Denis Leary rips autism in his new book

NEW YORK, Oct 15, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Denis Leary issued the following statement today in response to comments about his new book, "Why We Suck: A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid."
The people who are criticizing the "Autism Schmautism" chapter in my new book "Why We Suck: A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid" clearly have not read it.
Or if they have, they missed the sections I thought made my feelings about autism very clear: that I not only support the current rational approaches to the diagnoses and treatment of real autism but have witnessed it firsthand while watching very dear old friends raise a functioning autistic child.
The point of the chapter is not that autism doesn't exist -- it obviously does -- and I have nothing but admiration and respect for parents dealing with the issue, including the ones I know.
The bulk of the chapter deals with grown men who are either self- diagnosing themselves with low-level offshoots of the disease or wishing they could as a way to explain their failed careers and troublesome progeny.
Of course, this entire misunderstanding can be easily avoided simply by doing one thing -- reading the book.
Taking one or two sentences out of context -- especially when it involves an entire chapter devoted to the subject -- is unfair and ill-advised.
Too often in this country, everything gets reduced to simple sound bites and very very often those sound bites are not truly representative of an author or artist's point of view.
Please give me the benefit of the doubt by reading all of what I wrote before attacking me.
SOURCE Denis Leary

 

Imagine that.

 

Of course, the book doesn't hit shelves until next month. So our only source is what slap entertainment writers are saying about it. I'd rather go to Borders, buy a coffee, read the chapter and draw my own conclusion, something most fat, loud, lazy and stupid people will NOT do.

 

What he said, minus the coffee.

 

But it won't stop me from starting a shit storm in the meantime.

Just talked with BitterFemaleMatador about this. Now, before I go on I must state that I have to tread lightly with this kind of stuff. BFM has a degree in elementary ed. and specializes in special needs children. She's worked with Autistic children for more than a decade, has a real soft spot for Autistic children and their parents and doesn't take kindly to people who are ignorant to the facts about Autism blasting the disease. She works with an Autism support group in town and is getting a Masters degree that specializes in this shit.

So I Tell her that Leary "touches" on Autism in his new book and she obviously was intrigued and wanted to know what he said. So I e-mailed over the part about a lot of parents wanting the diagnosis for a child that probably doesn't have it to explain away why the isn't achieving in school.

Her response? "All true. I've seen it before first-hand."

Take that FWIW.

 

A lot of doctors believe it is overly diagnosed.

My father is a pediatrician. He said he has patients all the time who are worried that their child may be autistic because a kid is slow to speak or doesn't have a long attention span. He said that while some parents are extremenly relieved when he tells them there is nothing wrong with their kids but he said there are definitely some out there who seem disappointed because they think that when a child acts a certain way it reflects badly on them as parents and they would like to have an excuse like, "Oh, he has mild autism." or "Oh, he has ADHD."

Parents who are like that are doing a great disservice to those who actually have children who legitimately have autism. I have all the respect in the world for those parents who have to deal with an autistic child. But unfortunately, there are a lot of parents out there who come to the doctor and would rather be handed a false diagnosis or a pill that they think will make everything better.

 

It's little-league parent in another realm.

Noooooo, MY kid's shit/brain doesn't stink!!!!!!