Disability data doubt

One of the latest in the seemingly endless rounds of alarming statistics is that 1 in 12 American children has some form of disability. With all the things that are supposedly getting worse, you have to wonder how our life expectancy keeps increasing.

I wonder what percentage of these 1 in 12 were born premature or with congenital illnesses that not so long ago were not treatable which are now treatable but still may mean a certain amount of disability involved. Probably not enough of a disability to drastically effect their lives but some forms of it. As far as that goes how much is our new found technology responsible for producing disabling symptoms? Is Lion King and Poke-O-Mon causing kids behavioral problems? Some researchers in the area of audio and visual testing have found links to suggest it can. It's not the content that causes the problems it's the way it is produced the special effects in other words causing problems. Is this new testing just picking up what has been dismissed or not noticed all along because there was no triggering mechinism to produce symptoms till recently?

I hear regularly from parents who tell me that they are being asked to allow their children to be labeled "autistic," in order to get either the government or their insurance company to pay for speech therapy. Under Social Security law, if a child is determined to be "mentally retarded," his parents might be able to collect "disability" benefits from the government. This money goes directly to the parents.

I remember speaking to a judge a few years ago about a case where a child had been removed from the disability rolls because his IQ test had shown improvement. The kid's mother was furious that her son was no longer "retarded" enough to get free money from Uncle Sam.

The judge asked the boy what he wanted to be when he grew up. The boy replied that he hoped to become a doctor or a lawyer.

The judge replied, "Did you ever think that maybe you might not be able to achieve your ambitions if you are labeled as 'mentally retarded'?"

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