Jenny McCarthy on the cover of People Magazine.
I just got done (literally like 5 minutes ago) watching her on Oprah talking about her son. Did anyone else catch it? It sounds like her son is okay now. I know nothing about autism – so don’t yell at me…but I didn’t know you could “recover” from autism. I wonder how often that happens.
Off topic – Jenny was sporting some huge rocks! I wonder if she and Jim Carrey are engaged!?
September 19th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
I work for an Autism Non Profit and you can’t really “recover” from autism. There are many different degrees of the disorder and many different treatments. Some things helps some kids and some help others… but I wouldn’t use the term “recover” to describe getting better due to different treatments.
September 19th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
I don’t think an autistic person ever stops being autistic, but there are a lot of things that can be done to help them overcome their specific problems.
September 19th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
I thought autistic people didn’t like to be touched or anything like that? Maybe that’s just some degree of it?
September 19th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
I am scared to death of autism. Did you hear her say that 1 in 150 babies born will have some degree of the disability? That is a very scary statistic. Ive seen to many dateline episodes about it….i couldnt live like that i just dont think i could keep it together if that happened to my child
September 19th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
Yes, you would and you could keep it together. There are several levels of autism and an autistic child and parent of an autistic child simply have more hurdles to overcome. Sure it is hard, but any loving mother would see the beauty in their child in other ways. It isn’t like your child is not a human being. Not every autistic child is the “Rainman”. 1:150 have some degree was the quote. Someimes the degree is not even noticable. And it depends on the type and degree of autism as to the touching thing. I have a friend who’s daughter is autistic and it went undiagnosed for a longtime becuase she loves to sit on laps and snuggle.
September 19th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
I missed seeing her on OPRAH today…RATS!! I have worked with Kindergartners with Autism, and while they will never “be normal”, within a few months’ time, I have personally witnessed tremendous progress and growth…It is ALL about EARLY educational intervention!
September 19th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
I know a couple autistic people, each with varying degrees/types of autism… and Anonymous, it isn’t the end of the world. I mean, the autistic kid isn’t retarded – they just process reality in a different way than ‘normal’ people do. One just needs to adjust one’s world view and try to understand where the autistic person is coming from – how he/she sees the world – and it becomes a lot more manageable (certainly not easy, but somewhat emotionally manageable). At least, that’s what I’ve experienced and heard from the families and friends of the autistics I know.
September 19th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
also, please don’t rely on Dateline for education and information about serious issues. Dateline and its ilk are sensational journalism, trawling for ratings, not serious journalism, trying to inform and educate without making it into a drama.
September 19th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
AS a speech therapist, children don’t just recover from autism, its not an illness. People can make real strides in their skills and learn to adapt, etc but if someone truly recovers they probably were misdiagosed to begin with.
September 19th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
As an Autism teacher, you can’t recover from Autism. You can treat it and children improve, but they will always live with Autism. I just hope that Jenny doesn’t give parents a false sense of hope for a full recovery. Some of her comments irked me.
September 20th, 2007 at 2:18 am
I agree Ava. I think she gave a lot of false hope to many families. My son has mild Cerebral Palsey and he has a few kids in his early intervetion class with mild forms of autism. Your not just “cured” from autism like she made it sound. I found Jenny annoying, I don’t know why. I liked Holly Robinson-Peete though.
September 20th, 2007 at 7:40 am
No, you can’t recover. You can work with kids with autism. However, Jenny is into Scientology and THEY don’t believe in autism at all, because they see it as a mental illness that they also don’t believe in. John Travolta’s son Jet is allegedly also autistic and they are in total denial. They think they can cure anything with “audits”. It is sad really…..
September 20th, 2007 at 10:53 am
I worked with autistic kids for a year and one of the children in the larger group of people I was associated with was indeed able to go from autistic to relatively normal functioning (this was not in the short span of a year though, this just occurred at the time I was with this group). It isn’t a “recovery” per say, but if you catch it early enough and with the right therapy autistic children have the chance to get up to a pretty normal degree of functioning so it really is as if they are “cured” in one sense of the word.
September 20th, 2007 at 11:30 am
Leslie- Niether Jenny OR Jim are Scientologists. Jim Carrey briefly took a couple courses in the mid ninties but never went further than that. Jenny has never touched on that crap, she’s know’s their wackos.
September 20th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
I wish there was more publicity about how the Travoltas totally deny their sons autism. I consider it abuse. I appreciate Jenny McCarthys willingness to go public and show that treatment can be a big help.