[prmenrs]

My thought was that the "retards" invective referred to himself!

These are some of the comments on the article:
http://www.heraldextra.com/component...mf/topic,21735

This one in particular struck me: http://www.heraldextra.com/component...83035#msg83035 .

There seems to be plenty of blame to go around. Some of Galbraith's comments are particularly ignorant. Makes you wonder how things would be if HE had a child similarly affected! I'll bet he would have abandoned the family completely. (I'm a big believer in the "there but for the Grace of God go I" philosophy.)

I can only hope the judge is creative in his/her decision(s). If it were me, I'd make both parties endeavour to expand their POV a LOT!!

[mercyteapot]

I wish this article would have gone into more depth about why this guy was acquited on the charge of aggravated assault. I know someone I'd like to bean in the head with a baseball right about now.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061012/...eaning_charges

UNIONTOWN, Pa. - A youth baseball coach accused of offering an 8-year-old money to bean an autistic teammate so he couldn't play was sentenced Thursday to one to six years in prison.

Fayette County Judge Ralph Warman sentenced 29-year-old Mark R. Downs Jr. of Dunbar, Pa. to consecutive six-to-36-month sentences for corruption of minors and criminal solicitation to commit simple assault. A jury convicted Downs in September. Warman revoked Downs' bond and sent him to prison.

Downs didn't speak at the sentencing but told reporters "I didn't do nothing" as he was led out of the courtroom.

[canoehead]

Re the sticky issue;

Stickies are used so often they are almost meaningless. What about a search instead- if we sticky autism, will we be stickying every disease that a member has? How about a sticky forum so the most popular topics are all in one place?

[mercyteapot]

Originally Posted by canoehead

Re the sticky issue;

Stickies are used so often they are almost meaningless. What about a search instead- if we sticky autism, will we be stickying every disease that a member has? How about a sticky forum so the most popular topics are all in one place?

Well, considering that it has been a sticky for a while and I think this is only post #12 or #13, there shouldn't be too many worries about overuse. This certainly wouldn't make it on to any popular topic forum. Now that it is established, I don't think it would be fair to withdraw the sticky.

[Noahm]

My little 6 year old boy has aspergers and ? semantic pragmatic language disorder. He is really bright and sweet. He doesn't wander around or go into people's houses but he talks non-stop about Nintendo and Math to the point that anyone around him wants to run for the hills. We just love him to pieces. I am started to get worried about bullying. He came home the other day covered in yoghurt and said that someone grabbed his lunch and threw it at him.

[mercyteapot]

Originally Posted by Noahm

My little 6 year old boy has aspergers and ? semantic pragmatic language disorder. He is really bright and sweet. He doesn't wander around or go into people's houses but he talks non-stop about Nintendo and Math to the point that anyone around him wants to run for the hills. We just love him to pieces. I am started to get worried about bullying. He came home the other day covered in yoghurt and said that someone grabbed his lunch and threw it at him.

I'm so sorry that happened to your son. Here it seems like the little kids are less likely to bully. Fortunately, our school district has kept a pretty good handle on that and my son has never had any major problems, but I do have friends whose kids have struggled with bullies. May I suggest that you be proactive and talk to the school about this sooner rather than later? I know you don't want this situation to escalate.

My son used to talk about Pokemon so much that I wanted to curl into a fetal position and shut the world out! He has gone through a few different stages... Rumble Robots, Harry Potter, Nintendo, video games in general and computers, but far and away the worst was the Pokemon talk! When he was old enough to understand, the pediatrician suggested setting a timer and saying when it went off, ''ok, time to put Rumble Robot talk away for a little bit and talk about _________ (fill in the blank, it could our day, what's for dinner, homework, whatever, but the idea was to give him time to talk freely about his obsession but help him understand that other people had things they wanted to talk about and do, too.)

[Jolie]

[quote=Noahm I am started to get worried about bullying. He came home the other day covered in yoghurt and said that someone grabbed his lunch and threw it at him. [/QUOTE]


This absolutely makes my blood boil! What teacher, lunchroom supervisor, or principal would leave a little one in soiled clothes for 1/2 of a school day?

It sounds like your school staff needs a serious talking-to about decent treatment of ANY child, but especially a special-needs child who is likely to be the target of teasing and bullying.

No matter how his clothes became soiled, your son should have been allowed to change. Our school has a closet of donated clothes for just this purpose. If no clean clothing was available, they should have called you to bring some. By leaving him in wet clothes, they may as well have painted a target on his back.

[mercyteapot]

Originally Posted by Jolie

This absolutely makes my blood boil! What teacher, lunchroom supervisor, or principal would leave a little one in soiled clothes for 1/2 of a school day?

It sounds like your school staff needs a serious talking-to about decent treatment of ANY child, but especially a special-needs child who is likely to be the target of teasing and bullying.

No matter how his clothes became soiled, your son should have been allowed to change. Our school has a closet of donated clothes for just this purpose. If no clean clothing was available, they should have called you to bring some. By leaving him in wet clothes, they may as well have painted a target on his back.

Plus, he went without any lunch! You have to wonder at what the school was thinking, but then we don't know how schools are over there. I don't know your age, but when I was growing up, the attitude was very much ''kids will be kids'' (although there were also clothes to change into when such things happened.) Maybe this was leftover lunch and the incident happened after school?

[Halinja]

My boy is 20 now. When he was first diagnosed, no one in the school district knew what asperger was. Even when he was in high school, with an IEP, the teachers just couldn't seem to understand that he wasn't being the way he was just to annoy them, or challenge their authority. Sigh.

And his worse incident was a kid rocking him, one of which landed in an extremely sensitive area. The kid was suspended, then had a 'keeper' for a month, an aide that followed him everywhere to make sure he didn't do anything else to anyone. (my son wasn't the only one he tormented)

[33-weeker]

Two of my three children have a high-functioning form of autism. (PDD-NOS, for those in the know) I'm not sure what a 'sticky' is, but I guess I'm game.

As to the story about problems in the neighborhood... My son is more affected than his older sister. If you'll pardon the description - he's a bit more 'rain man-ish' than she, although he does show affection.

Last year, we spent about a week and a half tearing out the carpet in our great room and replacing it with tile. We did it in stages and had to move the furniture around each time. My son started running away.

Kids like this do not deal well with changes in their routine or environment. He shut down and became almost non-verbal. He would escape and wander off a few blocks. Thank goodness I had taught him how to watch for cars! We had to put new locks all around and keep the keys on our person. We couldn't even let him in the back yard. He could open the gate and climb the fence.

A neighborhood cop, who apparently knows nothing about Autism (he had to ask me how to spell it for his report), was rude and threatening to me. The neighbors have been somewhat helpful and tolerant (he didn't go in anyone's house), but I see the looks we get. They don't understand entirely either.

This year, when I remodeled the boys' room from floor to ceiling, I began preparing him a couple of months ahead of time. He was anxious the first night when we didn't get done in time to put their new bed together - but he was relieved when I told him he could sleep with us. The next night he was thrilled. His teacher said he was excited and talked to her about his new room quite often for a time after that.

Anyhow, it seems people who don't live or work with these kids just don't understand.