Coping with Autism

Today, we went to the University of Virginia's Child Psychology Department to do a quick computer test for an experiment they are conducting with autistic children. The test consisted of alternating screens of nine pictures-- eight of different kinds of frogs and one of a snake. The boys were asked to identify the snake on each screen. Then the pictures would shuffle changing their location on the screen and the type of snake shown. Nathan decided he didn't want to do it after a couple of screeens. Peter was able to complete the experiment but every three screens was rewarded with being able to open and close the door to the room (he was very stressed by the new location and opened and closed doors repeatedly when we got there). Peter got a few screens wrong and instead of a snake picked a frog. But I noticed that he was trying to do the screens really fast and some of the frog colors (particularly red) resembled the pictures of the snakes with the same colors if you just glanc...

I just posted this on my political blog. And although I generally try not to mix the content or purpose of the two blogs, today I feel I must: I just received an e-mail from someone at Britannica Blog who thought I would be interested in a recent post on autism and presidential politics. She was right. I have to say that although my focus on this [my political] blog is more traditional right to life issues, there is a convergence for me on autism, the right to life and the elections. Let me explain-- Autism is not a condition that can be screened for before birth. That said, I have seen some pretty obnoxious comments on the internet. Things along the lines of "if these people know their kid is going to have a disability, why don't they have an abortion?" My concern is that most insurance companies in a vast majority of states (last I checked, 42 of them) do NOT cover therapy for children with autism. Our insurance company does but that's because the employer is based...