There's an interesting article in Salon.com this week, where it states the 'neurodiversity' have "I am not a puzzle. I am a person' on T-shirts and buttons. The phrase is interesting because it's not the children who are a puzzle and we know everyone agrees who has a child that is autistic that we love them as a person.
This sentence from the article: " Organizations like Autism Network International view efforts to cure autism as similar to misguided efforts to cure homosexuality and left-handedness." had me pouting. Why? Because I don't think they realize that ASD runs the gamut from severe to highly functional. Parents love their children and want to offer them a means where they can express themselves without any stress. How frustrating must it be for a child to want to communicate but not able to?
What about the children who are autistic and hit their heads against the walls, the floors, bite their arms? Are the parents to sit back and do nothing for them?
You judge and make up your own opinions on this story. There were areas I agreed with what was written but areas as I wrote above I felt they do not represent the entire autism spectrum.
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5 comments:
"What about the children who are autistic and hit their heads against the walls, the floors, bite their arms? Are the parents to sit back and do nothing for them?"Encourage the high functioners to get ABA/Neuro/Psychological jobs, so that we can rework the system. If you've never reached them, we probably would if you'd let us.
EVEN IF THERE ARE DIFFERENCES, EVEN IF WE ARE NOT THE SAME, THERE IS ONE THING YOU CAN'T DENY: We have a better chance of teaching your lower functioning children than you ever had.
You run about willy nilly like a chicken with its' head cut off. W should be allowed to help, if only out of familiarity to the mindset. Let us change your mind. Let us help your children.
Thank you for taking the time to write to us. We appreciate your input.
Your last comment is helpful and perhaps you can start a group where you can offer helpful insight to parents with children on the spectrum.
As for the 'willy nilly' and 'chicken' part, you are the one now who is not taking the chance to get to know us, the owners of this blog, but classifying us with everyone else you may have come across.
The only thing I'd like to add is that you and I have the same goal plan: to help the children and the families. You have one way of looking at things and we respect that, and we see things a bit differently. It would be great if both our efforts combined, using your idea about helping families with your own personal insight.
And again your opening paragraph to your post was very powerful and the high functioners who can and are able to attain these jobs would bring in a worthy outlook to parents.
Personally, what I've observed, is that NT individuals cannot understand us whatsoever. Especially parents. It's like adding two negative integers together. One, they see extremely little, and only observe at their highest points. Two. This is compounded by how much bad is noticed, and not understood. This zaps the parent's brain, so that whatever they would have tried is down the drain. Their hopelessness leads the child himself/herself to see that they've run out of time to learn certain things well. It is crucial that you understand the well.They won't be able to get to their priorities the optimal way, and they're already hypersensitive, so they start shutting down. That would be one case. Actually, mine is quite similar at the moment.
That would be one case, but it does illustrate quite a few issues with NT/ASD communication.
I think it's silly to assume that high-functioning ASD people don't know about lower-functioning people! Of course we do. It's especially silly to assume that high-functioning people aren't disadvantaged by ASD too. We may not be as disadvantaged as lower-functioning people, but believe me, I'm perfectly aware of the problems my Asperger's has caused me (some genuine impairments, some a result of a society that doesn't have much room for people with disabilities and differences). So if I say that autism shouldn't be cured, please don't assume that I have a super easy time and that's why I feel the way I do.
If an autistic child or a gay child or a left-handed child was hitting their head against the wall, I think their parents should stop them. But that has nothing to do with "curing" the way the person is, and it strikes me as a strawman when people act like the two ideas are related.
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