Is it Halloween yet?
With the '21-'22 school year immediately upon us, it seems Americans are embarking on a disturbing experiment; wagering the emotional and intellectual development of our youngest against the mirage of absolute security from Covid-19.
Autism is defined foremost as social awkwardness, a pronounced failure to socially interact with others appropriately. We now speak of the spectrum, recognizing that there are wide degrees of performance in those we diagnose; some are simply a little weird, others are positively destructive. Despite the lack of any tangible evidence, autism is defined as a developmental disability, which implies that environmental factors are negligible. Many prefer to avoid the environmental explanation, thinking that that is blaming parents for being bad ones. But the fact that we can teach AS coping skills, and teach parents corresponding communication skills, suggests strongly that AS is indeed induced, rather than being some genetic defect. And this is where autism meets Covid-19 mask mandates .
For more than a year and a half, we have been given various, at times, disparate orders and guidelines for protecting ourselves from a flu-like virus that strikes the old and infirm hardest, while mysteriously virtually ignoring prepubescent children. With the onset of the Delta variant leading up to this new school year, educational and medical experts have reiterated their demands for masking those children. At the same time, critics and skeptics of the often schizophrenic reports and diktats are again vocally resisting the new mandates for schools.
This week, another reason to disbelieve the experts has been highlighted; in May 2021, the CDC itself released a study that concluded that alone among all the mitigation efforts, only masking adults showed any statistical efficacy. This means of course that Plexiglass barriers, social distancing, surface cleansing, and most notably, masking children, each have NO real effect on transmission rates of Covid-19. This is now news, in August, because the CDC "file drawered" these findings; when the study was released, the summary mentioned only the benefits of masking adults, omitting the finding that no other mitigations help. Naturally, almost nobody read the study itself, relying instead on the summary to accurately represent the findings.
All this is problematic enough; the CDC is widely considered authoritative on such matters, and the fact that it chose to hide the results of a study that demolishes any rationale for nearly everything we have done for the duration of this pandemic, ought to be enraging to those who trust those officials and scientists we pay to get things straight. There is, though, a much greater threat lurking.
While we are reassured that there is no research that argues against masking children, some pediatricians, contradicting the AAP, are pointing out that face coverings make it difficult for the youngest children to learn how to properly speak and communicate, because of the lack of non-verbal cues which adults normally provide when interacting with young language learners. The research on this topic is broad and solid; humans require non-verbal interaction with one another, especially when first learning how to speak. Face coverings prevent this, in a disastrously comprehensive manner.
We know quite well that infants require close interaction with adults, most especially parents, in order to develop emotionally healthy and intellectually active. Our two generation war on the nuclear family shockingly parallels the explosive growth of AS diagnoses (Asperger's and ADHD were leading that growth, before they were redefined into AS). This is troubling enough as a potential contributor to the inability of millions of people to socially interact with others. A few have raised a warning about the dire results of hamstringing our children in their natural efforts to learn to speak and communicate. Yet no one seems aware of the implications this has on their emotional and social development; a person who cannot verbally communicate is disadvantaged in learning not only how to read, but ultimately, to think clearly, as well as how to relate to others, and himself. A child deprived of intimate social contact, which is what masking does to all of us, will inevitably be bereft of the lessons upon which human society and civilization are built. What happens to a society when most of its members are "on the spectrum"?
We are now begun our second school year under a cloud of fear and hysteria, most likely hampering the growth of the youngest children by compelling them to wear masks as prophylactic against a disease they are at nearly zero risk for; worse still, the guidelines being set to us establish no endpoints, suggesting this situation may persist endlessly. Yet we are ignoring the actual science at our hands, or making it up as we go along, as though they are responsible for protecting the adults in the room.
There is no evidence that masking children under 12 helps in any way with mitigating the spread of Covid-19. There is a world of evidence that hiding behind masks can and will retard the emotional and intellectual development of primary school children; the mandates are for ALL between two and 12 to "mask up". If we do this wrong, we may be creating an entire generation of autistic Americans who cannot effectively and civilly interact with one another, because we have made them socially inept, making our current socio-political dysfunction look like a sandbox squabble.
Forcing masks on children, while simultaneously permitting adults, under certain circumstances, to go maskless is NOT "thinking of the children".
Autism is defined foremost as social awkwardness, a pronounced failure to socially interact with others appropriately. We now speak of the spectrum, recognizing that there are wide degrees of performance in those we diagnose; some are simply a little weird, others are positively destructive. Despite the lack of any tangible evidence, autism is defined as a developmental disability, which implies that environmental factors are negligible. Many prefer to avoid the environmental explanation, thinking that that is blaming parents for being bad ones. But the fact that we can teach AS coping skills, and teach parents corresponding communication skills, suggests strongly that AS is indeed induced, rather than being some genetic defect. And this is where autism meets Covid-19 mask mandates .
For more than a year and a half, we have been given various, at times, disparate orders and guidelines for protecting ourselves from a flu-like virus that strikes the old and infirm hardest, while mysteriously virtually ignoring prepubescent children. With the onset of the Delta variant leading up to this new school year, educational and medical experts have reiterated their demands for masking those children. At the same time, critics and skeptics of the often schizophrenic reports and diktats are again vocally resisting the new mandates for schools.
This week, another reason to disbelieve the experts has been highlighted; in May 2021, the CDC itself released a study that concluded that alone among all the mitigation efforts, only masking adults showed any statistical efficacy. This means of course that Plexiglass barriers, social distancing, surface cleansing, and most notably, masking children, each have NO real effect on transmission rates of Covid-19. This is now news, in August, because the CDC "file drawered" these findings; when the study was released, the summary mentioned only the benefits of masking adults, omitting the finding that no other mitigations help. Naturally, almost nobody read the study itself, relying instead on the summary to accurately represent the findings.
All this is problematic enough; the CDC is widely considered authoritative on such matters, and the fact that it chose to hide the results of a study that demolishes any rationale for nearly everything we have done for the duration of this pandemic, ought to be enraging to those who trust those officials and scientists we pay to get things straight. There is, though, a much greater threat lurking.
While we are reassured that there is no research that argues against masking children, some pediatricians, contradicting the AAP, are pointing out that face coverings make it difficult for the youngest children to learn how to properly speak and communicate, because of the lack of non-verbal cues which adults normally provide when interacting with young language learners. The research on this topic is broad and solid; humans require non-verbal interaction with one another, especially when first learning how to speak. Face coverings prevent this, in a disastrously comprehensive manner.
We know quite well that infants require close interaction with adults, most especially parents, in order to develop emotionally healthy and intellectually active. Our two generation war on the nuclear family shockingly parallels the explosive growth of AS diagnoses (Asperger's and ADHD were leading that growth, before they were redefined into AS). This is troubling enough as a potential contributor to the inability of millions of people to socially interact with others. A few have raised a warning about the dire results of hamstringing our children in their natural efforts to learn to speak and communicate. Yet no one seems aware of the implications this has on their emotional and social development; a person who cannot verbally communicate is disadvantaged in learning not only how to read, but ultimately, to think clearly, as well as how to relate to others, and himself. A child deprived of intimate social contact, which is what masking does to all of us, will inevitably be bereft of the lessons upon which human society and civilization are built. What happens to a society when most of its members are "on the spectrum"?
We are now begun our second school year under a cloud of fear and hysteria, most likely hampering the growth of the youngest children by compelling them to wear masks as prophylactic against a disease they are at nearly zero risk for; worse still, the guidelines being set to us establish no endpoints, suggesting this situation may persist endlessly. Yet we are ignoring the actual science at our hands, or making it up as we go along, as though they are responsible for protecting the adults in the room.
There is no evidence that masking children under 12 helps in any way with mitigating the spread of Covid-19. There is a world of evidence that hiding behind masks can and will retard the emotional and intellectual development of primary school children; the mandates are for ALL between two and 12 to "mask up". If we do this wrong, we may be creating an entire generation of autistic Americans who cannot effectively and civilly interact with one another, because we have made them socially inept, making our current socio-political dysfunction look like a sandbox squabble.
Forcing masks on children, while simultaneously permitting adults, under certain circumstances, to go maskless is NOT "thinking of the children".