The most important thing I learned from my ASD son's pediatrician

[msagara]

My son's pediatrician was a woman who was shorter than I am and I swear half my weight; she was also in her fifties. I met her when she was doing the round of newborns at the hospital at which my son was born. She was the *only* adult who could, when he was newborn, handle him at all without causing an outburst of screaming. So I asked if we could

Comments

[controuble]

My son has had his own computer since he was 18 months old. I was working from home as a consultant until he was almost 3 and he wanted to help. Needless to say, the typing done by an 18 month old is not conducive to getting paid by the client.

His computer however, was NOT hooked up to the internet. There were plenty of games on CD that he could play at that age and I think he was even doing the 1st grade games by the time he was 4.

[msagara]

His computer however, was NOT hooked up to the internet. There were plenty of games on CD that he could play at that age and I think he was even doing the 1st grade games by the time he was 4.

I don't think my son's computer (and he did also have his own in the end) was hooked up to the internet until he was twelve and we were playing WoW together. But once it was, he was off and running; I think he was twelve when he first encountered the Giants in the Playground forum. There are a lot of people who shared his interests posting there - but they are a very, very heavily moderated forum.

[mythusmage]

Now there was a woman who was self-assured. Cool, calm, and collected.

And speaking of creatures with a bad reaction to a stimulus, have you ever noticed how docile a calm rat is around a human. Because we tend not to hunt them consistently rats are not selected for an innate fear of people.

[lyssabits]

Plenty of things we don't hunt consistently are still afraid of humans. Rats and mice both live pretty closely with humans, and humans consider both vermin and exterminate them when we can. Mice and rats are hunted by plenty of OTHER things. So any wild rodent will have prey instincts, and will bite you if your corner it.

On the other hand, I'm not sure why domesticated rats are, as you say, much calmer around humans than other domesticated rodents. I tend to believe it's because they're smarter. ;) Mice are dumb as rocks, they don't know any better than to be afraid and bite. But even mice will become accustomed to humans and not bite them the more you handle them. I think domesticated rats are sweet, but I've encountered wild rats who were definitely NOT sweet.

[mythusmage]

Note I said, "calm", in situations such as you noted the rat is going to be stressed and upset. Give the animal the opportunity to relax and explore and you'll find that he'll get used to the presence of the human, and may even become used to exploring you.

Where extermination is concerned, keep in mind that it is not a constant thing, and so the evolutionary pressure to select for a human fearing rat just isn't there. Human-rat encounters tend to vary, so selection pressures, when they occur, will tend to vary as well. And here you thought evolution was a simple thing. :)

[lyssabits]

Well I was just an animal caretaker/molecular biology tech in a research lab for 6 years, most of my experience is with domesticated rodents, so what do I know about rodents or evolution. I just know the rats were sweet, the mice were jerks, and they were all in-bred. Which leads me to believe it wasn't so much that rats co-evolved with humans not to fear them (coz you could make the same case for mice) but that something else was a factor. Rats are demonstrably smarter and have different colony structures than mice. That always seemed more likely to me.

[joycemocha]

Nods. At one point I had to explain to my son that he had to learn to play the teacher game, and sometimes that meant irrational stuff happened but that this was just the way things were. We had many, many chats about the teacher game.

[msagara]

We had many, many chats about the teacher game.

I think that's a brilliant way of handling it - I wish I'd thought of it at the time!

[heinous_bitca]

So, are any of you playing Diablo 3 now? :)

[msagara]

I only downloaded my prepaid copy 2 days ago, as a reward for finishing page proofs. But I haven’t played it very much because of the multiple deadlines that seem to be running my life.

My son has played D3 a bit - but with his RL and on-line friends; I don’t log in unless I’ve actually finished work for the day, and frequently, that’s not on any predictable schedule =/.

[heinous_bitca]

Aww, maybe soon you'll have time!

The husband and I have duo'd through normal and are working on nightmare with our monk (me) and wizard (him) combo. It brings back our old D2 duoing days, save the forced need to be online when playing.

It's a great mindless game though, and I'm enjoying it for that.

[chrysoula]

Robin has had a computer of his own since he was...3? Because, indeed, he wanted to help. He wanted to draw. He does a _lot_ of computer art.

We _are_ terrible parents in some ways (like family meals), but I do try to create as much consistency between rules for him and rules for us. We're lax on a lot of role-model behavior and he does get some 'because we're adults stuff' (like saying certain bad words, since he doesn't understand 'public' and 'private' yet) but I get the impression that the more we can provide equality, the more he's willing to accept some of our crazy rules.

He imitates us so much. It's sobering.