Perfectly Healthy and Average
>> Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Caelan had her 18 month well baby visit today. Can you believe she's 18 months old? I can't- and I live with her!
There was a new form to fill out today; it was filled with questions relating to autism. In case you haven't heard, autism is on the rise. Which completely contradicts this article from 2006 which stated that since mercury was removed from immunizations that autism rates were dropping. Slate had an article that even connected television watching to autism.
At any rate, Caelan didn't fit any of the profiles. Which I pretty much knew- she's talking in sentences and singing "Old McDonald" and about half the ABCs. I really think that autism is anything that the doctors can't categorize...
But on to my healthy girl... She's cutting eye teeth (and is chweing one of her fingers raw). She was 24 lbs 14 oz and 31 3/4 inches tall today. Still perfectly average.
I had the girls photos taken last week as a surprise for Doug for Easter:
I am completely blessed with healthy beautiful daughters.
Now I'm gonna make a donation to St Jude and offer a prayer for those who aren't as blessed as us.
3 comments:
Darling pic! I can't believe how big they BOTH are!!!! :)
I don't know about overall rates of statistics or what the rate for diagnosis is but I will tell you that there are a TON more cases coming through the schools. Autism and its lesser severe counterpart Asperger's Syndrome...alarmingly there seems to be a lot of cases that come out of Silicon Valley. I'm not sure if the criteria for diagnosing the two is now different or we are just more aware as a society but there are a good number of cases out there. It's a weird, weird thing...
The only reason that Autism is on the rise is because Doctor's use the diagnosis as a catch all. I have worked in Special Ed. for about 10 years. I have seen it repeatedly. A lot of doctor's throw on the Autism label so that kids can get services, because a lot of insurances won't pay for the different therapies (i.e. speech and occupational therapy) without a label. Developmentally delayed doesn't work anymore. I have worked with many children that have a diagnosis of Autism that don't display any of the tendencies. Autism and ADHD have become a catch all for when a child isn't perfectly well behaved. Now don't get me wrong, there are a lot of children who are accurately diagnosed with these disorders, but you would be amazed at how many are not.
Ok I am off my soapbox now. LOL
Amanda B.
YEAH AMANDA!!!!! :)
I'm in your corner. I think 10 years from now (if we get any smarter) we'll look back in shame at the number of kids we labeled and pumped drugs into.
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