What would a 'cure' do, anyway?

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People here seem to be paranoid about being 'cured', but have you ever stopped to think about what it would actually do?

A minimal 'cure'

This is basically changing one aspect of someones diagnosis so that they don't fit the criteria anymore, and tends to happen automatically as people get older. For example: criteria A. If you only fit one of these criteria, you technically don't have it. If you can develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level, have spontaneus seeking to share enjoyment, interests or achievement with other people, and are recprocal in social and emotional things, you on't have it. If you do fit tghose criteria, but it doesn't impair you much, you don't have it either (yes, I am aware that I'm probably claiming a lot of people on here dont have it).


The full Aspie-to-NT 'cure'/conversion

This seems to be focused around criteria B. You have to fit at least one of these criteria to have Aspergers, and this part seems to include all the things people worry a cure would take away from them. Someone who had this 'cure' would stop stimming, lose their special interests, end their routines, and stop 'messing around' with parts of objects. I can understand why people wouldn't what that cure.


Criteria F

If you fit the criteria for another Pervasive Developmental Disorder or Schizophrenia, you're not an Aspie
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I didn't try to model 'cures' for autistic disorder, but they're quite similar (criteria A3 for autsitc disorder corresponds to Criteria B in aspergers, and A1 to A).

What you describe is not wha tmost people I know mean when they refer to "cure". What they do mean is either:
1. Someone twisting their behavior through ABA or the like, so that they will act more NT. The problem with that is that people fear being turned into "robots", ignoring their feelings and just acting what NTs think as appropriate, while still haveing the same perceptual/information processing issues AS have. Besides, this view incorrectly connotes that some AS behaviors are abnormal/undesirable (ie. unusual/strong interests, stims, odd social behavior).
2. A cure that would actually alter the way in which we process stimuli/information, or the neurological underpinnigns of that (ie. whatever brain dysfunction causes AS) and thereby turn our way of experiencing the world into the NT thing. This would be scary because 1. we aren't used to this (assuming an adult would suddenly be cured th is way), or 2. the cure would also take away abilities that we have because of our different way of processing (eg. the ability to do precise, detailed jobs or the ability to work on one task for a long while).

I think very few in here have a problrem with learning how NTs develop friendships, or wha tnonverbal language they use, etc. I think indeed tha tmany on here have learned to act NT n some situations when needed, but the problemw ith cure #1 I mentioned is it would be forcing NT behavior all the time.

But that would appear to be the full Aspie-to-NT coversion I mentioned.

So now we have two other types of cures: a total purge of all Aspie traits, somewhat similar to altering criteria B but worse, and forced behaviour through ABA, where everything is a mask.

The only problem with this that I see is that the reason we have special interests is that we have fixed routines, a single focus at times, and we need an outlet since we don't have the social one. If we didn't meet criteria 1, we couldn't meet criteria 2 that you outlined, or at least, I don't think.

Criteria 1 sounds fabulous to me though!

I'm so rebellious that it wouldn't work on me, anyways. I don't want my personality to be dampened, nor do I want to be coerced into acting and being what most people would view as normal.

A "cure" will propably not work on a adult. It could on a baby, maybe even a young child when the neurons connections are still forming like crazy. But as the individual grown up the connections are "pruning". It's provide more efficients network, but the brain lose of it's capacity to form new connections. What the individual learned then became "hard wired". The brain can still form new connections and adapting and learning, but more least that a child.

We could call the partial 'cure' not a cure as in no longer being autistic but coping, that you now cope with being autistic.

I enjoy armchair diagnosticians almost as much as armchair generals or armchair coaches; at best, it is a minimally informed opinion on limited information. Don't get me wrong, as I tend to take all known facts into account and seek a conjecture of sorts, but not with any authority. Such attempts to invalidate the diagnoses of others or redefine things to suit an arbitrary perspective are largely aggravating to me, and rarely have much accuracy to my eye.


M.

I don't think I would want to be cured, regardless of how it was achieved or what kind of effect it had. I wouldn't be me any more.

It's like in the movie "Harvey" where there is an injection that 'cures' insanity. The cab driver says that on the way to get the injection the people stare out the windows, never comment on his driving, ask him to stop the taxi so they can hear the birds singing, even when there are no bird, or watch the sunset even when there is no sunset. BUT after the injection they complain about his driving, the cost of the trip, and are grumpy. Yeah, he says, that injection turns then into 'normal' human beings, and you know what bastards they are ...."