Autism "Awareness" ~ Are we really there?

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I'm with you in that I do think we agree on the basic principle. I'm a little confused because I never thought of your analogy as being flawed -- just different in one small way from my own thinking (about whether or not autistic people are "flexible" or "shape-able" as compared to neurotypical people). Maybe I didn't understand your analogy properly (it was hard for me to apply to real situations because i'm a very concrete thinker...haha, no pun intended), but it really wasn't my intent to criticize your whole analogy -- I just wanted to share my perspective on that part of it.



Exactly! I agree! What I was trying to say really hinges on the word "seem". I don't think NTs are incapable of seeing and understanding diversity...it just seems that way because, ironically, of how those in academia have interpreted our differences and difficulty in understanding their thinking as an inability to comprehend diversity of thought and experience. It boggles my mind how experts can fail to see the double-standard being applied.

All I can think is that what happens is that people get so caught up in oversimplifications and stereotypes (of what autism is, what it is to be autistic) that it sort of blinds them to everything except what I can only call "value judgements" (I don't think this term is right, but it's as close as I can get)....it's almost like judgements about the differences, instead of any understanding of what those difference really are in practical terms. The problem becomes the differences between autistic people and NT people, instead of finding a way to understand and work with/around those differences.

This is a patchy conglomeration of visual-spatial analogies that's very hard for me to translate into words... but it's what I thought of the first time I read through your post:

If you talk about people only in terms of how close to "Normal" they are on a map of human diversity then you're probably not looking at where they actually are on that map ... what is the landscape like in a person's particular location in "Autism"? How about the weather? The ecosystem? If you can't answer those questions, then you don't really understand "Autism" -- you don't know what it looks like and you don't know how to survive there -- you just know it's a long way away from "Normal"... and that knowledge alone has a very limited set of practical applications.

Agreed.

Wow. I had forgotten all about this thread.

You know, there is one double standard that bugs me the most. Not bug as in "annoyed." Bug, as in, it's something that really needs to be solved.

This may have been one of your points, and I missed it due to the wording or whatever, but that's okay because it bears mentioning in all sorts of ways until people really start to "get it."

Perspectives.

We're supposed to suck at seeing others not our own, right? So we're trained by professionals to learn to do that, right? (you see where I'm going with this yet?)

You know which professionals have had the most success working with my sons?

Answer: The ones willing to try to see things from their perspectives first.

This is the point I've tried for years now to drill into educators. Most simply

do

not

get

it.

That alone, I think, is one of the most important things about which to bring more people to awareness. Those that seem to understand that if they do that first, then try to get the boys to see from their perspectives, they are far more likely to actually try it. When all we do is teach autistic kids that they need to learn this, but we don't even bother trying to see things from their perspective, what motivation have we given them to even try to see ours?

Yeah, I learned to adapt somewhat to other people, but I was only learn that after other people had first adapted somewhat to me. If I had to adapt to other people first without other people trying to adapt to me, then I wouldn't have learned.

We have not gained awareness in any measurable sense.
We have gained "LIP SERVICE"
Any diagnosis taken away means we are not getting more detailed but less detailed, I fail to see the point in that.

Do they require school teachers to learn how to approach different personalities?
Nope, The education system requires all of us to be the same. "Processed"

I don't want to change the world, but I don't want the world to change me.
I was born this way why can't I enjoy myself for who I am?

WAKE UP NORMAL WORLD, WAKE UP!

That makes sense -- kids aren't born understanding reciprocal interaction. It's one of those things you learn by being shown understanding, I think.

I seriously doubt that all autistic kids lack the hardwiring for empathy (cognitive, emotional, or both.....although methinks it's got to depend on individual neurology).... Most neurotypical kids are, I think, shown understanding fairly often (at least in comparison to autistic kids) simply because there are so many neurotypical people (the closer a perspective is to one's own, the easier it is to understand) -- as a consequence it looks like a neurotypical child's ability to understand others develops more "naturally" than the same ability in autistic kids, who are provided with fewer opportunities to learn about reciprocal understanding simply by virtue of being a minority when it comes to perspectives.



I agree with everything you said as far as I've understood what you said, but I'm confused about which part is the thing to make people aware of (having comprehension issues .... struggling to figuring out how all the words go together as actual things)....

Is it that autistic people, like neurotypical people, need to be shown understanding themselves before they'll be able to really understand the point/value (and/or process) of trying to understand others?

YES! But it's not quite that simple. It's not just showing them understanding, but:

1) Demonstrating how to view other's perspectives by getting to know them.

2) Doing that for them first, not by teaching them to do it with others.

3) Building trust in the autistic by "becoming" them (so to speak) before demanding they put themselves in other's shoes.

It's about forging a relationship with the kid, where we are the students, and THEY are the teachers, teaching US about them. Doing that first does two things. It shows that we care who they are first. Second, it forges a friendship with them, and trust.

If you don't have that trust, you're wasting your time.

Is it just me, or does it seem as though most of this awareness seems to be aimed more at children, and not aimed at awareness of Autistic adults?

Not at all just you. Yet another good point of evidence we have a long way to go.

Fantastic post!! !

You word it so well...you said what I was thinking but couldn't explain;)

I was just thinking about this topic the other day when I went to my disability department at my college...passing by a car in the parking lot that had the "autistic awareness" ribbon sticker on the bumper. I thought to myself "yeah not ENOUGH awareness!"

I didn't get the accommodations I wanted:/

Yeah I thought so too...sucks doesnt it.

In general, it seems there's more awareness of disability in children than there is in adults. Yet, these disabled children will become disabled adults.

I teach and I've seen ASD units in primary schools where they were working one on one with non verbal pupils. It's always the case of "how do we improve him/her", I was only there for a short spell but really had to bite my tongue. I really felt like asking them to leave the kid alone and stop forcing him to speak, how about we forced you to stop speaking, it's not something that can be cured! Much the same thing.

This ^^^ is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. I wish you had not bitten your tongue. We need more people in your profession to speak up!

^agreed. Whilst I am all for encouraging people to speak, forcing them isn't the answer.

Thank you for writing this...I feel very similarly right now. The current society is extremely harsh to aspergians that want to integrate, mostly because people can't see past their strange obsessions such as eye contact. I think they should hire us and just let us do our jobs, maybe engage us in conversations relevant to our interests. The interviewing is especially difficult for us...