DC47 wrote:If this is the entire picture, then this is a sad, sad story. I have of course witnessed people being unreceptive to kids with autism. But it still surprises me that a service business like this has such clueless staff.
I suppose there are two big positives in this story. First, United and other airlines will no doubt have to do a better job of training their staff. Second, the family in this story will get some relief. Any family with a seriously autistic kid is going to face considerable financial needs, now and especially in the future. The lawsuit settlement should help out quite a bit.
Where can I read more of a factual nature on this case? Every detail interests me, as this so easily could be our story.
I'm not surprised that the mother had the food angle pretty well covered, despite the reported problems. The best made plans can be so easily torpedoed by any kid, and certainly an assertive autistic kid. We've always had plans with back-ups to the back-up plans when we have gotten on a plane (which is as infrequently as possible). We also isolate our daughter from the other passengers as much as possible. We taught her that the window seat is the primo location; I take the middle seat next to her. Even better, we sit together on a two-seat-on-one-side-of-the-aisle configuration. As she gets older, and more self-controlled, we have started to slack off. So much about traveling with Daughter #2 is routine by now, that we're on auto-pilot to some extent. The day will no doubt come when this will blow up on us, as the concert did last night.
We're flying west in a few weeks. Can't wait to check the tickets to see if we're on United. Here's hoping for a major financial windfall that might make it no longer the case that our 13 year-old car is 'the new one.' Or at least I may enjoy a free steak-and-lobster dinner when they are informed of my daughter's diagnostic status. Would it be pushing it to ask for a nice wine course, even though she's not of drinking age?
The mom's FB page is public. This is her version. I haven't seen many versions that dispute this.
sancarlos wrote:Question - is there any consensus of medical opinion on the most likely reason that the frequency of autism is increasing? If not consensus, are there any commonly held thoughts on why?
It is very difficult to say, because the inclusion criteria has drastically enlarged.
Layered over that fact, awareness and affirmative efforts at diagnosis have increased. One of the forces behind both broadened criteria and increasing awareness is some people and some organizations make significant money with each new diagnosis, regardless of where on the spectrum.
I've seen a little bit of data attempting to use old criteria to determine if there has been a change in incidence, and what I have seen is not conclusive.
A lot of smart people thing something in the environment (food, air or water pollution, medications, maybe even vaccines, which is not as open and shut as either side would lead). Like mercury in tuna fish. But nothing remotely approaching proof.
I am nothing like an expert, I've just done a little bit of reading. I'll step aside for the real experts to educate me/us.
I've done a fair amount of reading and I'm no expert. I think it is a combination of all the things that have been mentioned as well as genetics.
BFJ is the town wizard who runs a magic shop. He also has a golem that he has trained to attack anti-Semites.
Ah, now my heart is broken. The story is so familiar, right down to the girl in the window seat and the dad sitting in the middle next to her. This girl looks quite a bit like mine, who is sitting behind me at her desk, singing along with a Barney episode.
I read a few comments, but I can't go on. I suppose I should have expected the usual dose of internet heartlessness.
Last edited by DC47 on Tue May 12, 2015 6:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The first thing in Grandin's book that smacked me in the face was something very simple and obvious, or would've been obvious had I ever given autism much thought (like if I had a family member with the condition.)
She described how many years ago (when she was a young girl) autism passed from the domain of neurologists to that of psychiatrists. This struck me as absurd, yet completely understandable.
Once psychiatry got a hold of this illness, all kinds of subjective, non-scientific shenanigans were bound to ensue.
I am a big fan of psychiatry. Always have been; I consider Freud to be one of the greatest physicians and greatest scientists of all time. But the field has racked up an incredible record of failures that have damaged people by the thousands over the last few decades.
Here is an example of how illogic manifests itself in psychiatry. I was discussing a mutual acquaintance with a psychiatrist friend of mine. This person had a history of depression, but my shrink friend thought this person struck him as more a bipolar case. I pointed out that this person had never exhibited any trace of manic behavior, much less a full-blown manic episode. (The old name of bipolar disease was manic-depressive disorder, characterized by alternating episodes of mania, and depression. But in recent years, the diagnosis criteria has broadened, in order to sell more pills.)
"Howard," my friend patiently explained, without irony, "you have a lot to learn about bipolar illness. You don't have to have any mania to be diagnosed as bipolar."
Grandin outlines some illogic examples of the psychiatric approach to autism which reflects what my friend educated me about how you don't have to be manic to be manic depressive. Man, I hate so much about my profession these days.
Who knows? Maybe, you were kidnapped, tied up, taken away and held for ransom.
Those days are gone forever
Over a long time ago
Oh yeah…
Sorry I did not mention genetics. But apparently there are dozens (over a hundred?) genes identified in one way or another with various parts of the spectrum, and the genetics are way complicated, and I would bet ultimately poorly understood at this point. Too much info, hard to sort out. Then, epigenics (the non-DNA sequence factors that influence gene expression, that turn a gene on or off, to oversimplify.) Hurts my head.
Who knows? Maybe, you were kidnapped, tied up, taken away and held for ransom.
Those days are gone forever
Over a long time ago
Oh yeah…
Saw this in the comments of the Facebook post. This lady has some sort of autism-related website and (surprisingly) sides with United. I'm not sure if this is a hurtful or helpful article. She represents the events differently. Link
It's an interesting piece. As biased am I am towards the family with the autistic child, I would never believe a single, emotion-charged account is complete. However, the critical web site piece (in quotes below) has key elements that at a minimum seem puzzling. It's interesting to try to parse the two viewpoints.
- "The child was hungry and there were seemingly no supplies or provisions for her need."
The mother said she had a backpack full of snacks. Presumably ones that her daughter generally liked. But her daughter declined them. The mother also said they tried to feed their daughter a hot meal before the flight, but this was rejected. So she doesn't appear to have been totally unprepared. It's just that you can't fully predict an autistic child, even if -- like this family -- you are experienced travelers. They can behave one way 9 times, and then very differently the tenth.
- "Did the mother bring the right equipment to keep food warm for her daughter since that seems to be at the root of this controversy?"
Can you get unpackaged food in a heated container through TSA? Can you keep packaged food warm? Can you bring a device to heat food on an airliner? I'm not sure, but I lean towards 'no.'
- "United like most airlines has a Disability Desk one can contact prior to flying. It is there specifically for advice and special accommodations."
This family has flown a lot with their child. Perhaps they thought they had things covered, with a hot meal prior to the flight and a load of snacks for the flight. It doesn't strike me as unreasonable to contact the Disability Desk. They may have also found it easy to get hot food on prior flights, with a simple request.
- "In this case the child needed hot food (which was supplied) but the girl wanted the First Class food."
Nothing in the account mentioned rejecting hot food and demanding first class food. The account says that eventually warm rice was provided, after considerable debate and a disabled girl getting upset. I'm puzzled as to why there was debate and delay if it was actually possible to provide some (simple) warm food.
In any event, I would never draw a firm conclusion based on a facebook post from one party. Nor would I draw one from a web site post from someone who wasn't even present, and appears to misconstrue some elements of the alleged events. My very limited conclusions:
1. What seems most likely to be true is that airline personnel who seem to manage to serve drinks to adults that predictably leads to some mildly unruly behavior that the staff copes with just fine, found it hard to quickly adapt to a request for simple warm food, that was apparently present on the plane, from someone who claimed to have an autistic child. I'm surprised that a crew and a set of policies that can accommodate alcohol-impaired adults cannot easily accommodate a warm-food impaired teenage girl.
2. It also seems odd that a pilot will decide to scrub a flight plan -- which is costly -- without personally investigating the cause for the flight change. Are they so autocratic that a flight attendant can claim that someone is giving them a hard time and they land the plane due to some kind of zero tolerance policy?
3. Finally, I wonder why United let the family back on one of their flights if the daughter posed a risk on the first flight. Could she be less risky a few hours later? Would they do this if a passenger had started a flight? I don't know their policy, but I doubt it. This undercuts their position quite a bit.
I can't answer all those questions, but for #2...I think you're gonna have a hard time getting pilots out of cockpits anymore.
I don't think either side acted appropriately, but I do think if you say..."If "a" doesn't happen, she might get violent." is not something they can take lightly.
You know what you need? A lyrical sucker punch to the face.
With a 200 pound dad sitting next to the kid, I wouldn't take the threat that people might be scratched too seriously.
Consider other risks they routinely face. These same cabin crew serve liquor to any adult who wants it, including those who are mentally ill, alcoholics, have previously been drinking (or ingested drugs), or who might have brought their own liquor on the plane. By serving liquor on the plane, they intentionally create the situation where some number of mildly to severely inebriated people, virtually all more physically threatening than a 15 year old girl, are packed in close confines with people who share their arm rests, lean their seats back into their space, and are generally in their very immediate vicinity. Yet they somehow deal with this risk every day, with it being very rare for a flight to have to land.
The girl who was said to potentially 'scratch somebody' if she wasn't fed properly posed little more risk than a sleeping baby, who could wake up wailing and scratch someone.
And that was before they delivered the warm rice. After that arrived, there is no indication that the kid behaved badly, or that the parents indicated that she would do so. Actually, they said that this would solve the problem. Yet the pilot then landed the plane and threw the family off.
And then mysteriously booked them on another flight. Why did the child go from high risk to low risk simply be being removed from a plane? Her disorder didn't change, and she was not going to be subject to a reasoned argument or threats about behavior on planes.
sancarlos wrote:Fwiw, the subsequent flight was on a different airline.
I saw that. But do you think that someone at United said, hmmmm, this girl is such a serious risk that our pilot put the plane down in SLC, which cost us tens of thousands of dollars and alienated customers, but we can pawn her off on Delta and get away with it?
I strongly suspect someone reviewed the case and decided that the crew had screwed up, and that they should get the family on the next flight to their destination. Most likely they revealed the circumstances to their peers at Delta, or they would be creating problems there.
But, just my guess. If you or others know otherwise, I'm curious both per se and because we fly west soon with a very similar girl.
Also, no charges were filed when they were escorted off of the plane. If you do something so bad that makes a pilot change plans and land, don't you think someone would be held accountable. The paramedics who came on saw no problems, fellow passengers saw no problems and the police saw no issue. United reacted poorly.
On my flight home from Orlando, I saw the pilot leave the cockpit twice. Both times a stewardess sat down in the cockpit with the co pilot. If I'm Captain Dickhead, I think I want to see what's causing the fuss before making such a huge and costly decision.
BFJ is the town wizard who runs a magic shop. He also has a golem that he has trained to attack anti-Semites.
I've mentioned before that my GF has a 20 year old daughter, Kelsey, who has autism and lives in a group home.
Late yesterday afternoon, the GF gets a phone call saying that the agency who runs Kelsey's group home, has lost their license, and the group home will be shutting down, possibly in the next two days. So now she's scrambling around, trying to line up care, and find a new place for her to live.
And just to make it even more stressful, the GF's Ex...Kelsey's father...was getting on a plane in San Francisco last night to go on a 5 week trip to Australia/New Zealand/Hawaii...
Sorry to hear this. It's quite a world when the arrangements you make to care for someone with special needs can blow up with so little notice. The reality is that when you are responsible for a kid, or a parent, who needs a high degree of care in some kind of supervised setting, you are only a phone call away from several kinds of emergencies. It's a tough way to life. My heart goes out to your girlfriend, and to you.
Autism and blizzards don't go well. He wants to,go outside, but is frustrated that he can't move in the snow. I don't want him on the computer all day, but it is boring when we are stuck inside. No meltdowns, yet. His anger seems to be aimed at me because I won't go out to shovel yet.
BFJ is the town wizard who runs a magic shop. He also has a golem that he has trained to attack anti-Semites.
I hear you. Parents are blameworthy for 100% of frustrations, even when it's absurd. I recall being pounded on the upper arm while my daughter told me about someone bullying her at school. Telling her that I was on her side didn't stop the mini-assault.
I don't know what's feasible in your case. But I recall one snow-bound too-long winter day when I shoveled-out a circular pathway in the backyard, with some cross trails. It wasn't down to bare ground, just passable. My daughter tromped around that thing over and over. Then a hot chocolate and marshmallow break. More tromping. We later made some more extensive trails. Tromp.
For the right (obsessive) kid, this can be endless fun.
Last Saturday was "Autism Awareness Day", and the agency that provides services/care for my GF's daughter Kelsey had a "Prom" for the special needs kids. She had a "date"..another autistic kid...and they got all dressed up and driven to the Prom by parents. She, and the rest of the kids, were super excited by the whole thing.
The one thing that has really bothered me since...Kelsey's "date"....is a ward of the state. His parent's have completely checked out and have nothing to do with him. I just don't understand how someone could do that.
Very sweet. Also a bit melancholy. The event itself is nice. But it brings forward the issue of whether these young adults can ever have the kind of relationships that most young adults have. In our experience, this is a pretty troubling thought. There may be in some cases, but there is no obviously right path in ours.
I suppose the parents' story could be anything from them being heartless to them being seriously dysfunctional (e.g., mentally ill) themselves.
Too, decent people can reach a breaking point. For some, it doesn't take much. How many violent beatings would it take for parents to renounce their connection to a child? I imagine the particulars of this case will not be revealed to anyone.
This is my 2 year old - Jack Jack. He was having nothing to do with any of the characters on our Disney vacation in November. You see, he has autism and is non-verbal. He is on the shy side with people he does not know. THEN... he met Snow White. I must have cried 1000 tears watching his interaction with her. He was in love.
Son of BFJ vs. State of Maryland has been filed as a state complaint. Let's see if Balto. County Public Schools will now do what they are legally bound to do for my son in his education. How can you say you're doing a good job for my kid when he's made ZERO academic progress in the last 2 years? Behaviorally, socially and verbally he's really doing well, better than well, but that academic piece is just not where it needs to be. So I may have to spend up to 10k on lawyers fees, just to get them to the table to take us seriously. Mind you, this is the county my wife works for. These are the people who will be the arbiters of whether she gets promoted. We can't worry about that, got to take care of our kids. Fucking frustrating.
BFJ is the town wizard who runs a magic shop. He also has a golem that he has trained to attack anti-Semites.
I don't like to beg for money (says the guy who works for a non profit). We can afford it, but there are so many parents out there who can't and the school system just runs over them because they can't fight back.
BFJ is the town wizard who runs a magic shop. He also has a golem that he has trained to attack anti-Semites.
bfj wrote: These are the people who will be the arbiters of whether she gets promoted. We can't worry about that, got to take care of our kids. Fucking frustrating.
If that becomes an issue, give me a call. Good luck with the lawsuit, keep us posted.
An honest to God cult of personality - formed around a failed steak salesman.
-Pruitt
Thanks Syb. Appreciate the offer. We've had our first meeting at school HQ to discuss what's to be done for this year. Our stance is that changes must be made in his current school to help my son. I'm not shipping him off to another school.
The County came to the table and are conceding that they've basically failed Max at getting him his FAPE (free appropriate public education). They are giving us what we want at the moment. We have another meeting this week to discuss who will oversee the school to make sure they do what they say they'll do and not sabotage the plan.
Hopefully, we can avoid Due Process and a State Complaint, we'll see.
BFJ is the town wizard who runs a magic shop. He also has a golem that he has trained to attack anti-Semites.
We are having to move my GF's daughter Kelsey again this weekend. Turns out her apartment had a MAJOR bedbug infestation. Poor kid was getting eaten alive every night, but because she's not verbal, couldn't tell anyone. Who knows how long its been going on.
So now we get to start jumping through all the hoops again. Working with agencies, figuring out where she's going to live, staffing, housemates, etc.
