The Autism Revolution by Martha Herbert

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I recently obtained the book "The Autism Revolution" by Karen Weintraub and Martha Herbert. I only got into the first few chapters before putting it down. I don't know much about the science behind what she's talking about, but I thought it was incredibly ableist. She shared a story of a mother whose child grew out of autism and how happy she was that her child could "truly love her". The author also goes on about how the real child is "trapped" by autism, at which point I was about ready to throw my iPad out the window. I was wondering if anyone else got through this book?

I don't believe that someone can grow out of autism .
However good you can be in masking , it's still unnatural and takes a lot of energy .
And the idea that her child didn't truly love her before seems a bit sick to me .

She does not believe if you are autistic you were born that way but you are the way you are because of a "cascade of events". Autism to people like that is something to be gotten rid of instead of working with its strengths and coping with its impairments.

Born that way? Does regressive autism, where they are talking and making eye contact up until 2-3 then suddenly lose their ability to speak and bang their heads still qualify?

Autism is not a static unchanging thing that is WHAT the brain IS, it is also HOW the brain IS, there is evidence for ongoing neuropathology even in adulthood and symptoms that cannot be pinned down to only gross brain mass shape, and of which there has been absolutely no success in diagnosing autism from a mere brain scan, they only can find tendencies, much of which are shared with other disorders or may be the result of being autistic rather than causing autism. You cannot open up a brain of an autistic person and say "this is what it is" for every patient.

A person with autism can occupy different levels of severity in different areas throughout their lifetime, it is not fixed or unidirectional. The brain is a lot more plastic than we realize, and how many of the behaviors of autism is a result of another dysfunction is also up to debate. A person may not be even born with it all, there can be signs but it can creep up and set in which is why is can go unnoticed in early childhood.

Even disorders which are acquired in adolescence like schizophrenia or forms of dementia in later middle age can show signs or shades that are hard to detect as early as childhood when they child is still "healthy". And they arguably have developmental aspects to and some share numerous genetic overlaps with autism and risk factors too.

Autism is not a person, it is not a walking two legged breathing thing. It exists because there are a group of people with enough in common that they have enough in common so there IS something in common. Someday when we discover more about the biology of the brain, a single diagnosis may be removed. Blindness can have 100x causes, they just share lack of sight as a trait. And some of the disorders leading to blindness don't always lead there. You care more about the trait(s)/collection of symptoms called "autism" than what may be what you truly have (which doesn't have a name yet, we may not even have the same thing).

So in a way, there is no such thing as what you call "autism". Just overlaps

Just because the symptoms start to become noticeable at that age in some people (2-3 years) doesn't mean the person wasn't born autistic, they just show up at that time because of how our brains develop.

Sounds like they are pushing the Autism Speaks party line. That's the kind of stigma thematic that Autism Speaks has relentlessly paid its various PR consultant companies to vigorously promote and has encouraged its supporter parents to promote and lobby politicians with.

Many of us have no time for Autism Speaks and the various wings of its propaganda machine here, and look with distaste at the mega-millions donations they solicit by using this propaganda.

I googled Martha Herbert and sure enough, up popped Autism Speaks, she's on one of their boards.

This article, written by one of the members of Wrong Planet, gives a good overview of how toxic Autism Speaks was and continues to be:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilywilli ... 7844703152

About the Author
Martha Herbert, MD, PhD, is an assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and a pediatric neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she is the director of the TRANSCEND Research Program. She sits on the Scientific Advisory Committee for Autism Speaks.

Karen Weintraub, MA, is an award-winning journalist and freelance health writer for outlets like The Boston Globe, USA Today, and the BBC. A past recipient of a prestigious Knight Center for Science Journalism fellowship, she also teaches journalism at the Harvard Extension School and Boston University.

The genes are “programmed” to have the autistic traits come out at age 2 or so or “triggered” by certain environmental factors. Autism described as developmental disability. Should people who because of purely environmental factors after birth meet the diagnostic criteria be diagnosed with Autism is an interesting topic for discussion. If the idea of “Autisms” keep on gaining currency that might happen.

The big problem with the idea that kids can grow out of autism is that medical community looks at your kid and sees a "cash cow." They want you to sign up for everything with no regard for what it actually does to the kid. All that "help" is too much and causes meltdowns. Which could lead to the worst thing possible. No time for Special Interests, as that will just make the kid even more autistic! So you have a tired kid who obviously has no self esteem as she is constantly being pushed to be "normal." But a lot of medical professionals got paid.

Apies could use romantic social skills training in their 20s to late 30s. Which should be when they are ready. But insurance won't pay for that.

Does anyone get business relationship training? Some Aspies need help separating truth from lies.

Oh, now it makes sense.

Oh, so they don't count right now?

You would think that being annoying or disruptive, detrimental to yourself and others is something to be worked on, and not a "good thing". But this one condition doesn't count to you?

I suppose it's other people's problems in monologuing annoys them, that society just doesn't accept monologuing about special interests and its not you who is doing that hypothetically that is the problem, but others.

Growing up unable to relate to others is their problem? Autism is not just neurodevelopmental, it has a neuropathology that continues into adulthood that can vary or change, it is not static. And if it were purely genetic, then where are all the inbred clans of severely autistic people creating more severely autistic people (wouldn't they have been bred out?)? Why can one twin be autistic, the other not? If you think or worry "we" will go extinct from eugenics, that is crap. It cannot be prevented that way. The only possiblity is to select for people who are immune to the predisposition for having a child with any risk for disorder, which is almost zero, and must be carefully maintained since de novo mutations can happen again and are spurred by enviromental factors.

Also the onset of autism doesn't have to be from birth. Many disorders even that happen in early adulthood can be traced back to the womb and take years to strike.

Oh and saying "autism is part of who I am" will just make people more pissed off when you do inconvenience them. Maybe treating it as something to work on or seeing it as a disorder will remove that moral component. If you cannot walk and say "this is who I am" then they don't see a disorder affecting you, all room for patience would be gone, they see you not walking because you said it would be part of you.

And what's funny is the other side, those trolls and malignant bullies who talk about killing all autistic people, they have a lot in common with your side's beliefs. You both believe it's genetic without enviromental influence (they can absolve themselves of any guilt of contributing to its existence what with the dumping of toxic wastes, pesticides, and other carcinogenic or more, they can just say they have good genes and you don't, they can avoid feeling like hypocrites or having a role in causing the problem in the first place by being part of the society that does that, and justify killing thinking it is a legitimate way of ending autism which it won't, aktion t4 did not lower rates of disorders in modern Germany, its not all genes!), that it defines the person (so they don't see anything else, you are an object to them, not a person struggling with it, so they hate you not your autism because you can't possibly separate it), that no help is needed (you want "accomodations" not real help as in treating it like it's a problem, they just think help is useless since it's supposedly who you are and now "we" should all be killed off), you both have a moral component added, you both deny any neuropathology (so it can't be treated ever, for them the only treatment is death as a result, it can never be treated or medicated since its been established by both sides it is who the person is, not a disorder affecting the brain, but the brain itself, that kind of logic can be used to justify ALS being who a person if you reduce it to "you are your brain" but it's not even just the brain, there is neuropathology!), you both believe it should not be worked on because it is who the person is, they think its just a waste, you also think it's a waste.
You both have made it into an issue for debate, for consideration, instead of leaving it in the hands of professionals. You both are little professors who think you both know more than real scientists, you both think you have answers or know what it is when even the brightest minds have barely scratched the surface of knowing what is going on.
You both disrupt and attack in large masses over the internet. You both see yourselves as warriors for a cause.
You have both incited unneeded attention and backlash. You both are histrionic and attention seeking, you both go onto forums where you agree with each other, you both have disrupted and attacked people who are trying to make a difference. Neither of you view it neutrally and objectivelly. You both have infiltrated the ranks of the media and government and created conflict. You both base your ideas on feelings and sentiment over fact. You both choose what the believe then look for reasons to support them and disregard any opposing evidence. Neither of you ever come into contact or conflict with eachother though, it's always the bystander who gets it, so there goes any hope you two sides destroying eachother! And you know that, you survive by staying in your echo chambers venturing out to go after easy targets. There is no war between you two, you never meet, you both are cowards. You even sometimes admire the same people but interpret them differently, both of you often quote Hans Asperger, the nazi sympathiser, you think him a hero for being the father of neurodiversity, they like him because they agree with his contempt for his patients as justification for seeing "us" as not human nor treating us as human (which Asperger did). They both agree with Asperger as it being part of the person's self or personality. In fact Asperger even talked of how his patients parents must suffer from receiving no love from their children. You both ignore Kanner, they don't know about him because you did a good job of besmirching his name and now Asperger, who made many errors and was a despicable man, has the final say, and he said lots of bad things which you choose to ignore (when one of his patients was bullied, he said he brought it upon himself). You both use the terms neurotypical and aspie, like there is some division, like you are not the same species. You both often use the same sources like Baron-Cohen. You have made the issue of empathy or social cognition the main focus, instead of just a small part of the whole picture. You see it as a social thing rather than a medical thing, so we get compared to psychopaths. You both also want recognition and to see your view succeed. You both think you are oh so brave, being truth sayers and being beacons of progress in a dark world of ignorance. You both have written narratives. You both have made it so the only option is to choose between either of your two views instead of one like mine. You both take advantage of tragedies for your own gain. If an autistic person commits suicide, they troll or encourage it, you use it to make it seem like that person is martyr, suffering because of other people, not because they just hated suffering from their condition.

You cannot ask for patience and celebration at the same time. Why don't you two actually go out and fight, maybe it would be easier having to see only with my eyes online one of you two instead of both wreaking havoc and causing harm and misery. Allow some breathing room for people with an ounce of reason and sanity to resume progress in society. Are you too scared to confront them? Dear God, the internet just won't let ideas die now. Society cannot make progress since these bad ideas are left to fester, never standing up to scrutiny, to natural selection.
Or you can do the world a favor and stop right now. If your movement goes, the other one will have nothing to fuel it, but if they go, God! You will continue. You may not be as disgusting or full of evil as them, but you have more potential to do harm in the long run.

Remember buddy, people are laughing their asses off at what a joke neurodiversity is. Your movement is a joke.

This website is primarily here for neurodiverse people, that's the population it was mainly created to serve. It might not be a good fit for you, as your purpose seems to be in direct opposition to the underlying principle of Wrong Planet. Also, please read the rules about posting offensive material - insulting members using derogatory terms like "cowards" for not sharing your personal view is not acceptable.

I did not insult an individual. I was using "you" in plural. Although if the movement believes autism is part of a person or the person, and if I go after autism that means I have insulted everyone with it (or them directly from your point of view), I can see your reasoning why you may see it that way. But then that means I cannot possibly insult any individual here can I? Since there are no individuals if you insist you are your autism. I am just talking to autism, is the Autism a hivemind too? Do you all, or more correctly, you singular (since I am talking to Mr. Autism) are one mind? Does one autism hub have all the memories of another autism hub? If that is so, why can't I, oh wait, why doesn't this unit of autism have any memories except this unit's own?

Incivility is neither necessary nor acceptable here.

That people might not like it is no reason not to ask for change. I am not saying be contrarian just to be contrairian but that living ones life to please most other people will in the long term make one a “sheep” and won’t change anything. If you advocate for changing the status quo you are going to attract negative attention of all types no matter what cause that is a fact of life. Also a fact of life is that all causes will have extremists that will hurt the cause. That does not mean one should negate or define the cause because extremists give your cause a bad name. Should one accept “driving while black” police profiling because rioters and terrorists assassinating cops and that some people make every white police black civilian interaction into a racial incident gives the movement a bad name?

In my earlier post, I kind of agree with you that the diagnosis is going to change as the causes are found. Maybe people whose autistic symptoms present at age 30 because they were poisoned will be diagnosed with ASD. Now it thought to be a combination of environmental and genetic with genetics the dominant cause but knowledge is far from complete.

As far as aspie and other identifiers making it seem like one is less or not human people say they are black, or gay or trans or left handed or depressed without mentioning the caveat they are also human also it is just assumed by most.


It is up to Alex to decide what is acceptable on his site. That said my view of things is that all points of view about autism especially those espoused by autistics should be allowed. To me as an ND supporter and an autistic, I take the “diversity” part of the term both literally and seriously. Diversity should not mean only the diversity I like.

For the most part, this site is a safer space, not a safe space. The Heaven is the closest thing to a truly safe space. WP needs a reexamination and PUBLIC clarification of its policies regarding the rules about expressing opinions about autism and autistic people. As we have discussed a number of times this is not 2013 anymore in regards to views about neurodiversity. Both more mainstream media acceptance of neurodiversity and backlash against the movement have occurred since that time.

I am sure jhonnyh knows his views are in the minority here, he does not need to have it “suggested” to him that he leave.

We all need to try and make it less personal and stick to our fundamental disagreements about the nature of autism.