MEDIA WATCH

From mid-April in the USA comes a story of 19-year-old autistic identical twins who couldn’t be more different.

Both are autistic, both have the same DNA, both look similar and are of similar height. There the similarity ends:

Sam Fetters is at college, wants to double major in history and political science, and runs marathons.

His brother John attends a special school, struggles to form sentences, and likes to watch Teletubbies and Sesame Street.

The big question is, how can two people with the same DNA and the same upbringing be so different in the way their autism affects them. Neither medical science nor psychology has anything but speculation to understand this.

What this does tell us is that the idea of autism being down to bad parenting is false. It was debunked years ago though a stigma still remains. Autism moms, you’re off the hook.

The full story, including all references, can be found here. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/04/04/1242264274/siblings-science-identical-twin-brothers-autism-spectrum

What I have written so far is by way of review. These are my thoughts on what it says:

Firstly, the idea that interventions worked on Sam but not on John, I find disturbing. Would Sam have grown up to be sporty and intelligent without interventions? The number of autistic adults being diagnosed who have never had interventions these days, I see as evidence that ABA and other similar therapies do not work anywhere near as much as is claimed. Children grow up, including the large majority of autistic children.[1]

Secondly, I am even more wary of any attempts to gather the DNA of autistics. So far, there has not been any research which said the data was safe from being used for eugenics, especially by those who have said they want to wipe out autism. I’m not against DNA research, but even if data security were tightened up, I would be cautious.

---

[1] Here’s one report saying ABA is abusive: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41252-021-00201-1?fbclid=IwAR2d6Mq8l3B7kHvBjKPagARTyjzGimZhwvfh7LfDy_gLPTu-iuu4xwR5cIU
And another, a large investigation by the US military shows that ABA results are random. I’m sorry it’s just an image, but if anyone wants to (I have), they can copy the whole web address from the bottom of the image. https://twitter.com/AnnMemmott/status/1297829450223058945/photo/1