Why protest autism speaks?

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I beg to differ, but autism is autism any way you slice it. The fact that some autistics can speak and some can't is irrelevant. It's the same condition.

Banzai, CockneyRebel! Count me in for this fight too, for twelve rounds, fifteen rounds, whatever it takes. Autism Speaks is going down!

You know, Chronos, I used to feel the same way, before I had ever met anyone with classic autism, and before I gained more insight into how NTs think-- because before I gained that insight, I didn't think I was very different, but I did think autistics were very alien. In the time since then, I've learned a lot, and revised my position.

In person, I've met a few autistics, and a few Aspies. Online, I've met a few, and read the blogs of a few, and learned a few things.

Like the fact that most autistics are verbal anyway. Like the fact that just because I don't rock myself very often doesn't mean I never stim. When I realized that stimming isn't just hand-flapping and shrieking, I was able to identify my own stims, and the truth is I stim almost constantly.

Reading what they actually say for themselves, I realize I have more in common with the others on the spectrum than I do with NTs.

It wasn't visible until I began to gain insight into other people's minds, though. If you're not at that stage yet, then I can understand why you wouldn't have access to enough information to come to an informed conclusion. There's no shame in that, but you're wrong.

And you've never read the blogs of the ones who don't have the level of functioning needed to write one...unless it was written by a caretaker, in which case it is really the caretaker's blog.


Yes, I would imagine most are. And the most of the verbal ones, who are able to use language fluently at some point in their lives, are generally on the middle to upper end of the spectrum.




And of the ones who can't say anything for themselves?

The ones who can't feed themselves?

The ones who can't dress themselves and perform the basic tasks vital to the survival of a human being, like pulling a blanket around one's self when one is cold, or moving out of the sun when one is hot? The ones who will run out in the street in the middle of traffic?

What of them?

Really? CLICK HERE

Chronos, that would be a valid argument if there were a sharp line between communicative and uncommunicative. But there isn't.

I once knew a kid who could barely speak, but when he did, you understood him. Right now I have a friend who is clearly verbal and understands how conversations work, but try to actually get information out of her and it's like pulling teeth.

Even in the same person, it varies. I could recount an incident to you that left me (temporarily) only semi-verbal, without my theory of mind, and without the basic people-skills that let me recognize a face so that it would seem even vaguely familiar when I saw it again, to the point that I didn't recall the race of one of the people involved, let alone distinguishing features. (Except I couldn't recount what it was that upset me, partly because it's too hard to talk about and partly because I've found that I tend to forget the details of traumatic experiences pretty easily.)

There's no sharp line between functional and completely broken. (Although what you describe sounds more like anencephaly, but never mind that.) You can make the argument that you should divide the spectrum. Fine. Let's accept that. Now you tell me where.

It's a spectrum. I find it ridiculous that just because some Autistics can't speak they must have low intelligence. Just look at Amanda Baggs she is diagnosed Low Functioning Autistic but still is intelligent.

There are alot of misunderstandings with curebie's they say that the persons's autism is causing the person's difficulties. Sometimes the person may be mentally ret*d congenitally. It's is hard to measure a persons IQ when they are nonverbal due to some IQ tests being based on verbal response.


http://autismbulletin.blogspot.com/2007 ... er-on.html

Interesting thread. Must read for all. Especially in light of the Autism Speaks deal brokered with Alex

I don't have a problem with abortion whatsoever.

I do have a problem with their campaigns' portrayal of Autism...melodramatic music, telling me my Autism will ruin my marriage.
It's scaremongering to get money, and that's disgusting.

I guess they'd prefer to take my 33 ACT, 3.9 GPA, and all my other accomplishments WITH the help of that which they want to destroy and shove it, eh?

I hope my kids are autistic and I hope they have meaningful lives. My story and theirs, in a perfect world, would teach those ret*ds a lesson. Unfortunately, this ain't a perfect world. So I'll just consider that an accomplishment in and of itself. Eventually the world will wake up and see that autistics accomplishing things is normal and not a beat-the-odds Hollywood epic as they make it out to be.

There would be much less people if this happened.

And your insistence that "high functioning" and "low functioning" are so far apart?

And what of me, someone diagnosed with Asperger's, when I go non-verbal?



And what of me, who struggles to find food I can eat because of executive functioning difficulties.



And what of my friend, diagnosed high functioning, who's been hit by a car, because she doesn't know to not walk into the road at times?

Or, even me, who had to remind myself, though I managed only walking wobbly, earlier this week that I wasn't supposed to arbitrarily walk across the highway towards the river.

It's not "them" vs "us", its autistic.

We're autistic too.

Also, many autistic people who do communicate do not necessarily communicate in a verbal fashion, and the expectation that verbal communication being the communication that matters marginalizes quite a few people.

No different to speakeasy via written essay and highly verbalised by ones needs to control convo.
Strategically speaking id place a higher strategy on divorcing the negative from the positive in order to produce a counterfeit marginalised response to the everyday data received from higher corporate claims to deal with the 'Ofsted' reports. No different as if you are talking about a phone hacking scandal is it really.

AutismSpeaks is, complemented the Catholic Church, the most distasteful organization on this Great Green Earth. They want to "cure" us. Well I have news for those people. You see, most of the professors in our top universities are, hey hey, Aspies!

They are morons, I do not think we should offer our concern nor our vociferous criticism to them in an effort to not give them any attention whatsoever.

P.S Some beauty queen a few years ago "loved to volunteer" with AutismSpeaks. That's the moment I lost all respect for that kind of person.

I'm careful not to judge the people of Autism Speaks for a number of reasons.

Clearly, they're a "splitter" organization that sees Asperger's as a "difference" and autism as a "disability." They're hardly an anti-Asperger's eugenics group. For many, autism is a severe, destructive condition that turns their lives into a miserable screaming mess. Comparing our issues to theirs, as people who are capable of going on a forum and typing words, is not possible. The life of many autistic people I know are constant violent tantrums, anxiety, fear, and constant tears. I assume many of you have seen the videos of the autism school in Boston which was in the news for "shock treatments," where a young man appears to be tortured by a staff that looks criminally cavalier. My Asperger's friends were disgusted, but when watching the young man's reaction, I was reminded that an autistic man I know once had the same screaming reaction to a single pea rolling onto his plate at dinner, purely by accident. He does not care for peas. This pea sent him into a rage that did a good deal of human and property damage.

This was far from an isolated incident; it was like countless others that happen every day to countless people on the spectrum. With some, condition will never allow them to be around another human being without being restrained as, the second the restraints come off, they punch and kick without knowing that they are hurting us; I know one person who, if she cannot lash out at others, will proceed to hit herself with enough force to cause brain damage if not stopped. The bruises I've received being lenient with restraints are a testament to this. I can't imagine they are happy living this way; they probably want to stop being angry and frightened. I would completely understand that. It's hubris for me to compare my minor challenges living with Asperger's to that of the "curebies" we like to malign here.