posted 04-07-2008 04:16 PM            

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Originally posted by Drakens:
Could it be that it does exist with the Amish, but it's not reported, or something else?

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Always a possibility. My impression* is that the Amish are essentially living in the 18th century; autism wasn't yet discovered then.

posted 04-07-2008 06:16 PM            

Someone with Asperger's could be the queen of quilting or the king of horse shoe making... an indefatigable weeder or baker. Then again, maybe it's the gene pool -- uncorrupted by 'wild' genes. As well, it is my understanding that the Amish embody the "it takes a village..." theory. It could well be that members take turns caring for a particularly worrisome child. If they have 'one room school houses,' children can truly work at their own rate -- even at a full stop.

Do the Amish have allergies, suffer from poor indoor air quality or fear global warming? What about obesity? Alcoholism?

Man, I sure have a lot of questions and always enjoy answers and conjecture.

posted 04-07-2008 11:28 PM            

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Originally posted by annef:
Could the Amish simply be more accepting of idiosyncrasies? I grew up in a very small rural town and we had 'odd' people -- occasional hobos, people who talked to themselves, a coupla town drunks (although where and how they got enuf to drink is a mystery to me).

Someone with Asperger's could be the queen of quilting or the king of horse shoe making... an indefatigable weeder or baker. Then again, maybe it's the gene pool -- uncorrupted by 'wild' genes. As well, it is my understanding that the Amish embody the "it takes a village..." theory. It could well be that members take turns caring for a particularly worrisome child. If they have 'one room school houses,' children can truly work at their own rate -- even at a full stop.

Do the Amish have allergies, suffer from poor indoor air quality or fear global warming? What about obesity? Alcoholism?

Man, I sure have a lot of questions and always enjoy answers and conjecture.

Anne

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With my tongue only halfway in my cheek, I will observe that there is a high correlation between going to the doctor and being sick. There is also a bias in favor of diagnoses of "special needs" in children in public schools where a diagnosis of "special needs" causes money to flow to the school.

The Amish, while not avoiding doctors, tend to use doctors less then the rest of use, and the Amish school their own children.

Diagnoses of autism are encouraged by the flow of money.

posted 04-08-2008 12:02 AM            

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There is also a bias in favor of diagnoses of "special needs" in children in public schools where a diagnosis of "special needs" causes money 5o flow to the school.

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posted 04-08-2008 11:04 AM            

I'd forgotten about the money mill generated by 'special needs' children. The Fair and Appropriate Education Act was built on good intentions and I'm sure it does some true good. It's quite like universities honing to Fed rules and regs in order to get our tax dollars.

Back to the Amish, I got to thinking (dangerous) about 'contagious' conditions. Did you ever notice that when one in a group of friends gets pregnant, several others soon follow suit? If the flu is going around, everyone with a bad cold thinks they have the flu. People play the 'competitive pain' game. If your back hurts, mine hurts worse. I see this sorta stuff pretty frequently.

While they do go to town and see doctors on occasion (I enjoyed the carriages coming into the Dover, Delaware suburbs when AF baby was stationed there), they wouldn't be subjected to the 24/7 endless loop on non news and scary predictions.

I, too, wonder how you'd determine the % of autistic children in an enclosed, private community.

posted 04-08-2008 01:46 PM            

I've had some dealings with the Amish of Central South-East Michigan - there's several pockets of very high density eg around Elsie, and Ovid. I never saw an obese Amish-man or -woman or -child.

I don't believe, based on my dealings with them, that they eschew conventional medicine, and indeed, I had read Set's linked data that shows that most are vaccinated, for example. Their rule is 'Be Ye Separate' - not 'Be Ye Stupid'. They like chiropractic - a lot - and I don't think that they go much for the great extremes of high-tech medicine - but that may be because they are spiritually disinclined to purchase health insurance, and so their healthcare is on a cash-paying basis.

Their communities are at vastly-increased risk of a number of (fortunately)-rare genetic disorders. They know this, and accept it as God's will.

I think that there might be something to be learned from the various closed communities like the Amish about the causes and treatment of conditions like ASDs.

I know more-than-one Amish family that has a family member who is - challenged. They simply accept it as part of life, and their lifestyle has places no-less-honourable for those folks too. They are generally-agreed, for example, to be very good with draught animals. A simple life may have a lot more room for simpler people. One that I know personally is a daughter in her 30's who is very-severely challenged - but she works in the family bakery every day, and her parents and her siblings love her just the same, and she is a full member of the family that noone really sees as being that 'different'.

I don't know any Amish family that has a ASD child - but I don't know that I could tell. I suspect that the Amish way of intensive child-raising might well do a lot better job of socializing children. As noted above, all the little suburban Carters and Graydons that have behavioural problems are actually assets to some people, and a diagnosis of an ASD is actually attractive to parents and educators alike. If little Benny Yoder is haveing behavioural difficulties, a diagnosis of an ASD is probably slightly less likely than being struck by lightning, and the Amish way of living may well offer him very significant therapy for his disorder - therapy of a kind that Carter and Graydon will never get.

llater,

llamas

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. . . a truly bad and evil man. So bad and evil that he's banned by Kim du Toit.

"All things are ready, if our minds be so."
King Henry V, Act 4, scene 3

posted 04-08-2008 02:01 PM            

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But thousands of children cared for by Homefirst Health Services in metropolitan Chicago have at least two things in common with thousands of Amish children in rural Lancaster: They have never been vaccinated. And they don't have autism.

"We have a fairly large practice. We have about 30,000 or 35,000 children that we've taken care of over the years, and I don't think we have a single case of autism in children delivered by us who never received vaccines," said Dr. Mayer Eisenstein, Homefirst's medical director who founded the practice in 1973. Homefirst doctors have delivered more than 15,000 babies at home, and thousands of them have never been vaccinated.

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posted 04-09-2008 04:45 PM            

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Originally posted by Sam Mc Kee:
I guess it would be futile to ask any Amish reading this thread for their opinion.

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posted 04-10-2008 04:49 PM            

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Originally posted by LaneH:
Clicky

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