Down with Autism!

By Rick Colosimo / July 1, 2009 / Comments Off on Down with Autism!

Let’s be clear. Autism sucks; it certainly sucks for my son. (And I don’t lump the Asperger’s group into this: I have met Aspies who are cogent, gainfully employed, capable, present in the world, and able to self-advocate; Dylan wasn’t at all like that before getting high-quality ABA and has a long way to go,…

How much value do ASD treatments create?

By Rick Colosimo / June 30, 2009 / Comments Off on How much value do ASD treatments create?

This WSJ article illustrates the type of analysis that we should all expect to have to understand as coverage for ABA moves into the mainstream of private insurance coverage and then, theoretically, becomes the responsibility of some national health insurance plan to cover. Will Congress and state legislatures be as willing to bear the burden…

Why do poor treatments sometimes get results?

By Rick Colosimo / April 27, 2009 / Comments Off on Why do poor treatments sometimes get results?

This Slate article talks about the Hawthorne effect, which basically says that positive interactions with people creates positive outcomes, at least for a while. It’s sort of like a placebo effect for behavior. Using facilitated communication as an example, the author details one reason why researchers in the softer sciences (as opposed to hard sciences…

Andrew Wakefield links of shame

By Rick Colosimo / February 9, 2009 / Comments Off on Andrew Wakefield links of shame

This short article is the most recent update on the fallout from Wakefield’s actions. A longer version is also available. Finally, a broad explanation of the investigation is available on the journalist’s website. Here are some things that we didn’t note in our earlier post: this article from a few days ago is NOT the…