A friend just passed to me the article/book by ASAN on how to talk to your children about autism. I googled and it has only been mentioned about twice here on WrongPlanet (not sure whether I've googled correctly or exhaustively). Anyway, here it is:
Adolescent version -
http://autisticadvocacy.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/WTTAC-Adolescent-FINAL-2.pdf
Adult version -
http://autisticadvocacy.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/WTTAC-Adult-FINAL-2.pdf
I have some quibbles regarding the "disability" and "sensory processing disorder" parts. Those concerns certainly do not apply to my children. Those comments are denigrating, in a sense. To me, autistic children/adults are stuck with sensory issues because they were never properly developed in their early childhood. When properly developed, "disability" and "sensory processing disorder" need not to be issues of concern. But granted, most autistic children out there are not nearly as lucky as my own children. (I can rant non-stop on how autistic children's lives get ruined in our society due to all those "socialization" attempts applied to their early childhood. Parents waste time in all those "socialization" attempts, instead of developing their children visual-manually. The end result is that the brains of their children are left idling, and these children are then permanently stuck with sensory issues.) All in all, this article/book is still very valuable to other parents out there.
I consider ASAN to be friends, but I generally stay at an arm's length from them. I don't like politics. I am elitist, sure, I'll admit that. I also find ASAN people parroting too much: most members are like ants or worker bees, without being able to contribute with their own independent, critical thinking. But this article is well-written. It's something that I can recommend. It's also a good idea to pass it along to school teachers, so that they can start to listen to opinions from real autistic people out there. (It does mention cooperative agreement from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. So that gives it some more weight. Sad but true, most people out there are not able to make independent judgment, so they often have to rely on the presence of an authority. That's just how people are: hampered by their lack of self-esteem. Followers, not leaders. How to change that? That's a whole different subject.)
28 Dec 2017, 2:22 pm
