Word: childrene
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...almost invariably normal. Some researchers hope that autism will turn out to be similar to cretinism and phenylketonuria (or P.K.U.)-products of some defective chemistry affecting the nervous system. Meanwhile, a growing number of experts would like to sidestep the question of parental blame and concentrate on teaching autistic children acceptable substitutes for their difficult and harmful behavior. Says Dr. Leon Eisenberg, chief of psychiatry at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital: "Guilt is the most useless commodity available...
...careful use of discipline is the heart of several recent approaches. Adopting the principles of reinforcement therapy (TIME, July 11), psychologists at the U.C.L.A. Neuropsychiatric Institute put autistic children through a demanding series of exercises. The therapist waits for them to perform a small act as a normal child would, then quickly rewards them with praise and a few bits of cereal or an M & M candy. If they revert to autistic behavior, he promptly says "No," and may even strike them. After literally hundreds of repetitions, the rewardable behavior begins to replace autistic distraction, and the children...
...Cure. Similar ideas are also being put to use in a few of the schools that attempt to treat autistics along with other problem children. Carl Fenichel of Brooklyn's League School for Seriously Disturbed Children told the National Society meeting that he has had some success by firmly distracting autistic children from their tantrums and insisting they practice simple mechanical tasks such as holding a pencil or using an egg beater. "Disorganized children need someone to organize their world for them," he says. "They fear their own loss of control and seek protection against their own impulsive drives...
None of these methods can "cure" autism, the researchers warn. The best that therapy can do now is abate the worst symptoms, allowing children to remain at home with their parents and attend special schools that serve the braindamaged, the retarded, and children with other mental conditions that are more amenable to treatment than autism. The parents of autistics, who make up most of the N.S.A.C.'s 700 members, are lobbying to force all states to provide this kind of care through the public schools. So widespread is the feeling that children with severe mental illness can never...
...thoughtful understanding of student dissent and told a group of Memphis businessmen this year that sending in police is bad because it drives uncommitted students to support radicals. Heard urges instead that college administration mistakes be rectified and that the nation "get on with solving the problems our children are so sensitive...