Cafe Autism

John McCain would like you to think she does. He said about her in last week’s presidential debate:

…she also understands special-needs families. She understands that autism
is on the rise, that we’ve got to find out what’s causing it, and we’ve
got to reach out to these families, and help them, and give them the
help they need as they raise these very special needs children.
       
   
       
            

She understands that better than almost any American that I know. I’m proud of her.

"She understands that better than almost any American that I know." Apparently John doesn’t know many families of children with autism then if he thinks that someone who isn’t a parent or educator of autistic children understands this issue better than anyone else he knows. Because that is where the real understanding of autism lies – in the community who loves and cares for children with autism everyday.

I do not think that Sarah Palin is qualified to advocate for MY child just because she is also a parent of a child with a very different disability.

First off, her child is only a few months old – she has NO experience yet with the educational system as it applies to even her son’s disability, let alone anyone elses’s, and won’t have for quite a few years. And the challenges of educating a child with a disability have to be experienced first-hand to be truly understood: school districts that flout the law entirely, school districts that offer care (but inappropriate care), school districts that are well-meaning but underfunded…the list is endless of the problems in our educational system for kids with disabilities and Sarah Palin has yet to even dip her toe in the water of that cesspool as a parent – and won’t for about four or five more years.

Second, Down’s Syndrome doesn’t come with the same insurance issues that autism does.There are some, but the ones that come with autism are more extensive. Palin is part of what I am sure is a robust state government health insurance program that covers her and her son’s disability fully (since that is not usually a problem with Down’s Syndrome in group plans). She will probably never experience a situation like most autistic childrens’ parents experience where even the so-called "best" insurance plans won’t cover a dime of their child’s treatment (except in the few states which have now passed laws to force coverage). She won’t have to watch valuable days, weeks and months slip by of early intervention time for her child while her child receives minimal or no treatment because the insurance company has deemed her child’s condition uncovered.

So, sorry Senator McCain, the fact that Sarah Palin has had a Down’s Syndrome child for a few months does NOT qualify her to speak for the millions of parents of children with autism. It’s a different disorder, and we’ve had years, some of us decades, of experience with this issue at different levels. It may give her a special empathy for the difficulties of life with a special needs child, but it doesn’t make her an expert on the needs of those families.

A better answer, Senator McCain, would have been to say that you understood that there was a desperate need to do something about autism from both a research, educational and insurance standpoint, and that you would turn for guidance to the experts – to the people doing excellent research on autism, to the advocacy groups like Autism Speaks and the Autism Society of America – for guidance on what families with autism needed.