naked: a plague of tics

Usually anything written by David Sedaris proves to be an easy read. I love the style Sedaris uses throughout his writing. While reading his story, I found my laughing at his witty jokes and sense of humor. The story introduces Sedaris as a young boy displaying signs of obsessive compulsive disorder. It seems as though the nervous tics he suffered from were not seen as a 'defect' at the time. All throughout his time in elementary and middle school, Sedaris's teachers found his obsessive tics to be disruptive in the classroom and just down right weird. Teacher after teacher meets with his mother, discussing the oddities of his behavior. We can gather by the description of Sedaris's mother that she is quite the alcoholic. In addition to his mother's problems, his father seems to be somewhat of a hoarder (seems to be a bit ironic to think their child is the one with all the problems, eh?). By the time he reaches college, Sedaris picks up a new habit that replaces some of his tics. He finds that smoking allows himself to continue his fidgety behavior except in a more normal nature. As time progresses, his tics aren't as obvious to others and have progressively died down.

After reading the entirety of the story, I found two of David Sedaris's awkward situations to be my favorite. The first takes place within the first two paragraphs of the story. The way Miss Chestnut points out his OCD is great. I personally enjoyed when she asked him in regard to the licking of light switches, "Would you like me to come over to your house and put my tongue on your light switches? Well, would you?" It seems a bit mean to call him out in front of an entire class, but yet none the less hilarious. Now what I thought was the best part of the story was Sedaris's feelings toward his roommate. He so badly wanted to be able to rock back in forth alone in the confines of his dorm room. He formulated an idea hoping his roommate would never come back after visiting his girfriend. Instead just about the opposite happened. The couple broke up two months later and Sedaris found himself in hell yet again.

Final Research Topic

In my final research paper, the question I want to answer is what do I believe is the the real etiology of autism. There isn't a set in stone cause of the disorder, but I feel that it is important I decide which theory of autism to support. I am familiar with the disorder and learned about it in the past, yet I didn't have enough information to state my opinion until I completed my research. I came across two theories that had the most relevant information. The theories are known as congenital and regressive autism. Those who support congenital believe that autism is caused by abnormals genes or altered chromosomal patterns. The onset of the disorder is seen at the time of birth, therefore only caused by factors prior to birth. Regressive autism is drastically different, where the onset of the disorder doesn't appear until after the first few years of the child's life. Factors related to this theory would be present postnatal and due to the environment. With a bit more information on these theories, I decided which I wanted to support. With that said, I believe the developmental disorder of autism is caused by prenatal and perinatal factors that affect the genetic makeup of an individual.

As I previously stated, I had already had prior knowledge of autism before researching. In all of my speech and education classes, I have studied it in some form. Mainly I have learned the symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, and educational services needed for children with autism. These individuals lack communication, language, and social skills. They seem to be extremely introverted and have a hard time engaging socially. However, this is disorder is a bit unique due to the vast range of diagnosis. The disorder is seen in forms of mild to extreme autism. Therefore, the term autism spectrum disorder is used to classify cases of autism because of the different forms. In addition to studying these aspects of autism, I briefly explored (by briefly I mean little to none) the possible causes of the disorder. Since it's a debatable topic I didn't learn much about it.

In addition, I needed to find information on the opposing theory, regressive autism, to make arguments that favor my opinion. This goes in hand with the information I needed to look up for the opposing arguments. This is the only other theory that I will state in my paper. Lastly, this is an up to date list of the sources I am using in my paper. This list will probably grow longer within the next couple weeks.

Goin-Kochel, Robin P.; Myers, Barbara J. “Congenital Versus Regressive Onset of Autism

            Spectrum Disorders: Parent’s Beliefs About Causes.” Focus on Autism and Other

            Developmental Disabilities. Fall 2005. 1 Mar. 2011.

Mooney, Chris. “VACCINATION nation.” Discover. Discover, June 2009. Web. 1 Mar. 2011

Spence, M. Anne; Flodman, Pamela. “Nuclear and Mitochondrial Genome Defects in Autism.”

            Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. Jan. 2009. 1 Mar. 2011.