Did you see Cold case last evening? They had an autistic boy who witness the murder of his parents. The show had detectives speaking with the child, and they showed a happy ending with the boy being touched by the detective and then at a permanent home with his sister in a new room and smiling.

Ok, I am so happy that autism is being presented in the media so more people are aware but this was a fairytale in my opinion. Yes, there is the time thing and other ticks but still.

What were you thoughts if you saw it?

April

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to comment since I don't have a special-needs child, but I watched the episode and thought it was good. Since I don't know much about autism, I did wonder how close the character was to portraying a real autistic person.

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"Everything happens for a reason, but there may not be a point." ~ Kinsey Millhone

Everyone's allowed to comment. I was going to watch it but missed it. I don't think a 1 hour show could accurately show autism plus they needed to show a happy ending to boot. It does sadden me that our society either can't or won't protray autism and many other diseases/disabilities correctly because everything needs to be fixable or because someone doesn't want to actually show how difficult things can be.

Hello, I watched it on Tivo after I saw your post. I thought it was awsome. I am not very familar with autism, but I loved the way they showed how patience and learning can allow comunication. It really touched me.

On another note, there was a House episode that had an autistic child on it. It was a little rough as most House episodes are, but I loved the ending...

I didn't see either, but the thing that always bothers me is that they wrap it up by showing improvement in children with so little (comparatively) effort. It literally takes years to get through with some children. My concern is that it leaves people with the impression that the parents aren't doing the right thing - gee, it worked on this show..it is a tv show, and they have to do this for dramatic effect. It makes people believe such things are fixable. If they were, we would all have fixed our kids by now. All My Children has a character on who has Autism Spectrum Disorder. They try, but it's pretty unrealistic in many ways. It does bring the subject out, which is good, but she is identifed by the disorder, rather than who she really is. She's more toward the Aspergers side, and that hasn't been mentioned, from what I've seen. The naivete is there, though. Autistics are often taken advantage of due to their naivete, so I'm glad that warning went out. Autism is getting more and more attention, but when such things become the "condition dujour", many misconceptions start flying. Look at all the companies jumping on the breast cancer band wagon. It's nice that they donate funds to breast cancer, but they jump up the price on the item so they don't lose their profit. That's another issue, I guess.

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Starlite, I love that you are even if you don't have a special needs child. We are here to support everyone with children regardless. Please keep checking here, we get so great ideas on how to do things that most would never even thing about!

As for how close was the portrayal to real life. I would say that child was pretty far on the spectrum. The ticks, the OCD, the lack of eye contact, deviation of receptive language skills, even the expressive was deep on the spectrum. That is why the end was wrong because there is no way on God's green earth that child would have let someone touch him, or that he would even react to the "new room". That is JMO.

I have to agree with Desertmom that it take years of struggle to get just little steps. It takes all our your soul, heart, emotions, physical energy, mental energy and financies not to mentions the time! On top of that is how the rest of the family suffers because their needs are not being met because of the needs of the SN child coming first.

Wow, that is a lot for now.

Thanks for you thought my friends, April