Autism Vs. Down Syndrome
A sample of Senator McCain's comments throughout tonight's debate:
"And I just said to you earlier, town hall meeting after town hall meeting, parents come with kids, children -- precious children who have autism. Sarah Palin knows about that better than most. And we'll find and we'll spend the money, research, to find the cause of autism."
First of all, Sarah Palin's son has DOWN SYNDROME, NOT AUTISM! The cause of Down Syndrome is genetic, indicated by an extra 21st chromosome.
So how would she have extensive knowledge of autism? Governor Palin found out in December that her son would be born with Down's Syndrome and admits :
"It took a while to open up the book that the doctor gave me about children with Down syndrome, and a while to log on to the Web site and start reading facts about the situation."
I find it hard to believe that in the time that she was alerted to the special needs of her child, give birth, complete her duties as Governor and run for Vice President for the United States of America that she has had time to then investigate other diagnoses and become an expert on the subject.
Yes, her son has Down Syndrome. So do 400,000 other people in this country, and I would guess that their parents' wouldn't claim to have better knowledge about the 1-1.5 million Americans who are on the Autism Spectrum because of it. That's like saying because I have a friend who is from France I have better knowledge of individuals from Greece.
"And I just said to you earlier, town hall meeting after town hall meeting, parents come with kids, children -- precious children who have autism. Sarah Palin knows about that better than most. And we'll find and we'll spend the money, research, to find the cause of autism."
First of all, Sarah Palin's son has DOWN SYNDROME, NOT AUTISM! The cause of Down Syndrome is genetic, indicated by an extra 21st chromosome.
So how would she have extensive knowledge of autism? Governor Palin found out in December that her son would be born with Down's Syndrome and admits :
"It took a while to open up the book that the doctor gave me about children with Down syndrome, and a while to log on to the Web site and start reading facts about the situation."
I find it hard to believe that in the time that she was alerted to the special needs of her child, give birth, complete her duties as Governor and run for Vice President for the United States of America that she has had time to then investigate other diagnoses and become an expert on the subject.
Yes, her son has Down Syndrome. So do 400,000 other people in this country, and I would guess that their parents' wouldn't claim to have better knowledge about the 1-1.5 million Americans who are on the Autism Spectrum because of it. That's like saying because I have a friend who is from France I have better knowledge of individuals from Greece.
posted by Whitney at
3:23 PM
1 Comments:
I think what McCain probably meant (but unfortunately did not express it very well) is that Palin has experience with a special-needs child. Then, I think a separate, but related, though was about autism.
His thought would have been better expressed if he had a connecting sentence about Down Syndrome, something like: "Palin has experience with special needs children. Her kid has Down Syndrome. We need to help families with special needs kids. Lots of other families have kids with special needs like autism. We should also try to find the cause of, and a cure for, that affliction."
Anyway, I think he knows the difference between Down Syndrome and autism. I just think he didn't express himself particularly well.
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Anonymous, at 1:03 PM
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