The Problem With Curing Autism

One of the things which has been bumping around in my head the last week has to do with the autism story that went through the media last week.  The sum of the story is that a research study suggests that for some people, autism is a diagnosis they can lose.  That they can grow out of autism.

One of the articles I read (but have lost) made reference to patients who "no longer met the clinical diagnosis of Autism."  This caused me some thought.

The problem is that autism is, currently, a diagnosis made through the accumulation of certain numbers of behavioral symptoms.  There is no arbitrary mechanical test, through blood or DNA or pathogen detection, that can arbitrarily draw the line between autistic and non-autistic.  Treatment, therefore is about teaching autistic people how to deal with their natural tendencies to replace unhelpful behaviors with more productive substitutes.

The problem is: if you have masked a behavioral symptom to the point that the behavior is not detected, have you actually cured anything?

Consider an amputee.  You can replace the missing limb with a prosthetic with such quality that to the casual observer there is no difference between the amputee and a non-amputee.  However you have not actually solved the underlying problem: there is a missing natural limb.

Similarly, giving autistic people coping mechanisms is useful, but it isn't actually curing anything, and until we really understand the underlying biological pathology and can take steps that cause real change in that pathology, we can't claim to be curing autism.

Humour

Today's Penny Arcade is on The Big Bang Theory.  (Well OK its more about some kind of game with The Big Bang Theory thrown in as a punchline, but work with me here.)

I know more than one person who watched an episode of Big Bang Theory and at some point said something along the lines of "I know it's funny, but I'm uncomfortable laughing at myself."

Sheldon is an exaggerated parody, but many of his foibles are based in real life tendencies.

Responsibility

I'm going to attribute this to Martin Luther King, but I may be wrong:

"One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law."

Most "activists" today seem to want to weasel out of the penalties for breaking the laws, to hide from the consequences.

If the crime is unjust, fight the crime.  But if you do the crime, do the time.  Take responsibility.  Stand up in a court of law and say, "yes, I did that."

(Inspired by seeing the quote here.)

And Hey

...it only took me an hour to figure out how to automatically share my blogger postings with Google Plus.

Of course that's because I'm an idiot, not because it's not intuitive in any way.

Google Plus Content

Dear Google,

The reason why nobody is using Google Plus is because there's nobody else using Google Plus. And the reason why nobody is using Google Plus is because there's no content in Google Plus. And the reason why there's no content in Google Plus is because A) there's no audience for directly-created content and B) there's no easy way to add other content creation feeds that people are creating anyways.

Take Facebook. I don't use Facebook. I don't like Facebook. But there are a couple of people out there who do use Facebook, but don't use Twitter. For whatever reason. However, I can add my Twitter content to my Facebook content. Now, I'm generating Facebook content, which encourages people to interact with me, which encourages me to check Facebook periodically. Now I'm technically a Facebook user. All because I'm able to send my Twitter content (which is easy for me to generate) to Facebook. I win, the people who only use Facebook win, and Facebook wins.

Who's missing from this discussion? Google Plus.

I'm a Twitter user. That's where I am today. That's where the bulk of my audience is, and where I can arrange things so that the rest of my audience can find things (ie: Facebook integration).

But since I can't even get my Twitter content added to Google Plus, I can't even get my foot in the door. Or you can't get my foot in the door, to mangle the metaphor.

So: if you make it easy for me to add my already-created content to my Google Plus feed, my feed will start having more regularly generated fresh content. Which increases the likelihood that people will read it here. Which increases the likelihood that I'll be back here to interact with them.

Which increases the amount of time I'm back here using it.

Which means: you'd win.

So in conclusion: make it easy for the content I'm generating anyways to get added to the content my Google Plus followers can see. And maybe, just maybe, there'll be people using Google Plus.

But if you don't make it easy for me, I'm not going to do it.

Love,
Me.

(Originally posted on Google Plus.)

Wordpress Fail, A Continuing Series

I know blogger gets no respect, but blogger doesn't do this: http://www.leancrew.com/all-this/2012/12/wordpress-3-5-and-the-deathly-auto-embeds/

(Found in my drafts folder which is why it's getting thrown up now.)

The Obvious Joke

Thought it would be funny to capture my updated avatar picture with the hemochromitosis announcement.  I don't think I'll stick with that avatar for long, but I think it is a good joke for a short term.

I waited something like three weeks to post that joke, waiting on the blood test results.