Council for Retarded Citizens

With the passing of our Katie Dolan I must take a moment to note many more brave people like her that also done the impossible in their lives. I have met many of these people in Columbus Ohio, at an organization called the Council for Retarded Citizens. The CRC was set up in the 1940's or 50's and some chapters still operate today. They were the fore runners of the modern this and that movements. Before Downs Syndrome was called Downs Syndrome it was "Mongoloids" something. Of course Autism was not autism until the Rain Man era. The CRC represents everyone in the retarded spectrum no matter the condition.

Most of the core CRC members and employees that are still living are indeed in their 80's and like Katie were pioneers. As I discuss this and that, talk shop with them, the stuff they did and their success stories are far different from the typical group home ideals of today. Lots of their success in actually getting their loved ones to function on their own was the fact most of them could literally baby-sit and train their child as in those days mothers didn't have to work. I met many older "autistic" people and their families that were treated to the very best of autism education (absently). When I talk with the CRC people. Quite a few of these people developed and grew from their splinter skills and today most do a traditional life. Many of us blend into life and are very good at one thing or another. Most of us have figured out autism on our own in a double blind experience.

In fact, the Splinter Skill Ideal became taboo in autism circles in the late 1960s as the experts spoke but, many in the CRC ignored them as they seen just how vital they were to our success. I am told of harsh words between the "Experts" of the Nosinger Center of the Ohio State University and the CRC in late 1960s as Autism was 'born.' The Nosinger Experts insisted that splinter skills and obsessions were wrong and they (snip) had a Ph.D. to prove it. The CRC people mostly Mothers and Fathers seen and knew very well the opposite was true. Due to those words the CRC had a parting of the ways with the "expert" community. It seems like the experts with the degrees were not willing to listen to the parents with the success stories. Today the CRC is a fading enity,sadly but still, their over all success rate no matter the condition is a lesion to be listened to.

Thanks to all the brave people in the MR/DD spectrum both modern and past that have done their parts to help.

Rich Shull, Author Autism Pre Rain Man Auitsm,inventor of The Turing Motor a 70% efficient Green autistically designed Car motor that could get a reasonable car 100 MPG. This motor is designed from the ideal, energy is neither created or destroyed only transformed-It is the motor Ford would have had built if, he understood his own, ( from and engineering point of view).