I shall be diplomatic now because this isn’t my story to tell.

My son, the birthday boy and host is busy, occupied, as we order our drinks in the restaurant. His friend makes two strenuous attempts to request a beverage from the server. His voice is as clear as a bell and quite as piercing, but the message has failed to penetrate. I intervene:- “yes he’d like half Pepsi and half Sprite please?”

The server is perplexed and distracted as he mines for information. From a distance we look like any other party of 12. Close up, it’s different. It takes a different format in each child. Collectively it can be disconcerting. It’s as if we each have three heads, fluent in Swahili.

Yesterday, we participated in a day-long Scouting event that Nigel’s troop organizes annually - Christmas tree recycling. The Scouts and their parents drive all over our town and the neighboring town, pick up Christmas trees from people’s homes, load them onto trucks and trailers, and take them to a local park where later they are turned into fish habitat and mulch. It’s a great program for the community, and the donations received from it help to fund the Scout Troop’s activities for the year.

Halfway through the day, we break for lunch, which is prepared and served by Scout parents and siblings at the local church where we have our weekly meetings. During lunch, one of the Scout’s sisters walked around the tables refilling drinks for people. Nigel was seated at a table near me, and as she passed by, he held up his cup for her to refill. She did, and he said, “Thank you.” He said it perfectly, so naturally, like he’s been saying it all along. And he said it completely unprompted.

The scholarly article that started the rumors of a possible autism-vaccinations link has been officially retracted by its medical journal after being consistently discredited and coming under fire for unethical and dishonest practice. Researchers have not been able to replicate the findings of the now-retracted study.

As CNN writes: "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention praised The Lancet's retraction, saying, 'It builds on the overwhelming body of research by the world's leading scientists that concludes there is no link between MMR vaccine and autism.'" William Schaffner is even quoted, saying, "Since Wakefield's study came out, some 20 other studies have come out, and each one of these studies, done by different researchers, in different populations and in different countries, has denied the associations between vaccines and autism. Scientifically, this story is over."   

I read a post over on Autism Learning Felt about an interview with Dan Burns (author of Saving Ben) and felt inspired by a line in the article about self advocacy.

My definition of self-advocacy: a skill-set encompassing knowing what you want, communicating what you want, planning for yourself, and refusing things you don’t want. If kids (with and without autism) want to be able to make choices about their adulthood, they have to know how to do these things. In fact, these skills are part of the ‘hidden curriculum’ aka the ‘social curriculum’ of high school!

So, is it a mystery that kids with autism miss the hint on these highly-valued, but rarely explained skills? No.   More Here...