Don't cure autism now

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I stayed on topic, and replied to what I felt was relevant. comparing autism research to other things is like apples and oranges, so I chose to not even bother wasting the type.

and since you are clueless, let me help you.


"I had to find a way to teach my son to communicate, because he was nonverbal. That's how I find out what he is thinking and how to better teach him.
There are people here and elsewhere that had years litterally wasted with being cured. You can only really concentrate on a few things at a time. When the adults are only focusing on the medical/pathological aspects, how can they love and teach and nurture?"


I won't respond to you again. I don't like you; go badger someone else.

Just as a note from the 'sidelines', KimJ didn't mean to badger you.

Okay, carry on.

It is really hard to equate that child's problems with my own or those of Dibs. There has to be something else going on because the cases are so different. I don't think it's the autism that needs to be cured. A little self-involvement, a little inward-looking seems like a good thing to me. It's helped me survive. I think that the trouble is that if you have a child who shows autistic traits and actually has a malformed brain, he's defined as an autistic and not as someone who has a malformed brain plus having autistic traits. I don't know that having the traits means the same thing in these different cases any more than having a fever means a person has one exact virus (no offense meant to anyone). Various symptoms can have causes that in ways are parallel without being the same, and not all the symptoms even indicate pathology. A lot of professionals do not know how to deal with precocious children, and I definitely was one.

There must be autistics who have no apparent cause and might be genetic and autistics whose cause can be determined to be post-natal influences. The danger is in deciding that a gene that may actually be beneficial is the cause and in working to eliminate that. Willow, if you don't understand why some of us are so angry, I'm happy that you haven't been through it. I would like those who haven't been through it to understand it. They're the ones we need to help us. But if Aspies are genetically part of the "autistic" spectrum, for all I know they (I might be one also) may actually, overall, be inherently more functional than the general population. The problem that I had was being targeted for abuse because I was precocious. I don't want to be cured of having a mind even if others do not agree with that mind's structure.



Hear, hear.

There are doctors who firmly believe in eugenics - that was very popular in American in medicine and psychiatry before there was a Nazi Germany and that idealogy went underground but has certainly not disappeared in the medical community. There was a debate in an old psychiatric magazine (link below) in which Kanner was DEFENDING those who were considered undesirable. So the idea that there are people who would advocate stuff like this is certainly not out of the question or paranoid. Please note also that the article mentions that parents who would OBJECT to this (eugenics) should be the subject of psychiatric concern.

http://hpy.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/16/2/171
The 1942 ‘euthanasia’ debate in the American Journal of Psychiatry

Lately, my take on eugenics has been that attempts to selectively breed anything always screw something up.

I often think eugenics was an intellectual smokescreen for just getting rid of people that they didn't like. More than a few in the forced sterilization programs in the US were just poor. So "undesirables" is a convenient word for them to use because it can be applied to lots of situations.

That's the truth for sure.

Yes I would agree with this: it ties into the law of equivalent exchange (if I may quote here[from Full Metal Alchemist])


And each person, whether autistic / Aspie, HFA / LFA, or NT, classify their brain functions as you will should definately have the choice bewtween whether they want to stay the way they are or change; whether they want to change everything or just some things - and without scientific research to understand what's underneath it all, none of that would be possible.

Well I should add that, to even imply an option for to cure a 'state of mind' is rather offensive and moronic, because these cure groups are basically implying that we're subhuman by doing so, and we need to be made human in order to be accepted. Society needs to understand us and accept us for who we are, just like the idea of multiculturalism tries to bring cultures together in society.

I'm not going to bother repeating everything else I've wrote in this thread, read it for yourselves and realize why I'm so anti-cure.

Here's something you have to think about (after all two can play the game, 'who needs a cure?')

I should note that this example is about either triggering or refining the Autism genes, to boost all the strengths and advantages of having Autism.

If someone came out with a cure from being NT, making you Autistic; which allowed raw savant skills in all realms of audio, visual, mathematical, imaginative, common sense skills, etc comfortably (basically making you a super-genius with an IQ of 300) in exchange to loosing most social abilities but retain a level of empathy and essential social skills; most NTs would protest. They would be stating the exact same reasons why as above about feeling subhuman and forced to comply, feeling the exact same way I do.

After all to me, you'd think it'd be more logical to cure people from socializing so unnecessarily in exchange for super-intelligent capabilities to advance civilization and culture thousands of times faster; and be able to factor in all ramifications of technologies they create (and could have prevented massive environment damage, in favor of finding eco-friendly means to support new technologies). Also, the world would be at peace because everyone would be intelligent enough to form universal understanding without irrational emotions or primitive social cultures clouding their thoughts.

Well, this social skills thing is hard to measure objectively. Am I lacking in social skills because bullies choose me as an easy target or because I am smarter than they are? Of course not. I think the lack of social skills thing is a red herring and what does exist of it is caused by social rejection, because a lot of NT people think that it is all right to push smarter people out of their lives.

When they drugged me they did it to try to make me somehow compatible emotionally with people who had an IQ at least 40 points lower than mine. Not only that, the idea of being normal, if normal is measured by the performance of my peers, is quite repugnant. It's a lot like cutting off someone's foot because he can run a lot faster than anyone else. On drugs I was missing part of myself. That part of myself I desparately needed. They drugged me because I had a bad reaction to being bullied. Who wouldn't? Why disable a person's natural reactions?

intersting video

The problem is i have dial-up!

Yes it always amazes me when they talk about kids who are severely bullied and then call it mental illness when they difficulty coping with it. I was also medicated and some of the drugs they used before the SSRI's were widely available were pretty strong. Or course people are not depressed when they are totally drugged out. That really only makes everyone else feel better.

Willow, it's clear we're completely misunderstanding one another. I didn't insult you, I was talking about parents who singularly treat their kids in a medical way. That is what I said. I said you can't treat kids, ie "focus" on a child in a medicalized way and still take care of them as a parent ought. From what you described of your family life and your kids and how you saw them, I didn't see you as that type of parent. 90% of the parents I have met offline, however, are like completely in medicalization of autism. They don't have children, they have patients.

I'm not going to stoop and name call, I don't know why people resort to that. It's bad enough that this is one of the very few places I feel I can come to where there are people who think like me, yet someone will ridicule and call me clueless.
Well, yes, I guess I am in a way. That's why I'm here. And a lot of other parents who are likely on the spectrum too.

Ok first I want to say that I don't completely disagree with what you're saying, but I think this example is quite interesting. As far as we know there is no reported case of someone having an IQ of 300 points. I know that doesn't preclude the fact that there may be, but I don't think you can use that to argue your point as it's not a fact...
Second, and here again I think the first law of equivalent exchange would apply ("To obtain, something of equal value must be lost") - it's the same principle as "to every action there is a reaction". If the "cure for NT" were real, and said cure would somehow raise a person's IQ to the point of "making you a super-genius with an IQ of (whetever [example of one of the highest IQs ever recorded = 228])" I don't think this person would lose "most social abilities but retain a level of empathy and essential social skills".
And though it seems "more logical to cure people from socializing so unnecessarily in exchange for super-intelligent capabilities to advance civilization and culture thousands of times faster", I think that we (as a species) need an entire spectrum of different neurological functionalities. Like multi-culturalism, it's part of what makes up the richness of our culture. (That being said, I'd like to add that a certain level of understanding of each other from both "camps" is definately in order right about now).
Lastly, this statement: "Also, the world would be at peace because everyone would be intelligent enough to form universal understanding without irrational emotions or primitive social cultures clouding their thoughts" also seems a bit hasty or even erroneous to me because here you're not factoring in peoples' differences in opinion and personality, interests and experience...
Also, here, you're not talking about a cure for autism anymore; you're talking about a cure for low IQ.

All this being said, I want to state that I personally don't beleive we should be necessarily focusing on just a "cure". I think that there's a lot of research that needs to be done and as I've said a lot more understanding to be had. As the article at the beginning of this thread stated, I think we need to find a way to cure the truly harmful aspects of autism (which I think are small in number in comparison to what most people beleive) and keep the good for those who wish to change. Perhaps then can people on the spectrum and people who are not truly understand and respect each other's world and take part in both, without ruining what's good about each different state of being.

I was performing a bit of a philosophical concept combined with satire Medusa, with personal opinion added to make it intriguing. Better clear that up and I'm sorry if I seemed a bit silly.

Basically my example is just a sentiment I considered and I applied it to general ethical questions, to make any NTs reading this, think these questions:

* What if they (NTs) were the ones that were seen as society's problem, and were subjected to the same scrutiny as us, because us Autistic people were in charge and thought like the example?

* What if my example was actually reality, how would they feel living in such a society?

* What if they saw a 'Cure NTs now' group on TV saying how NTs are so stupid and ignorant for a brain defect causing excessive social tendencies and lack of logical ability, and must get a cure immediately?

Now I know this isn't likely nor rational for various reasons, but to understand what I'm saying, you have to imagine it as if this was undeniable reality. I mean I like these cure people to put themselves in the viewpoint of an anti-cure for once, and realize how it feels to be told in stealth, that you're basically inferior/sick; and that you need a cure for something that doesn't truly need one for; when society can simply learn to accept us and only help when we need it instead?

That's what my example was trying to picture overall.