It’s a hard decision, one I wouldn’t have even thought twice about before.

My mother was a nurse Mary – having seen polio she was a real hawk on immunizations. She was also a hawk on safety – gave me a child seat as my son’s birth present.

“Anon”? There is only one other poster on this forum who uses the word “kinder”. That would be Ian Santiago. Ian if you are playing at “anon” I will withdraw any and all defense of you and advise others to do the same.

There are kids who have done remarkably well after Chelation therapy, some parents even call it a cure. And there are kids who are autistic and never had an immunization either- so I would never say that’s ALL there is to it.

I will not immunize for the time being until I believe there is no link. We’ve just come so far, I couldn’t bear it to go backwards now. And for those docs and nurses out there who don’t understand, well, I understand their position, but they don’t have to live with him if he does regress.

But ignorance isn’t limited to spiritual beliefs or social class standing!

Mary the hyperactivity has been linked to the level of violence too. I wouldn’t let my kids watch power rangers either.

I have a nephew who was provisionally diagnosed autistic when he was about 2; the eventual diagnosis was something else, the name and acronymn for which I do not recall. He is a Senior in High School this year, doing quite well academically, but still has issues with oral communication.

This is by way of explanation of my intellectual curiosity concerning the condition. I read articles, when I can, to try to get a general understanding of the condition (is this a correct way to refer to it? I don’t perceive it as a “disease”). The root for my comment in the post concerning the hypothesis is the fact that I understand seizures in a person with epilepsy can be triggered from flickering pictures, be they movies or from television. As both epilepsy and autism are neurological, it seemed logical to me that the flickering of the TV screen might be something to consider.

Even smoking has been ruled out. The majority of moms in our group did not smoke anywhere near the time, were not exposed, or never ever smoked.

Don’t ever judge a parent of an autie for their parenting, trust me on this, the parenting manual gets totally thrown out the window with this disorder. If that means 24 hours of television, that’s what it is. I let go of the guilt long ago. Luckily he moved out of that stage a few years ago.

As I”m typing this, I”m trying to convince my 6 year old son to stop screaming. He has very OCD tendencies, and right now he thinks that he has to speak to everyone on the block everytime he sees them outside. We’ve already been out to say ‘HI’ four times since I got home from work. Luckily I have the most wonderful and understanding neighbors- well except for the evangelical couple- but I’m sure they think it’s my punishment from God for something.

By the way, any other parents of auties are welcome to email me, my email is live.

My child’s first symptoms began at 10 months of age. It was AFTER that that I couldn’t remove him from the tv set, it was the only thing that kept him from shrieking all day long. And I believe that repetition of watching the same recorded shows over and over that helped him to learn to talk.