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\ k Page 2/The Battalion/Thursday, September 22 1983 opinion Austistic children need help, patience By Children’s Express United Press International PRINCETON, N.J.— Autistic kids are detached from reality, living in their own little world. It’s very difficult for other people to get through to them. Some of them don’t like to be touched. They take toys and don’t use them as ordinary toys. They do something like put them in lines and they keep on doing the same thing over and over again, or they stare at one thing for hours. Some of them can’t talk. They don’t like to pay attention when someone is trying to teach them something. They’ll just look away. lot of trouble knowing what to do with his tongue and mouth. In order to have him communicate with us, he carried a port able memo writer so he could type mes sages. He’s coming along very well now — he’s doing math, he’s doing reading — yet speech is still hard for him. But some day maybe he’ll go to public school, too.” At the Institute, they put the kids in classes and treat them nicely. They try to get their attention and they reward them if they get something right. They have a lot of teachers so they can give individual attention. Patricia Krantz, co-director of the Princeton Child Development Institute, says that, “if I were to characterize them in any single word, it’s ‘closed.’” The Institute is a school for autistic children. They have 21 kids at the Insti tute. It was founded in 1971 by a grand mother named Peggy Pulleyn whose daughter had an autistic child. We visited the Institute and talked with Ms. Krantz. Then we went around and saw some children. With some of them we were trying to say, “Hi,” but they wouldn’t look up. But a lot of them you could barely tell were any different from us — if we passed them on the street we wouldn’t know they were autistic. We talked with one child who was about to graduate and go into a regular school. His name was Brandon. “Brandon has been with us three years, and when I First saw him, he did not talk,” Ms. Krantz recalled. “Yet he was about 3 and a half years old. He was very withdrawn and would cry a lot. He didn’t play with other kids. He would spend hours just standing and staringout the window. But he’s learned about all of these things while he’s been here.” Ms. Krantz also told us about a child named Bunkie. “The things that kids normally can do at age four, Bunkie couldn’t do,” she said. “He couldn’t use his fingers to pick up objects and he had only eaten three things in his life: baby food, orange pudding and yogurt. He couldn’t talk, he couldn’t chew, and he wasn’t toilet-trained. He was very with drawn and he didn’t communicate. “In five weeks we taught Bunkie to accept most foods, but it took us a year to teach him to chew,” Ms. Krantz con tinued. “Yet while we were teaching him to chew he was able to learn to read. Doesn’t that seem incredible — that he could read but couldn’t chew? He had a Teaching these kids requires a lot of patience. “Initially, it may literally take 10,000 trials to teach a child something,” Ms. Krantz said. “But whafs interesting is that while some things are so hard for our kids, in other things they’re very smart. Some kids learn to read the Wall Street Journal at age two and some kids learn to read before they can talk. One of the children absolutely floored his parents because they’d never heard him talk and suddenly he was reading the signs in a shoe store. These are the mysteries of our kids.” Five out of every 10,000 kids is autis tic. Mostly boys get autism. There is no known cause. Autistic people used to be thought of as hopeless. They put them into institu tions and their problemsjust kept on get ting worse. “You can’t learn to be normal in an institution,” Ms. Krantz said. “You never get to decide anything so you never learn how to live. One of our students had been in an institution for two years before coming to us and he was pretty sick. A lot of times in institutions they use behavior control drugs. They’re very powerful and make you so you can’t do anything. But none of our children takes any kind of medication or drugs.” We were wondering how many kids are cured at the Institute. “We tend to look at it by saying, ‘How many kids have left us and are functioning completely normally?”’ Ms. Krantz pointed out. “Some kids only get a little better and they have to keep being in treatment. But right now we have also got nine kids in public school and who look perfectly nor mal. That’s a very high percentage to be totally okay.” Then we asked Ms. Krantz if there are any children who they just give up on and call hopeless. “We never say that a child is hopeless,” she replied. “We say that we have to de velop better techniques. We have chil dren with whom we wish we could make more progress, but we keep working so that each child can move to his or her own fullest potential.” Spare parts sale at Pentagon garage by Art Buchwald The Pentagon was having a spare parts garage sale the other day, and I went over to see if I could pick up any bargains. There were spare parts spread all over the parking lot. I picked up a Phillips screwdriver, and a colonel came over and warned me, “If you break it you pay for it. “How much is it?” The colonel looked in a book. “I’ll let you have it for $760. ” “Seven hundred and sixty dollars for a screwdriver?” “We paid $990 for it. It’s a heckuva bar gain. This is not an ordinary screwdriver. It was made to screw bolts in F-16s. ” “Let me think it over. What else have you got?” “Here’s a chief petty officer’s flashlight that you can’t pass up. It’s yours for $230, without batteries.” “How much are the batteries?” The colonel referred to his book. “We paid $140 for two. I’ll throw in the batteries for $50 if you take the flashlight for $220. ” “You’ll be losing a lot of money on the deal.” “This is a garage sale, and we’ve been told to get rid of our spare parts before Congress finds out how much we’ve been paying for them,” the colonel said. “What are these little black squares?” “They’re silicon chips for our night fight ers. The aviation company who made the fighters sold them to us for $1,500 apiece. But you can have a dozen for $999. ” “You can buy these chips in any Radio Shack for $4.95,” I said. “We just found that out,” he replied. “That’s why we re selling them so cheap.” “What are these tires over here?” “They’re for mobile missile launchers. They’re a steal. The defense contractor charged us $1,200 for each tire, but we’ve reduced them to $600. “How can you afford a 50 percent mark down?” “We re suing the contractor for over charging us $900 a tire, and if we win we’ll come out ahead. “And if you lose?” “It doesn’t matter because every time we fire a missle all the tires on the launcher blowout.” y “I really don’t need any tires.” “If you want a good buy you ought to take one of these M-l tank transmissions. We paid $400,000 for each one, but we re let ting them go for $50,000.” “Do they work?” “If they worked do you think we’d be selling them for $50,000?” Are those Army pup tents over there?” “You better believe it. They’ve never been used. The list price was $6,000 for each one, but because it’s General Patton’s Birthday, were giving them away for $4,000 today. You’ll never get to buy a pup tent for that price again.” “I’ve been to garage sales before,” I said, “but this one beats them all.” The colonel said, “The way we look at it is the taxpayer paid for these things, so he should get first crack at buying them at a discount. It’s our way of thanking him for supporting the military buildup.” “There are so many bargains, I’d like to buy everything in the parking lot.” “I wish you would. It would get me off the hook.” “Why?” “I was the chief purchasing officer for the Pentagon until they found out this $5,000 walkie-talkie could be bought at Sears Roebuck for $18.95.” „IS BIZARRE 5KVJACKIM ENPEP WHEN CUBAN AUTHORITIES TOOK THE MM INTO CUSTOPV ANP CIEAREP1WE ELEPHANT FOR ITS PISNEWORLD FLIi Dodosaurs take over classes by Dick West United Press International WASHINGTON— The National Sci ence Foundation has warned that the United States is in danger of becoming “an industrial dinosaur” because of de clining educational standards. If the foundation is worried now, wait till it sees a book about “dodosaurs” being published next month. Dodosaurs are described as “di nosaurs that didn’t make it.” Not making it to the dinosaur level may be close to the ultimate in non-achievement, although anyone with school-age children might be tempted to dispute that assessment. The evidence that dodosaurs once lived on Earth seems more circumstantial than real. You have heard it said that if certain creatures didn’t exist, somebody would have invented them, so perfectly did they meet the needs of the times? Well, dodosaurs were invented by Rick Meyerowitz and Henry Beard, who are identified in a book blurb as “armchair paleontologists.” There is no documenta tion that either excelled in science or math while in school. “An examination of how life f orces de velop over countless eons of time has taught us that ancient traits of long-dead creatures never completely disappear,” they write. “So the next time you stub your toe or dial the wrong number or step on a cat, don’t be too hard on yourself — it’s prob ably just an example of a small part of the dodosaur inheritance at work.” That theory also may explain much of what goes on in the classrooms of today. At least it provides a good enough reason for studying science and math. Meyerowitz and Beard address the 3 uestion of how any creature as inept as a odosaur managed to chalk up such a long life span — up to 28 minutes in some cases. “If survival of the fittest is the law of nature, the dodosaurs must have had very, very good lawyers,” they reason. “Anyone who studies the dodosaurs quickly notices that they tend to be sepa rated into three main groups: the dumb, the silly and the unbelievable,” say authors. Any resemblance between that class! cation and the way some teacherscate^ rize their students may be only com cidental. In any event, many of the traditions started by dodosaurs in prehistoric time apparently are being preserved in ern schools. Gertainly the book’s condo sion that dodosaurs “were their om natural disasters” has a parallel that it unmistakable. A reconstruction of the first dodosau; fossil, according to the authors, isnowra display in the Hall of Heavy Thingsoi the Museum of Big Objects in Tiram Albania. The exhibit, we are told, appears to “a mass of decaying dough purport ffm.” to be the world’s largest muff portec Continued neglect of math andsciei courses could produce “an industri dodosaur.” Then where would we be How politicians got to be cowboys Cowboys aren’t what you think United Press JERUSALEM tnir was chosei :orm Israel’s nt virtually assurir :ion of Pi !nc!§Menachem B< eadership. President Ch mally asked t foreign ministe text administra II days to prese :oalition to the liament, for ap] Roni Milo, tl liamentary whip :rnment could 1 [a week. Shamir Diane veterinai Israeli ] Sh by Maxwell Glen and Cody Shearer United Press International Washington — A political ritual of no small significance is scheduled to take place this weekend in nearby Landover, Md.: The president, his Cabinent and much of official Washington will attend a rodeo. On Saturday afternoon, courtesy of the Pro-Rodeo Cowboy Association, the president and friends will witness a spe cial exhibition of bull-riding, steer wrestling and barrel-racing no often seen in these parts. For kicks, Commerce Sec retary Malcolm Baldrige, A pro-Rodeo Cowboy himself, will even mount up fora special team-roping event. While a few hours of rough-and-ready recreation may seem an innocent diver sion, it brings to mind an important les son for students of political culture: One can’t go too far in electoral politics with out a bit of that ’ol cowboy spirit. This theory rests not on our most re cent president’s habit of donning tooled boots and a crusty denim jacket. Instead, it derives from a hunch that, more than a century after the cowboy’s passing, the cowboy myth all but defines our notion of leadership. Time was when cowboys held a place in society only slightly higher than that accorded to blacks and women. First sighted in South Texas around 1860, cowpunchers shepherded cattle north to railheads in Kansas for about $1 a day. They never carried guns, and rarely owned horses. They performed monoto nous tasks on the trail and usually work ed as dishwashers or bartenders in the off seasons. Nearly half of all cowboys were black or Mexican; many had to retire pre maturely because of malnutrition- related illnesses. These disillusioning truths are the dis coveries of two Library of Congrss histo rians, Lonn Taylor and Ingrid Maar. Au thors of a new book, “The American Cowboy,” Taylor and Maar say that cow boys were really just pawns in a latter-day multinational game of beef and profit. Hired to rustle other firms’ cattle, many ere abandoned upon arrest. How then, did a distinctly questionable character become a national hero of epic proportion? Maar and Taylor say that urbanization, industrializaton and im migration of the late 19th century led many Americans to yearn for a simpler America (sound familiar?) Not surpris ingly, plenty of myth-makers were happy to oblige. Owen Wister of Philadelphia was a big help. His 1902 book “The Virginian” was an immediate hit and eventually was transposed for stage, screen and televi sion. The book’s nameless hero was “a slim, young giant, more beautiful than pictures,” whose sense of honor and n^any daring feats in the name of God, country and Woman were unsurpassed. Buffalo Bill Cody (and proprietors of some 50 other imitation Wild West shows) transformed the cowboy from laborer to entertainer and gave way to such cool hands .as Tom Mix and Will Rogers. (Later, Hollywood would come of age via this simple formula, as would Ronald Reagan in such films as “The Santa Fe Trail.“) Dime novels and illus trated magazines further chronicled the cowboy’s lifestyle and gave young Amer icans something to dream about. Wrote Larry Chittenden, “the prairie poet“: He is loyal as steel, but demands a square deal And he hates and despises a coward Yet the cowboy you’ll find unto woman is kind Though he’ll fight till by death overpo wered. It was only a matter of time befort politicians cashed in on the cowboy’spoli ^ tical currency. Despite his swank J Island roots, Theodore Roosevelt tioned himself as an outdoorsman’s tician, and regularly ventured West fa trail rides and hunting trips. He oi nized the cowboy cavalry, known as Rough Riders, and was later called tk Cowboy President. The image has plagued us eversincf Calvin Coolidge filled his c l° set Western-style duds; Eisenhower and LJ each preferred his farm or ranch to tk White House. and Shair tdlv And everybody knows that John Glennii a space cowboy. Perhaps that’s why Saturday’s pilgrim age to the rodeo strikes us as a matterol political necessity. If voters believe that anyone who wears jeans deserves Wraf ler’s label of “one tough customer,’’«( may be seeing a lot more denim befort the long campaign is finished. (LA ern: (LA The Battalion USPS 045 360 Member ot Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Conference Editor Hope E. Paasch Managing Editor Elaine Engstrom City Editor Beverly Hamilton Assistant City Editor Kelley Smith Sports Editor J°hn Lopez Assistant Sports Editor Joe Tindel Entertainment Editor .... RebecaZimmermann Assistant Entertainment Editor Shelley Hoekstra News Editors Brian Boyer, Kathy Breard, Tracey Taylor, Kelly Miller Photo Editor Eric Evan Lee Staff Writers Brigid Brockman, Ronnie Crocker, Scott Griffin, Christine Mallon, Michelle Powe, Ann Ramsbottom, Stephanie Ross, Karen Schrimsher, Carol Smith, Angel Stokes, John Wagner, Kathy Wiesepape, Wanda Winkler Cartoonist Paul Dirmeyer, Scott McCullar Photographers Brenda Davidson, Michael Davis, Guy Hood, John Makely, Dean Saito The Battalion also serves as a laboratory newspaptr for students in reporting, editing and photography chi- ses within the Department of Communications. Questions or comments concerning any editoriil matter should he directed to the editor. Letters Policy Letters to the Editor should not exceed 300 words® length, and are subject to being cut if they are longer The editorial staff reserves the right to edit letters to style and length, but will make every effort to maintain the author’s intent. 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