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Why I'm turning my son into a cyborg (archive) (alt)
Imagine if everyone spoke a language you don't understand. People have been speaking it around you since the day you were born, but while everyone else picks it up immediately, for you it means nothing. Others become frustrated with you. Friendships and jobs are difficult. Just being "normal" becomes a battle.
For many with autism, this is the language of emotion. For those on the spectrum, fluency in facial expressions doesn't come for free as it does for "neurotypicals." To them, reading facial expressions seems like a superpower.
So when my son was diagnosed, I reacted not just as a mom. I reacted as a mad scientist and built him a superpower.
This isn't the first time I've played mad scientist with my son's biology. When he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, I hacked his insulin pump and built an AI that learned to match his insulin to his emotions and activities. I've also explored neurotechnologies to augment human sight, hearing, memory, creativity, and emotions. Tiger moms might obsess over the "right" prep schools and extracurriculars for their child, but I say why leave their intellect up to chance?
I've chosen to turn my son into a cyborg and change the definition of what it means to be human. But do my son's engineered superpowers make him more human, or less?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by epitaxial on Friday July 19 2019, @12:50PM (5 children)
Some say the diagnosis for autism traits has changed over the years. I say it's because children are glued to screens wherever they go. They don't interact with people they just follow their parents around with peripheral vision. Take the screen away and watch the tantrum and crocodile tears flow. If they have trouble "reading" people then maybe they need more practice?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 19 2019, @01:08PM (1 child)
Health of mom's gut a key contributor to autism risk, study suggests. [sciencedaily.com] Since countries with the highest consumption of highly-processed foods are seeing the most impact from autism, there is at least a correlation. Possibly the dietary changes are impacting oxytocin, which is also strongly linked to autism. [nih.gov]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 19 2019, @01:54PM
I say its the sheer number of parents and children on prescription medication. I saw a commercial the other day where they made it seem normal to be filling 5 prescriptions for yourself and 4 for your five year old child.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Mer on Friday July 19 2019, @01:59PM (2 children)
Autism is underlying regardless of practice. Practice does make the difference between functioning autists and non-functioning ones.
Shut up!, he explained.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday July 19 2019, @03:57PM (1 child)
You oversimplify. There are degrees of autism. For mild degrees of autism you are probably correct, for severe autism practice doesn't suffice, and as it gets worse, becomes essentially impossible.
N.B.: I may also be oversimplifying. It's quite possible that autism is a syndrome rather than a single disease, and different forms respond differently to treatments. This doesn't exactly invalidate what I said, but it may imply that for certain forms of mild autism, practice wouldn't help.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Mer on Friday July 19 2019, @04:40PM
Right, I was oversimplifying. I just wanted to point out that practice wouldn't change anything about autism prevalence.
Shut up!, he explained.