My son was never pitied by me because of his autism. I treated him just as I would have treated any typical child. And yes, I believe in disciplining my child because I am responsible for his development. You will never come to help him, other than commenting. Will you? And why do you think you should hide your name? It looks pretty brave doing that. Does it?
And if I wanted, I could have edited Tito's book. But I believe there was nothing to hide or being ashamed of when you are working with your own child.
And today at least I am proud of my being strict with Tito because severe as he is I could 'single handedly' put him on a map somewhere. Tito had no school as other children had. I was his school. Will you take the responsibility? Tito's dad and I were forced to stay away from each other because Tito's speech therapy was in a different town in India. We shall be celebrating our 17th wedding anniversary this February.
And yes, when Tito was sick, you who are accusing me of abuse did not sit by his bed side. Will you spend a day with him and do some fun stuff together? Tito would love that. He has to learn to have friends. All he has is admirers or critics. Why not try? It will be a more constructive help.
Instead of some childish emotional comments, just use the little brain of yours to see how you can be helpful to people who need your help in a constructive way. Your little brain is a great gift from God.
Tito actually wrote the book. Others before 'typed' the book. I could not afford the typing devices in India for Tito. He had to pick a pencil up and 'write'. So yes he is the first person to 'write'.
Warm Regards,
Soma Mukhopadhyay
(Tito's Mother)

Dear Ms. Soma Mukhopadhyay,

I don't think that "moggy" needs to use her real name. I am reluctant to use mine in many internet situations because, like "moggy" I am a single woman and autistic. I am 44 and have an AS diagnosis.

"moggy" doesn't have a "little brain" she recently graduated from a prestigious university with very little in the way of accomodations.

I'm glad Tito can write with a pencil, but that is not the point. He is touted as being the first seriously autistic person to communicate what it is like to be autistic. CAN does not emphasize the wonders of the fact that he can "write" with a pencil and paper, but that he "speaks" for so many non-verbal autistics.

Personally, I would be afraid to offer to spend a day with Tito because of what I have seen on video of how you are with him.
I would never constantly prompt an autistic the way you have been shown doing. NEVER. No doubt you feel that your intense methods are best, but others have been "reached" without hitting and the constant "in your face" technique.

I hope Tito does have friends. I hope that you aren't scaring them away. I am not saying that you are, but it seems like you might.

And one more thing, what difference does it make if a person is on a "map". Or "the map". Is Tito a better human being because he is famous? I don't think so.

I'm sure he has many fine qualities that would be there even if he was never known outside of his family.

Oddizm in Northern California

Dear Mrs. Mukhopadhyay:

I was dismayed to read your post on moggymania. I am not autistic, but I have a child with an autistic spectrum disorder. Like you, I am committed to understanding as much about his situation as possible and doing everything I can to help him.

One of the things I do is listen to the opinions of autistic people about their views on the various methods parents use and the effect these methods have had on them. Moggy, an autistic young woman, has assisted me -- and many other parents -- immensely in this regard. She dedicates a lot of her time to helping us.

While I understand that it is hard to hear your methods criticized by autistics, I would encourage you to put your defensive feelings aside and try to listen to what they are saying. This information can only help you and your son.

Anne

Hello Anne and Moggy,
How can I scare autistic people away when I work with 35 children a week, and others, trying to prove that everyone can learn and deserve college education perhaps more that Tito got?
Anyway, Tito and I get 3 hours time to see each other now as he has been accepted by one of the American schools. I am ever grateful to them. In India I did not have any one to be with Tito. So I had to spend all my time with him.
I have no idea how Moggy could be scared by a 4 feet 11 inches woman.
And Ms Anne, it sure is difficult to take criticism because I have left my family, country and home for my son's sake. So yes, criticism hurts.
Hope one day Moggy and I could share more ideas than be critical about each other. Best wishes to both of you.
Soma Mukhopadhyay

True, it's easier to be a critic then it is to think of something that works. In your case, Mrs. Mukhopadhyay, you did think of something that worked. However, the objection we have is to the CAN using your and your son as "unique paragons," when you two are neither unique nor paragons.

The most dangerious thing is that somehow the idea that "people are not for hitting" gets lost. Many Americans believe that unless the child is doing something to endanger the safety of himself or others, that corporal punishment is abuse. Perhaps this is simply an issue of American vs. Indian culture, but that the CAN doesn't consider your actions deplorable is something that frightens autists like myself. If Tito really was "one of a kind," then perhaps I could see the need to beat him until you were able to teach him communication skills. However, the fact that non-verbal autists can be taught to communicate through writing *without* being hit clearly puts CAN on shaky moral grounds.

The fear is not that you will hit us, but that your actions with justify other people beating children "for their own good." I believe you are a good person, Mrs. Mukhopadhyay, and thus I believe that if you knew of some other way of teaching Tito to write that DIDN'T involve violence, you would choose that method. Do you want other mothers, who only want the best for their own children, to use a gentle method or a violent method for reaching the same goal?

Mrs. Soma Mukhopadhyay,

I am the one who said I was afraid of being near you. I am not Moggy, I am oddizm. I am 44 years old and 5' 10" tall. Autistics are usually easily frightened and intimidated, I think. At least I am. I do not like your "rapid prompting", that is my personal feeling, and as I said, I would never do it to an autistic child or anyone else.

I don't know if Moggy would be intimidated by you as I said I would be.

I recommend that you read "Between Their World and Ours" by Karen Zelan. I am so impressed by her respect for the autistic condition. She is a professional who has dealt with both AS and profoundly autistic children. She recommends understanding the child's point of view first and foremost.

I am glad Tito is in school.

You have been quoted, perhaps wrongly as saying that you are not particularly interested in Tito learning self care skills, but only academics. Is this true?

Oddizm- AS dx and mother of an autism spectrum adult child who can not live on her own

Yeah, I'm easily intimidated. When this one guy threatened to kill me on a message forum, I called up his friend's mom because that was the only number I had. I probably made the situation worse by doing so, but part of the life experience of an autist involves abuse - either by peers as part of the process of tribalism, or by parents (perhaps well-meaning parents, but it is abuse nonetheless). As such, we come to react to threats with much more seriousness then others.

And, while I'm not afraid Soma is going to hurt me, I am afriad that Soma's methods, if they become accepted as the One True Way to deal with nonverbal autists, will hurt many people, both emotionally and physically.

My goal is not to "Cure Autism Now." My goal is a healer in every family, and a world without pain.

I suppose it is pointless to talk or defend my words. Defending my self is not shameful. Is it? But really it is making me a bit tired.
Anyway, Tito has independent self help skills. He can cook noodles and take care of self without supervision. When I go for my projects outside LA, he stays with his friend and aide.
I am trying to group some parents so that Autistic Adults can be share holders of some cooperative enterprise. Yes, it is still a thought but I think it shall be done after I get to know more people. An enterprise run by Autistic People. All would contribute towards the enterprise as planners, distributers, etc. according to the motivation and abilities, run by the trust of parents. Don't worry, no Rapid Prompts.
I wish one day we can work towards that goal without arguing which method is good which is bad. After all everyone has the same goal. Right to live a dignified life contributing their best to society. Right? This will be my last letter. I am getting emotionally tired 'defending' myself alone. Yes, no one wants to be alone. Right?
Warm regards to all of you.
You are very brave and wonderful people.
Soma Mukhopadhyay

I have come into this discussion late, possibly too late. But a few things:

Nobody has questioned anyone's degree of love or devotion, only methods. It is possible to love someone very much and act on it in hurtful ways.

We may have the same words for our goals, but behind the same words can be different meanings, and different levels of tolerance for different methods. One person may see "a dignified life contributing their best to society" in one way, and another may see it a completely different way, so it is deceptive to think that everyone using those words means the same thing by them.

As for questioning methods, it's actually a necessary thing. If methods were not questioned, then more autistic people would be either traumatized or dying, like the boy who died because of the mechanical restraints used on him constantly for prolonged periods. Maybe those who 'cared' for him loved him and wished him to make a dignified contribution to society. That does not remove their responsibility to treat him right. Maybe the man who used to hit me until I'd look at him, who used to walk me back and forth until I would "walk normal", who told me he would get in my head and never get out, and who used to force me to socialize even under overload, really cared about me and wanted me to live a dignified life. I don't know. It doesn't matter. Good intentions only get a person so far, and his actions spoke much louder than his intentions, and caused a lot of long-term damage.

It would be wrong of us not to speak out about these things. It would be a disservice to all the autistic people in the world who might later be subjected to them, if we were simply silent and content to take "we all have the same goals" (which is disputable) for an answer. Our motives are not childish or necessarily emotional, they are the result of reasoned decisions as adults to protect the next generations of autistic people from the horrors we have experienced.

Plus, CAN has goals that are antithetical to a dignified life contributing our best to society. They have eugenic goals as well as the flashy good-looking goals they present to most people. I would never support them, even if they claimed to have the same goals I do, because I see they do research with AGRE to prevent us from existing, and I cannot support that.

And part of our life of dignity is to have a voice separate from our parents and the parents of other people, to not have our lives dictated by the ideals of parents, and so forth. We are adults. I don't want to be a shareholder in an enterprise run by parents; I live away from my own parents for a reason. I don't think parents are evil or something, but autistic adults are simply not children and don't need our every move supervised by our parents and everyone else's parents as well. We often have very different goals in life than the ones our parents would have for us.

As for Tito, I am neither an admirer nor a critic; I see him as another one of us who has been elevated onto an unnecessary pedestal, and I don't believe in pedestals for anyone, in fact I have avoided people who try to put me on one (I don't hold him responsible for the existence of a pedestal, so my criticism is not of him). But I, like a lot of us on the net, am an autistic person with very few resources and very few skills for dealing with daily life in my own home, much less travel. I would probably spend time with him (if he wanted it! I would never force socialization on anyone, after enduring that myself) if he was in my area, but he is not, and it would take a lot out of me to socialize with *anyone*. It's a good idea not to forget that you're talking to people who don't necessarily have the skills to take care of ourselves, much less each other, and many of us *still* overextend ourselves *trying* to take care of each other (including getting things as basic as food and water to each other) because nobody else will.

If you make a request of us, think of what it would be like if someone made the same request of Tito, only without you around to help him go anywhere or do anything. That is very similar to the situation a lot of us find ourselves in. We write because that is something we *can* do, and something that is necessary to bring awareness to situations, not because we are childish complainers (which we are not, and those who *can* do more than write have helped other autistic people in various ways, but the abuse and neglect that led those people (including me) to needing that help only make us write more, not less). It is a mistaken idea to assume that we are just a bunch of highly "successful" people who can do anything we want to with our time, because that is not the case.

to whom may courson
My name is Kriscilla and have son name brandon and he has a develop deleyed and he has danndy walker sys. and he has cp.I been try to find your book on line but I can'T find it can you tell me what the auther name is. I think you have done a great job for your child. my son can't talk yet but I am not going to give up yet on my son yet I really want to know how you teach your child to talk and to communicate with others.
thanks for doing this for your child and to give hope for other parent.

Hello Soma,

I have immense respect for all you efforts and persistence you have shown in bringing up Tito and which have proved to be fruitfull in someway. But I guess it doesnot hurt to accept if there has been a couple of mistakes in your process of bringing up your child even though they were not intentional.I cannot believe that a mother will hit a typical child so hard that her own mother will call her cruel.This is not discipline.I have seen and heard of many successful people who cannot ever forget their childhood abuse by their parents even though they were for good reasons.This is a very wrong concept used earlier and is not encouraged any more by many many people these days. The reason I think you should take these criticism in a good stride because this has become a part of research and which may effect lot of people's life.

I know as a mother, I will do my best to raise my child perfectly but after 20 years it could happen that I might have not done everything right even if my daughter turns out to be a world famous scientist.I hope and pray that I will be humble enough to accepts my faults then.

Wish you all the best.
Kanja

Hello Kriscilla,
You can buy the book "The Mind Tree" at amazon.com.
Here is the link:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1559706996/qid=1089127322/sr=1-9/ref=sr_1_9/002-6997755-3306429?v=glance&s=books