Michael Phelps' Story--An inspiration to children with a disorder

The Michael Phelps story is an inspiration to anyone who has special needs or has a child with a disorder. (Here) I don’t blame his mom, Debbie, for being jubilant and expressively proud of her son. Lets face it, any mother of a child diagnosed with a disability and who has worked as hard as she has at helping her son overcome his disorder, as well as advocate for him throughout his school years, deserves to be as enthusiastic as she wants—she is his number one fan.

I say this with conviction, as I read another person's blog and that this person pointed out that she was a little too enthusiastic and that she needed to calm down or else she could hurt someone in the stands, so to speak, but that was the gist of his comment. Obviously, this guy does not have a child with special needs or understands what it’s like to raise (or have raised) a child with a disability. Not only did this mother help her son overcome his deficits, but he is winning Olympic metals like no other.

As you might already know, Michael Phelps was diagnosed with ADHD as a child. And as a mom, teacher, and advocate for her son, Debbie Phelps had worked to overcome her son’s disability by engaging him in activities that evoked excitement and passion—such as swimming—which has proved to be an effective form of therapy—in more ways than one.

Some people question the relationship or link between autism and ADHD as indicated in this link here. In my opinion, as a mother of two autistic teens—one severely impaired and the other on the PDD and aspergers side of the spectrum, and who, incidentally, also has a brother with ADHD—interestingly enough; and since some doctors/researchers believe that genetics play a bigger role in these disorders: autism, aspergers, PDD, PDD-NOS, high functioning autism as well as ADHD, is it fair to say that all of these disorders can be included within the autism spectrum or under the "umbrella of autism”—since it’s quite a large umbrella—indeed, and that there are interesting and correlating similarities as identified in this link here?

More on Michael and Debbie Phelps from this ABC video.

Let me know your thoughts?