I have to stop checking in with the parentsplace autism board. This used to be really active, then dwindled down to a few messages per day, and most of the regular posters abandoned it. One of the new regulars is apparently a "late talker" devotee a la Thomas Sowell*: she just declassified her son (not quite four) and is now spreading the gospel. In the last day or so, I skimmed a post that said something about not all PDD being autism, and I just saw another one confidently explaining the development of language.

Which is fine: she has the right to be uninformed and make stupid decisions for her kid, but because she is "nice" and sympathetic and of course saying something that parents desperately want to hear, she's starting to gain some credibility on the board. I was hoping she'd go away after declassifying her kid, but she seems to want to preach the gospel, I'm sure out of a well-intentioned belief that she's helping parents who are worrying for nothing.

I don't have the stomach for a flame war, so I suppose I'll have to stay away, though I feel sorry for any parents who take her seriously.

*I'm not linking to him because I don't want to give him the exposure (not that my blog's traffic would generate much, of course, but). Truly pernicious stupidity. His argument is that late talkers are being pathologized and most of these kids are perfectly fine. They just talk really late and prefer to be loners, but they're fine. Really. School districts keep pushing services, because this special ed. stuff is a big racket designed to line the pockets of school districts. And this man claims to be an economist. Has he ever actually looked at a district budget or the relevant laws? The moron. Thus the unholy alliance of noli mi tangere libertarianism and conservatism, though I rather doubt my annoying poster is aware of it.