I had heard that biomedical intervention was an approach to the treatment of autism. I also had an impression that this topic is controversial. Since I am a biomedical engineer by training and a biological determinist by inclination, I decided to discover what this the buzz surrounding biomedical intervention is all about. Due to the […]
Since one of the major missions of my blog is discussion of autism, I introduce my brother in each post by saying that Michael is autistic, nonverbal and low functioning. I used to say retarded, but refrain from using that word now due to the negative connotations. What does low functioning really mean? Part of […]
I’ve written many posts here about memory (Memory Revisited, Seeds of Memory, Storage Implies Retrieval, Memory). I’ve written even more about my brother Michael, who is autistic, low functioning and nonverbal. I believe that I am writing from an honest place, but I think the passage of time has influenced me. For example, I used […]
Empathy is the ability to vicariously feel what another person is experiencing, while sympathy is the ability to understand what another person is going through. The medical profession has many people who care deeply about their patients. I think this is a fair assumption, even though there may be some who are in the field […]
Yesterday, Mom was my guest blogger. She said it was ok to post her e-mail to me in response to my post about memory and my childhood. She said how important it was for my younger brother and me to process the experience of growing up with our autistic, nonverbal and low-functioning brother, Michael. Dad […]
As I said in yesterday’s post, I am so happy that my mother follows my blog. She is new to WordPress and would have written a comment on yesterday’s post had she found the ‘comment’ button. I’m glad that she didn’t, because I want to present her commentary as a post in itself. Those who […]
My brother, Michael is autistic, very low functioning and has never spoken. He is about 3 years older than me. I am 4 years older than my younger brother. Our family lived together until Mike was 13 years old. From the time Mike was born, he never progressed. He couldn’t take care of himself and […]
No, not the maudlin ‘letting go’ one must deal with at the end of a relationship, or when a loved one dies; it is letting go of stuff accumulated over the years. See my post, Storage Implies Retrieval, for more information about my relationship with ‘stuff’. I am sure that cluttering disorder is in DSM-5 […]
I was really surprised when I found a few panels of a comic strip that I must have drawn, about my brother, Michael. Mike is very low functioning, autistic and non-verbal. There is only one date in the notebook in which I scribbled my crude sketches. It dates to nearly 10 years ago. I had […]
My interest in mental illness and diagnosis stems from the fact that my brother is autistic, low functioning and nonverbal. In my attempt to discover more about the process of diagnosis, I have written several posts on the subject: Diagnosis, the Beginning; Diagnosis (dx) Basics; Diagnosis and Mental Health; Stamp Collecting (about taxonomy); Autism Diagnosis […]
