SOME THOUGHTS ON AUTISM

by Ray Ferris

In today’s post, my friend Ray Ferris offers a cautionary and common sense glance at Autism. You may concur with his observations or you may challenge an aspect of the piece. Leave a comment.

“Derek Hoare rightly reminded us the other day that there is no precise definition of autism. It is a description of a spectrum of symptoms, which may have a number of possible causes. Most of the suggested causes are speculative. In the field of autism, as with many other areas of psychology, there are numerous experts with special theories. There are numerous experts who have their own special theories about how to treat autism. So we find that we are in a subjective and speculative minefield, which can completely confuse the parents of a child who has been labelled autistic. Thus it is important to know what we can really rely on and what we cannot.

TELLING YOU WHAT TO DO / Part 417 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

There is a nuance to child protection and perhaps to a wider array of social services amongst us that disturbs me. I speak of the notion that MCFD must seek to make people better than they are by making them to fit standards established by others, namely MCFD or directors and social workers. Where once paternalism compelled or manipulated you to conform to something, a slight change has occurred, in that standards are being imposed upon people. Any parent whose child has been removed can tell us this. The threat is real.

This tendency among social work theorists, teachers, administrators and practitioners is born from wrong-headed thinking in behavioural sciences. Of course people everywhere act imperfectly now and again or frequently, even as a common pattern. Here then comes that paternalism about which I wrote yesterday, that has presumed that it must intervene in order to help people to be better. And if a child's lot in life can be better by removing them from an indigent parent, or the parent with few resources, so be it. Or if a parent can be better by the shock of having his or her child removed for six months, so be it. You don't think social work is done that way? Are you completely certain? How else can you explain the intrusiveness with which MCFD conducts its agenda. And what kind of trouble are we in or asking for if the very people who legislate, make policy, do the social work, practice law or make legal decisions are as imperfect as the people they are attempting to improve? That is a scenario fraught with risk of injustice. Well guess what? Injustice is here and has touched and is touching countless numbers of parents, children and family.

This Blog has been advocating the return of three children to their biological parents, Paul and Zabeth Bayne, for which a ruling is expected from Judge Crabtree within six days. We are that close. Stay posted.