Hey, everyone! I am participating in the Autism Walk in Pittsburgh this June an I need your support!

 Autism is the second most common developmental disorder in the United States affecting one in every 88 children born today. More children will be diagnosed with autism this year than with AIDS, diabetes & cancer combined.  Research is crucial.  Despite some promising discoveries, the cause of autism is unknown and a cure does not exist.  Our goal is to change the future for all who struggle with autism spectrum disorders, and soon.

Walk Now for Autism Speaks is our chance to make a difference in the fight against autism by raising money for autism research and heightening public awareness. The statistics above are recent figures, so the national organization has challenged all of the walkers to raise $88 in 88 hours (from now until Tuesday, April 24th), and I would really like to achieve that goal if I can. I am posting this message on all the sites that I post on and hopefully I can not only meet the goal, but exceed it. You don't have to give much at all, even $5 would mean a lot.

I know that a lot of you are young and can't actually donate yourself, but maybe ask your family and friends if they would like to contribute for you? Donors get their organization named on our banner, so if David wants to donate, or a lot of people contribute I will make sure that Vizzed Board will have their logo added on.

Thanks, guys!

My Donation Page

Is there anyway I could donate a whole bunch of Viz to you, and you convert it into money?

Not to my knowledge. If I had a bunch of disposable income I might be able to do it personally, but that is simply not the case.

That stinks. I would totally help you out, but I do not have a job right now, and I have all of maybe 75 bucks to take care of myself. Sorry Elara. And you forgot to summon me. Only reason I saw your previous post was because I was seeing if David had posted the results of the TdV for yesterday.

thing1 : Zombification does that to me. I've gotten like 8 hours in the last two days... maybe....

That stinks. Well, I hope you do well enough to get your 88 bucks in 88 hours. By the way, could you keep me updated on how much you have every... oh, 4 or 5 hours. I would really like to know if you made it. I have been digging for spare change lately, and I have found a couple dollars to spare...

thing1 : Still nothing.

In general, doing this whole thing has taught me that those who want to donate never have money, and those who have money are selfish jerks.

thing1 : Not even remotely. I have been working for the mental health center here for years and work with both kids with mild to severe ADHD and 7 kids with autism. In no way are they remotely similar.

rcarter2 : you know how there are different spectrums on the autism scales? My little brother has more of an A D H D type of autism. he is not retarded or anything. He does have a hard time keeping focused, takes meds to go to bed, but that is about it.

thing1 : You seem to be severely misinformed about both autism. Even the far side of the spectrum is not 'retarded'. Those are completely different things. And it sounds like you are referring to the aspergers side of the scale. The diagnostic guidelines right now put ADHD and the autism spectrum scales as separate things. Unless they change the guidelines, there is no ADHD type of autism. ADHD is not the inability to focus like people understand it to be. The problem is that they are focusing on everything about everything and have the inability to filter which stimulus is important and unimportant. There is a scale of autism where they can't focus, which is what you said your brother has issues with.

rcarter2 : I was referring to th esimiliarites of them. I used to be diagnosed as ADHD. I was forced to do some tests to see if i was aspergers of autistic, but I was neither. I had asked about it, and the lady said it was similiar to ADHD. That is it. I am not arguing with you about it, I am just telling you what I was told when I was tested.

thing1 : Yes, you can still donate later. The walk isn't until June, and we can take donations up until the day of the event I believe.

Just in case the link is being a pain again, you can search for my page directly by looking for Crystle Stevenson.

rcarter2 : Since you have more of a connection to current news than I do, what all have you heard about them shrinking the spectrum... like getting rid of the "asperger's" label and such?

Well, the thing is autism is starting to become the new ADHD. What I mean by that is that it is really starting to get severely over-diagnosed. Some years ago, pretty much every kid who had something different about them got diagnosed as ADHD, when really it is something like parents feeding them sugar and placing them in front of a TV and expect them to not have a reservoir of energy. Now it seems that every kid that has a little characteristic that the parent doesn't like, their kid must have autism and needs to be medicated. I know right now the media says 1 in every 88 kids will have autism, but that really is not the case. A huge chunk of those kids are getting diagnosed with autism who really just have quirks. That is something we are seeing in the mental health a lot here lately. A lot of the time, it is just parents not being good parents so they find a doctor who will give them a diagnosis rather than say "you are a crappy parent". Now for anyone out there, I'm not saying that is everyone. Autism is serious when a kid really has it. 

Anyway, because of the over-diagnosing the past couple years, there is talk about redefining the spectrum. 

Apologies for being both slow and unable to donate, but I figure that as someone who's been said to have Aspergers (although no official diagnosis), it should be a good idea to show support for this.

Also, what rcarter said. Autism is pretty bad, but equally as bad is the rampant abuse of the diagnosis, which have forced kids to become unwilling prescription drug addicts and made the actual mental disorder an internet joke.