AT LAST!!!! Someone who advocates more tolerance and less diagnosis and labeling for those with autism spectrum disorders! I believe that we need to significantly expand our concept of what is considered "normal" behavior, and to simply accept that not everyone behaves or thinks as we (or anyone else) does. One man's conformity is another man's madness, and one man's normal is another man's eccentricity.
September 18, 2008 | Unregistered Commenterlisa
I like the way you think, Lisa! Thank you.
September 18, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterWilliam Stillman

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