Strange. With that amount of coaching, think how they could have learned an actual useful skill.

Sadly, your last sentence is probably right. It'll be like having a mythical welfare queen to point to. ("Everyone knows parents coach their kids to get benefits.")

Who says this isn't a useful skill?
I also thought of the welfare queen example- that too had some weak basis in reality (some person collected SSNs and was fraudulently getting several checks a month), but was blown up to the point of, "Everyone on welfare drives a cadillac so let's cut welfare!"

Darn it! I am missing out. My almost 15 yr old daughter is autistic and developmentally delayed. I do not get any stinking benefits.

Strike that. I do get to physically drag her out of the store when she decides to freak out or disrobe at the store.

Last week, I had to carry her out of the grocery store. A man was nice enough to carry her coat, backpack and shoes for me. (I was able to stop her from taking off her shirt.) As we get to my car, the nice man asks "uummm, she is your daughter, right???"

"uummm, she is your daughter, right???"

Now that's funny.

You should have seen his face when I responded with "QUICK! Get her in the car!!!" while looking around madly.

David Cross played a character who did this on Just Shoot Me. He faked retardation because he was too lazy to get a job. He used to sing a little song about chicken pot pie. It went: "Chicken pot chicken pot chicken pot piiiiiie".

Good times.

Hah, will, I have a 16 year old autistic sister, and I have had that *precise* experience.

Even better was the time we got accosted by the mallcops in the parking lot when she got confused about which car was ours and threw a fit.

Yow. I wonder if there's a systematic solution for that sort of thing: medical ID bracelets or something?

There is, my sister wears one. It's a little metal chain she wears on her wrist that lists contact information, that she is non verbal, and basic medication. If you ask her her name she will point at it.

It's not much use when she's throwing a fit, however. Can't get her to slow down enough to show someone.

Glenn:
This sounds sappy, but those who have been through it have a special bond.

I typically try to walk really slow and talk really calmly when my daughter busts loose so that some cop or well-meaning person doesnt tackle me.

Eventually, you get over the embarassment, although I still get slightly pissed when people look at me with that "Can't you control your daughter" look. No, no, I can't.

That must be awful. My brother-in-law is severely disabled, but obviously so, so while people may get annoyed or impatient when we're out in public with him (and the overwhelming majority of the time no one is -- people are very decent) no one's confused about what's going on.

A former neighbour pulled a similar scam - her kid got hurt in a fight at school, and she managed to pay convince an I'll-be-an-expert-witness-for-$$ p$hrink to opine that he was suffering from disabling PTSD, which got him SSI. [She sued the school and was furious to discover that the amount they offered was not "hundreds of thousands of dollars" and would be held in trust for the kid till he was 18, not given to her outright. We all heard a lot about the injustice of that.] She was also pissed when a photographer caught a picture of her too-frightened-to-leave-his-bedroom child cavorting with his friends in the pool.

Tell me about it. Whenever I meet another sibling or parent it always ends up sounding like a couple of vets rehashing war stories.

The thing about our situation is just how physically assertive my sister is. She looks like a pixie but when she wants to be she's an absolute bulldozer. You're right though, people are almost always very decent about it.

This sort of thing pisses me off.

Not so much the abuse itself, although obviously that is Not Good.

But so many people will use this kind of story to justify pushing to reduce benefits for the disabled or make it harder for the legitimately disabled to win them.

The application process for SS disability is already fucked up in so many ways, I get resistant when anyone proposes fucking with it even more.

"The thing about our situation is just how physically assertive my sister is. She looks like a pixie but when she wants to be she's an absolute bulldozer."

This is by far the most difficult aspect. My daughter is the same way.

Wait, Glenn...son, is that you?? jk.

It is really hard to have a normal life when you hit others.

will, glenn: that sounds incredibly tough. I am sending you imaginary internet friends good wishes and sympathy.