Development of Autism Research

Development of Autism Research Fighting the Monster By writing a book called Infantile Autism, a Navy psychologist named Bernard Rimland established autism as an inborn condition rather than bad parenting. The books popularity inspired him to launch the National Society for Autistic Children (NSAC). By forming an alliance and reaching out to parents, he gave the parents in his network a sense of hope and progress at a time when there was virtually no research in the field, setting the stage for the surge of interest in autism research. Bernard Rimland was born in Cleveland in 1928, the son of Russian Jewish parents who emigrated after World War I. When he was twelve, his family relocated to San Diego, California. He got a bachelors degree in experimental psychology from San Diego State University in 1950 and earned his masters degree a year later. He met Gloria Alf, a Jewish girl from the neighborhood, and got married before heading east to Penn State to earn his doctorate. After completing his degree at Penn State, Rimland was hired as the director of research at the new naval base in San Diego. Their son, Mark, was born in the spring of 1956. But something was drastically wrong with Mark and it was only much later that his condition was determined to be early infantile autism. Besides reading everything he could on the subject, Rimland wrote a letter to Kanner in 1959 describing his sons behavior and announcing his intention to write a paper on the subject. After five years of research, Rimland published his book Infantile Autism: The Syndrome and Its Implications for a Neural Theory of Behavior in 1964, featuring an introduction by Kanner. The crux of the book was that autism is primarily a product of genetic inheritance rather than family dynamics. At one point, he even referred to Asperger syndrome without explaining it. He suggested that in some cases the syndrome was caused by unknown environmental factors acting upon a genetic predisposition. He speculated that parents who tend to be gifted in certain fields pass this vulnerability down to their children along with the genetic factors for high intelligence. This hypothesis would fall into disrepute in the 1970s as studies by Michael Rutter and others proved that autism does not discriminate by IQ or educational level and is equally prevalent across all socioeconomic strata. Rimland wanted the diagnosis to be strictly defined so that autism would turn out to be a metabolic dysfunction akin to phenylketonuria (PKU) that could be averted with a dietary intervention. PKU is a rare genetic disorder due to a gene mutation that impairs the metabolism of the amino acid phenylalanine. Untreated PKU can lead to behavioral problems, seizures, intellectual disability, and mental disorder. To facilitate autism research, Rimland included in the book a questionnaire called the Diagnostic Check List for Behavior-Disturbed Children (Form E-1), designed as a template for clinicians to copy and give to parents. After the book came out, Rimland unexpectedly received piles of completed E-1 forms. He followed up with the parents by telephone after scoring the checklist with a proprietary algorithm. He was so gregarious and empathetic to the parents that he became Uncle Bernie to a generation of families. In the second edition of his book, he included a revised version of the checklist called the E-2 designed for the parents to send to Rimland directly. His questionnaires had planted the seeds of a revolution. *** In the 1960s, most psychologists in America were still convinced that autistic kids were constitutionally incapable of learning. But a professor in the Psychology department of the UCLA named Ole Ivar Lovaas thought otherwise. Ole Ivar Lovaas was born in Norway in 1927. He and his family were forced to work as migrant laborers when the Nazis occupied Norway in June 1940. After the war ended, Lovaas was allowed to immigrate to the United States on the strength of his violin playing. He got a music scholarship at Luther College in Iowa and earned his bachelors degree in a year. Then he talked his way into the graduate program in psychology at the University of Washington in Seattle. He didnt want to become a psychoanalyst because he had lost patience with the speculations of theory-based psychiatry, so he focused on lab research. After earning his doctorate at the University of Washington, Lovaas stayed in Seattle, teaching and conducting research at the Child Development Institute near the university. At the institute, he experienced that improving the language skills of children with developmental delays might help them control their problematic behavior. He was also influenced by a psychologist at Indiana University named Charles Ferster who proposed that parents had inadvertently conditioned their children to be more and more autistic by rewarding their misbehavior with doting attention. In 1961, he accepted a position as an assistant professor in the psychology department at UCLA. In his first year on the job, the Clinic referred only one child to his lab: a nine-year-old girl named Beth who spoke mostly in echolalia and bore scars all over from banging herself against walls and furniture. Luvaas outfitted a suite of rooms with one-way mirrors, hidden microphones, and a push-button device that enabled his assistants to record the frequency and duration of her behaviors. He called this style of intensive intervention applied behavioral analysis, or ABA. Rimland was skeptical of the Lovaas method when he first heard about it. But he set his doubts aside and began to use the technique in training his eight-year-old autistic son. Lovaas had been thinking about inviting parents into the process because the lessons learned in ABA often didnt generalize beyond the artificial situation in the lab. The best hope for stimulating lasting behavior change was to train the children in their natural environment at home. Rimland arranged a dinner with Lovaas and a few of the couples from his network of autistic parents. Before the meal was over, they were begging Lovaas to train them in his method. By forming an alliance and reaching out directly to parents, Rimland and Lovaas had just built a shadow infrastructure for autism research in which parents, rather than medical professionals, were the ultimate authorities on their childrens well-being. *** In the fall of 1965, Rimland received a letter from Ruth Christ Sullivan, a young nurse and mother of an autistic son. Sullivan proposed forming a national group to advocate for the needs of autistic children. On November 14, 1965, Sullivan, Rimland and 60 other parents formed the National Society of Autistic Children. In the coming years, parents would launch hundreds of local NSAC chapters all over the country. By the mid-1970s, the NSAC launched a number of legislations aimed at protecting the rights of individuals with autism and mandating services for them, especially education. Autism was also included in the Developmental Disabilities Act of 1976. In 1974, by conducting thorough examinations of 78 children brought to the Childrens Brain Research Clinic in Washington by NSAC members, the clinics researchers theorized that autism is not a single clinical entity but is composed of multiple distinct subtypes. Rimland also did a groundbreaking study on savant skills based on data from his questionnaires, rediscovering the same clusters of enhanced ability in music, memory, art, science, mathematics, and technology that Asperger called autistic intelligence. Over time, the two paths represented by NSACs founders Sullivans focus on services and Rimlands search for a cure would diverge, resulting in Rimland being voted off the board of his own organization. *** Meanwhile, Lovaas was experimenting with alternating rounds of acquisition (reinforce proper behavior) and extinction (extinguish self-injurious behavior) trials on Berh. He found that she was responsive on acquisition trials, but not on extinction trials. So Lovaas sought a more expeditious solution, which was the use of punishment. Concerned that some of his techniques might seem unorthodox, Lovaas invited members of the press down to the lab to watch him in action. When the articles came out, members of the NSAC were concerned about how brutally kids were being treated at UCLA. Despite Rimlands tireless cheerleading for aversives, many NSAC parents refused to use them. Meanwhile, state hospitals across the country embraced the harsh techniques promoted by Lovaas at UCLA as a way of keeping problem patients in line. In 1988, the NSAC (now changed the name to the Autism Society of America) has passed a resolution calling for a ban on aversive techniques. But painful electric shocks are still employed to punish autistic children at an institution called the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Massachusetts, even in the face of a public outcry against their use. In the 1970s, Lovaas lent his expertise to a series of experiments called the Feminine Boy Project. The projects most celebrated success story was Kirk Andrew Murphy. Kirks was enrolled into the program at UCLA when he was five because his parents were concerned that he was exhibiting behavior that was too feminine. Lovaas worked with a graduate student named George Rekers who was Kirks behavioral therapist. Rekers and Lovaas devised a program of total immersion based on Lovaass work on autism. After sixty sessions in the lab, Rekers and Lovaas declared victory over Kirks sissy-boy behavior. Rekers went on to build a career based on the premise that homosexuality can be prevented. He became a founding member of the Family Research Council, a faith-based organization that lobbies against gay-rights issues. In the meantime, Kirk committed suicide in 2003 at age thirty-eight, following decades of depression. His parents claimed that Kirks earlier therapy had contributed to his suicide. In 2010, Rekers days as an anti-gay champion came to an end when two journalists ambushed him at the Miami airport returning from a holiday in Madrid with a hired male escort. In 1987, Lovaas claimed that nearly half of the children in an experimental group at UCLA had achieved normal intellectual functioning by undertaking intensive ABA starting at age three. Lovaass study was the breakthrough that many parents had been waiting for: empirical proof that their children could become normal given enough devotion, effort, and expense. *** In 1964, Rimland received an invitation from the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Standford University for a years fellowship in Palo Alto. There he fell under the spell of Linus Pauling, who had won two Nobel Prizes, a Nobel prize in Chemistry, and a Nobel Peace Prize. Pauling was the most prominent advocate of the notion that megadoses of Vitamin C could avert the common cold, slow the aging process, and improve mood. Paulings concept of orthomolecular psychiatry meshed perfectly with Rimlands thoughts on PKU and autism. Meanwhile, Rimland had started getting letters from parents claiming that their sons and daughters had become more calm and engaged after taking megadoses of certain nutrients, particularly vitamins B and C. After talking with doctors convinced of the therapeutic value of the megavitamin regimen, Rimland established the Institute for Child Behavior Research, later renamed the Autism Research Institute in San Diego to launch a study. But he di d not use the so-called double-blind placebo-controlled trial model in his study. Instead, he developed a home-brewed form of data analysis that he called computer clustering, an algorithmic search for clinically significant ripples in a sea of big data. With 45 percent of parents reporting that the vitamins definitely helped their children, Rimland was thrilled with the results of his experiment. But three independent analyses of his dataset revealed more problems with his design. The design of the experiment with parents as evaluators of changes in their childrens behavior was anything but blind in the statistical sense. A Navy statistician with access to the raw data concluded that no reliable information about the reaction in the vitamins by various subtypes in the sample population could be obtained by using Rimlands computer clustering scheme. Rimland was bugged by the disappointing response of his peers to his megavitamin experiment. Noting the serious side effects caused by prescription drugs, Rimland concluded that the future of his work was not to be found in conventional medicine. He would eventually encourage his parent-experimenters to try several treatments at once, making it nearly impossible to tease out the benefits and side effects of any single one. This try-everything-at-once approach gave the parents in his network a tremendous sense of hope and momentum at a time when the mainstream science of autism was at a standstill. From his office in Kensington, a suburb of San Diego, Rimland forged a productive alliance with the nineteen-year-old Steve Edelson, a psychology/sociology major in Lovaass lab. Together they wrote a book called Recovering Autistic Children that became one of the bibles of the biomedical movement. In the 1990s, they launched Defeat Autism Now! (DAN!), the network of clinicians and alt-med practitioners that Shannon Rosa turned to for advice on the GFGC diet and other treatments after Leo was diagnosed in 2002.

Antigone Foils Creon

In the play Antigone we learn about a stubborn character named Creon who is the ruler of Thebes. This ruler goes on many power trips through out the play, which end up leading to his demise. Antigone, sister of the former king Polyneices sees Creon as a man with to much power who is making poor decisions and acting against the Gods. In a face-to-face confrontation, Antigone does not back down from the powerful leader, and tells him that what he is doing is wrong. Creon, who still has too much pride, banishes her into a cave where she would be left to die. Only later does Creon realize that what she was saying was correct. He tries to fix all the mistakes he has made but is too late. Antigone is the foil to Creon because she brings out fear and many character trait flaws in the Kings personality. Creon has a major lapse in judgment when he decides to bury Antigone in a cave to die. She tells him that she does not care because she was honoring her brother. â€Å"Why the delay? There is nothing that you can say that I should wish to hear, as nothing I say can weigh with you†¦.† (Sophocles 500-7) At first, it does not seem that Creon feels bad about doing this. Later he understands that he was wrong and regrets his decisions. Antigone has a big affect on this change of heart from Creon because she truly believed  she was in the right. By believing this she forces Creon to finally notice that he was wrong, and reverses his decisions. Antigone’s suicide effects Creon as a character immensely. It is her suicide that causes Heamon to stab himself. â€Å"Who is dead, and by what hand? Heamon is dead, slain by his own father. His father? His own hand. His father‘s act it was that drove him to it.† (1171-77 Sophocles) This later also leads to Eurydice’s suicide at the end of the play. Through Antigone’s actions, Creon is extremely effected. As a character, these events change the way Creon thinks about what he has done. â€Å"There is no man can bear this guilt but I. It is true, I killed him. Lead me away, away. I live no longer† (1323-29 Sophocles) Antigone convinces Creon that he is not a God, and that going against the Gods is a bad idea. â€Å"Yes. That order did not come from God. Justice, that dwells with the Gods below, knows no such law†¦.†(Sophocles 450-69) Antigone fights with all she has, and finally brings Creon to the realization that what he has done was wrong. When Creon realizes that Polyneices body is unburied, and that he has not given a proper burial to the 5 chieftains, he recognizes that this will upset anger the Gods considerably. She helps him realize his fault by having a reckless attitude, this shows Creon that she will not go down without a fight. She makes one last plea to the Gods by attempting to put a curse on him. I believe this scares Creon later and is one of the main reasons why he tries to reverse the decisions he’s made in the end. Creon gives the harsh penalty of not burying the dead Polyneices which is the ultimate punishment. Antigone’s plea to show Creon that what he has done is wrong is ery evident at this point. â€Å"So to my grave, My bridal-bower, my everlasting prison, I go those many of my kinsmen who dwell in the mansion†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Sophocles 892-919) Antigone believes that the God, along with her brother would be proud of what she has done. At first, Creon is to stubborn to listen to what she is saying. He later realizes that many of the things she said were right. Antigone’s influence on Creon’s mind ultimately cause a change of heart. Without her this would not have happened. Without Antigone, Creon’s fears and character flaws would not have been exposed. Creon’s stubborn attitude and unwillingness to listen to others is his ultimate downfall. If he would have took Antigone’s advice earlier, there is a chance he would not have lost everything that was important to him.

An Analysis of Julia Alvarez’s Poem, “Touching Bottom” Essay

In the poem’s first stanza, Alvarez says, â€Å"Sometimes the best advice comes randomly†Ã¢â‚¬â€but without intent, how can it be advice? Perhaps good advice consists simply of one’s own ideas, rendered into words by another and recognized by the self as something true. If we go by this definition, then the random pieces of advice are, indeed, good advice. She is thus saying that some of the best â€Å"advice† is recognized by the self and in the self, and not merely received from others. Such advice is possibly worth more than any intentional directive, because the meaning of the advice is something that one makes for oneself. Alvarez implies that good advice is abundant, but requires some recognizing—which is what she does. To be able to give good advice, a person must think like the recipient of the advice, and who better to think like the recipient than the recipient herself? Alvarez creates remarkable associations in her mind between randomly heard directives and the troubles of her life; she is actually both the giver and the receiver of the random â€Å"advice†, and whoever (or whatever) â€Å"gave† her the advice only has an intermediary role. These random pieces of advice are nothing like what we usually conceive advice to be, but are simply reminders of things that she already knew. Thus these random pieces of advice that she recognizes are essentially advice that she gives to herself. In the second stanza, Alvarez talks of the power of these random bits of wisdom. She realizes that â€Å"a minotaur of your own making†Ã¢â‚¬â€that is, self-imposed limitations—puts the mind into a certain degree of paralysis, and that randomly received advice, in their simplicity, have the power to awaken an awareness of truisms deeply buried in the subconscious. Alvarez in essence, is talking about the â€Å"shock of recognition† that she experiences when she hears these random bits of meaning. It takes these to remind her of her own good ideas that she may have unintentionally discarded into the â€Å"dark labyrinth† of her mind. Additionally, Alvarez implicitly contrasts her random bits of â€Å"advice† with true advice intentionally given by others—too often, such advice is derived from the experiences of the giver and not the receiver. The poem, because of its focus on â€Å"accidental† advice, reminds us of the tendency of people to ignore intentionally given advice, no matter how good, because advice is usually given based on the perceived needs of the recipient; although these needs are often misidentified. This contrasts with her accidental bits of advice, which by their very nature are good and well received. The random advice that Alvarez hears makes her capable of   â€Å"touching bottom.† Although â€Å"touching bottom† in general usage has the negative meaning of reaching the lowest point of something (such as when a company goes bankrupt), what she means by having â€Å"touched bottom in my life† is that she realized and recognized the basic and most important aspects of her life. The examples that she gives of these bits of advice, such as â€Å"Please hold through the silence† (which she is able to connect to her problem of writer’s block) are of secondary importance, serving only to illustrate and strengthen the poem’s main point, which is that one needs only to look into the self to find wisdom.

Benjamin FranklinS Contributions To The American History

Benjamin Franklin s contributions to the American history Benjamin Franklin has a significant impact to the American Revolution and the building of a new nation. His brilliant inventions throughout his life made a significant impact on the United States and will be remembered for them in U.S history. Franklin had inventions like the Franklins stove, and the lightning rod, he also discovered electricity. His inventions and discoveries have changed lives from the first day it was introduced. Without Benjamin Franklin’s contributions, times would be different today. (Thesis) Franklin’s contribution from the past has made an impact on U.S history that would always be remembered. Speaking of Benjamin Franklin, he was born January 17,†¦show more content†¦He developed in his mind several of accessories to fix the dilemma. To start with, the air box it was used to attract clean air until the stove to flourish the fire. Secondly, the air siphon that transported smoke and ash down and upward through the chimney. Benjamin Franklin was the first person to use heat radiation for the Franklin in stove of 1739. In regards to Benjamin Franklin inventions, another one of his inventions were split lens bifocals. He was diagnosed with a condition â€Å"Presbyopia† which is a condition when the eye loses the ability to focus on objects. Vision impaired people are usually near or farsighted but Benjamin was both. He had two pair of glasses One pair was to help them see up close and the other pair helps him see far away. He came up with a solution to Develop split lenses to help himself and those who are vision impaired to see far and close in one pair of bifocals which was created in the early – mid 1700s. On the other hand not only did he invent a significant amount of commodities, but he contributed his talented, knowledge, and efforts in our American History. 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