McCain and Obama's perspective on Autism?

I just finished watching the debate last night. Besides being left wanting to see a personal interview follow up with Joe the plumber and his opinion on the canidates discussion about him, I was left wondering about the mention of autism.

McCain brought up autism and the desire to earch for a cause.  At the same time I wonder if he is sporting the DAN/Autism Speaks perspective on autism, or if he is trying to find a cause. Did anyone else see that last debate?

I want more information I guess and perhaps spark up a *healthy* debate.

[SueNYC]

I know Obama was the first of all the candidates to directly speak on special ed funding in general.  He thought it should be increased.  I know that most of the Congressman that sponsor bills for autism usually have a family - regardless of political parties.  

I am just curious about what people would do if they found an Asperger's gene cluster- would they start aborting and maybe lose out on the world's greatest IT guy.  Would quirky become unacceptable.  

I am not a big believer in the vaccine theory in general - I think if anything it is due to the entire environment and their is a very strong genetic component.  My husband and me both descend from a family tree full of Aspergerish people.  It is the Tony Atwood game of go to MIT and pick out the engineer who doesn't have it.  A little Aspergers can be a gift if the obsessions are useful.  

We were talking about how society has become less forgiving of the quirky and unusual.  My husband attended Bronx High School of Science and was in the honors math and physics program - he was a bit of geeky but he said he wasn't anywhere near the top of the pack.  He didn't speak until he was 6.  From 6 to 12 he spent 4 hours a day studying chess problems.  Teachers were constantly worried about the strange, shy kid in the corner.  His mom thought he was a good boy who had a really bad temper when bothered too much by those silly teachers.  At 12,  was nationally ranked at 2200 on the adult circuit.  One day, he discovered a better obsession - model rockets.  After many explosions (including lowing up the neighbor's car), he moved unto math and computers.  Nirvana was number patterns - especially primes.    Everyone thought he was going into mathematics.  But, then he discovered the debate team.  At 15, he knew he was going to be a lawyer - a lawyer who would get to crunch a lot of numbers all day long and build complicated financial instruments which involved collateralized debt that would cause the economic collapse of America (for years he would come home and talk about what was going to happen this Fall).  He didn't care just as long as he got to use his calculator all day long.  A little Aspie, you bet.  He kept  the Apple guy on the phone for 4 hours on his day off because one of our computers were broadcasting its IP address.  The sad part, was the guy on the other side seemed to be as intrigued as he was with the problem.  They talked tech for 4 hours straight - do we really want to cure the factors that create these type of people.

He still has a bad temper (we all call him Mt. Vesuvius).   But if he had been born 6 years ago - I am sure that the school would have been begging for an assessment.  An awkward, shy 6 year old who barely talks and spends 4 hours a day studying chess games - and not much else - with a low tolerance for other people - would be screaming Aspie today.  

If there is a cure - count me out.  The price is too high to pay.

[mtgoat911]

There is no known cure for aspergers, we may wait years for that, but this condition can be arrested
you can recover from this, without the use of medication
i have recently meet so many others with this condition and it has given me hope for my child
i know from personal experience that the right type of guidnence can help aspie symptoms.......
on the other hand i know that the wrong type of guidnece can cause great harm, infact when i was younger i saw my mom as the enemy because she felt that school work was more imprtant than my emotional and spiritual well-being, now i understand that she was listenting to doctors, and the school more than her heart and God
sometimes the asnwers just come to us when we are not searching, and i doubt that we will be finding them in a lab somewhere
my husband is a pharmacutical engineer, 10 yrs ago he was working on a drug to cure a medical condition that i was struggling with, i tried the drug and it did not help, 10 yrs later i made a few lifestyle changes, and started praying, last week i had my yearly check up and the condition has gone away, this only happens to %20 of the people with this condition
in time, with work, and a few changes i have faith that anyone suffering from aspers can move on and start living a happy life
thats all i want from my child is to be safe and happy, if he learns his multiplication chart in 5th grade instead of 4th, it will not bother me a bit, i know that i can work on his weaknesses and nurture his strenghts and soon he will learn to do the same
thats all any of us can do, work on our defects and continue success in areas where we have the most talent
i like to call it doing the next right things, i do not believe that McCaine or Oboma will spend much time on autism, and if they do the money will go straight to people like my husband, and you will have to talk to him to get an idea of how that works, medicine is big bucks, there are several companies working on asper drugs right now, i certainly will not go on them or give them to my child

[888mom]

I'm writing in Joe the Plumber.  He should run for prez.  :)  Either that or I might not even vote.  I am getting a lot disgruntled with our two party system.  Is this really the two people we have to vote between?  I want a third choice.  Who's the independent(s) running and I want to hear them debate too!