why do some people consider low functioning inferior ?

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I think the OP means why would we look down on them? Well, I wouldn't. I have some low functioning friends and they don't seem that different from me. There are many types of intelligences and it's not easy for society to view others as so different as intelligent at all.

Not just among people with HFA but NT's too see their lack of speech and very poor self-help skills as something lower than them. Not all do mind but a large portion of society.

When non-autistic people look at me they see a little kid and I do some behaviours that warrant some pity, which I don't want. So I can only imagine what someone with more severe autism have to hear from other people.

I would be repulsed if anyone on this forum looked down on those with more severe autism.

I know right? I am similar, in that my "AS" diagnosis is described as moderate-severe, and I have people suggesting I look into some kind of assisted living situation if I do not stay with my family because they do not think I have the self-care skills to take care of myself properly. But of course I am HFA so I am supposed to have those skills. But then there are times when I am significantly less functional and unable to speak (and losing speech is actually not the worst thing that can happen to me - and when I can't speak I do not feel as much stressed). My apparent functioning fluctuates due to sensory overload, shutdowns, meltdowns (relatively mild meltdowns but they're still real), emotional overload (not always meltdowns), and dealing with basic issues of inertia and other difficulties managing myself.

And yeah, I agree with you.

I think, pointing on someones intelligence or "notso"-intelligence is simply a sign, of you being not happy with yourself. Actually, when I had my IQ testing done as a teen (not out of diagnostic reasons, I have been diagnosed far later) I already had tons of struggle, due to my Asperger, that affected my self esteem heavily. I simply felt dumb before, in comparison to my classmates and former friends, because they somehow changed, and I did not understand it, failed at copying, ... I simply felt as if I was too stupid to be the way other kids were. When I had my IQ-testing done, it went for a certain otherwise, I became arrogant, and thought of everything around me as ret*ds, that would only be acting the way the are, because of them being dumb and stupid. And they reason why I did not fit in to them, was because of me being so much smarter then them.

But around 16-17 I simply realized, that in reality I was simply jealous about them. Because in fact, they simply were far more happier then I am, and I was jealous about their uncomplicated happyness.. And I think I lost with that as well my arrogance about my intelligence, because out of my oppinion: Your IQ does not matter, its what you do out of your life. So someone having IQ70, and managing to live his life happy and comfortly, definitly uses his brain cells far more efficient, then someone having IQ130 and being unable to do so.

People involving any meaning of worth in the words "low functioning", simply will do so, because of them being unsecure of their own worth.

I don't feel that anybody is inferior or superior to anyone. I also don't look down on any of my autistic brothers and sisters. When I see anyone who's on the spectrum, I talk to them and hang out with them. There are also times when I feel safe on WP that it might seem like I only have one interest, but I don't continuously touch my toes and flap my hands. That doesn't mean that I'd look down on an autistic person who does those types of stims. I also don't look down on anyone who's incontinent, whether they're on the spectrum or not. I also certainly wouldn't look down on anybody who posted about their favourite thing, and make them feel like a a fool. It's happened to me a couple of years ago. I know how it feels. I also wouldn't do anything to make anybody on the spectrum feel like a fool. That's hurtful, and I don't wish to hurt anybody.

Re superior, personally I don't feel superior to anyone.I love people and have an open heart. All kinds of people come and talk to me at my place of work as I really accept and listen to them. Rather I am speaking from a contextual perspective, such as if a person needs an operation, a doctor who went to medical school would be superior to someone who didn't go to medical school or a person who preformed a thousand operations would probably be superior to a new doctor.

It seems some people do not want to get this point and are fighting it tooth and nail. I assume this is because it is serving some kind of psychological function to not accept this simple point, which, by the way, was made to the op in easy to understand, concise language in the first two responses to this thread on page one. Then she responded and said this is not what she meant, and then she said she wasn't sure. The latter comment sounded hopeful, which is why I posted.

But a lot of people do have feelings of superiority to other people for different reasons, such as low self esteem. They do it because they have not-okay feelings about themselves. The solution is to change ones own feeling about oneself, as it is very difficult to control the emotional feelings of other people, and then, if one changes oneself, this also might affect the responses of others. As I wrote to the op, it sounds to me she is functioning out of a grudge, and I am sure there is good reason behind it, but it is not of that much functional value as far as I can see.

Strong not-okay feelings and doubts of ones own self worth are a terrible thing. I have been there myself..I am not sure what is the case with the op, but I am sure it can take over the mind and feelings of a person like a fungus, as in the past I have seen it begin to happen to me in certain instances, but I always actively fought it, and when it was happening and sometimes still does happen, though not so much,.I tried and try to observe my own feelings about and reactions to what was or is happening inside myself and not put the focus on the other person. Admittedly this is very hard to do, and I already had the beginning of the skills to try to do this and also received a lot of help. Other people may not be in this position, but I think encouraging grudge holding, which is what is subtly behind a lot of the responses here, is a form of enabling and harmful to autistic people and any kind of people.

Nothing I have written is intended to encourage anyone to feel superior to anyone else. If a person feels that other people feel superior to himself, they very well may be feeling this and even glorifying in feeling it; however, the solution to this problem, as I see it, is to turn the dynamic around and feel compassion for those who feel superior as they are obviously functioning from a position of not feeling okay about themselves. Again, this is not so easy to do, but people should try to learn how to do it.

Verdandi, I did not have time to read your message yet, but when I was glancing over it this astute comment caught my eye. You also recently mentioned a similar point on another thread which I did not have time to respond to and right now cannot locate.....

There is a difference between what I mean by a reaction and doing. When I have the time I will try to better explain, but you have made a very intelligent point, especially in the sense that people reacting, even when fueled by anger, do seem to effect some kind of change in the world as can be evidenced by all sorts of results from all kinds of activities. Various forms of activism and the many results achieved would be a good example of this.

Littlebee; I like you. I believe that you care about people much more than some of the other posters would ever acknowledge.

That being said, I take issue with your analogy.The doctor with more experience at his profession is not superior to the doctor who has less experience. He is simply likely to be more qualified as a doctor. [and yes, I would likely choose him over the less practiced doctor] But to call LFAs' inferior, inferior to what? Inferior in medical skills? Yeah, well, that is most of us. But inferior in general?How?

I grew up in a family of monsters. They were all, intellectually, vastly superior to me. Socially as well. When my brother became a savage rapist of children, he was protected by the other family members. When I refused to be a part of the continued torment of a little 13 year old girl by various members of the family after the rape [spreading rumors at school she was a slut] I was demonized by my family to anyone and everyone. My family told everyone that I was a liar and not to believe a word I said [ "well, you can SEE Vickys' different, She has problems."]

These people are all highly successful by societys standards. They continue with the persecution of me, [and others] most recently a little over a year ago when they called a friend in the community I live in. They told my paranoid schizophrenic friend that I was faking breast cancer.
This man [my 'adopted" brother] had been to the hospital when I had my mastectomy. He had heard the doctor talking about the cancer to my husband. He had helped change the tubes in my chest and measure the fluids. Because of his paranoia, difficulty believing that he finally had people in his life, and a particular incident I would prefer not to mention, he believed her, and convinced others. The ramifications were, and are, devastating.

These are who these people are. And they are superior to me? I am inferior to them? No. I am not an inferior person, and neither are LFAs'. No way.

I am not trying to deny that littlebee cares about people. To be honest I can't tell if she does or not because while she says she does, the things she says to people and tells them to do or not do tend to be spectacularly callous and diminish basically everything they have to deal with.

So whatever she thinks deep down in her heart, what she says and does still has a particular kind of impact. If she really does care, then she should seriously examine herself and find out why the way she does it is so manipulative and focused so much on discouraging people from advocating for themselves or speaking out or acting against injustice. Using emotionally loaded words to convince people to do something other than what they determine to be in their own best self-interest, and even trying to convince people that she knows better than they do what their best self-interest is.

I am suspicious of anyone who spends most of their time telling people that the things they are doing, in some cases things they need to do, are dangerous, or is harmful to humanity. I don't see the point in mincing words over that. So, littlebee, if you really care about people, take your own advice and work on yourself before trying to tell everyone else what they should and should not be doing. Because right now what you're doing does not demonstrate caring. It is manipulative and controlling and gaslighting.

Hi Vicki. yes, good point. Thanks. it is the skill of the doctor that is superior. A much less skilled doctor would be inferior in his doctoring ability as compared to a higher skilled doctor, not inferior as a person. The thing some people seem to be missing is that this point is meant to be assumed by the way the material is being contextually presented, at least in the case of what I have written..One autistic person is not superior to another human being because he has a more developed level of functioning It is his level of functioning that is superior to a lower level of functioning. Both human beings are of equal value, unless, according to Marybird, a person is a sociopath. This latter does, however, to an enquirig mind, at least my own, bring up the question of degree. Can a person be kind of a sociopath?.

Bear in mind I and the other people who are kind of making the same point did not choose the words superior and inferior. It is the op herself who framed it this way and choose this language. When I have thought about different levels of functioning previous to replying on this thread and using the vernacular given, I have never even once thought of any kind of autistic as either inferior or superior to myself or any other autistic, whatever the level of functioning.. I am seeing all these as simply human beings, people.

I have, though, written their there are different kinds of autism, and I have thought about this a lot. The whole perspective I am coming from is that all brains function by the principle of encapsulation, but that different kinds of brains are likely to autisticly encapsulate for different reasons. However, this does not necessarily fit into the topic here, which I see more as about self esteem and other psychological factors...

I am going through this thread from the beginning, if I get the time, and looking carefully at what has been written, as this is great material to use as a learning tool. My comment below in bold
.

To the op of this thread. Thank you. You asked a real question, an important question from within yourself, from your genuine and sincere feelings about yourself, about others and about life and imo have opened a very key subject to be enquired into. There is no way I am saying what you are feeling is not important, and I am in no way attempting to invalidate your feeling or your being as a person. I have found some of your responses to be very encouraging because I see your mind as fresh and open, and this gives me hope to continue, both in my personal life and in writing here. .

I have to break this up into pieces to respond to it...I quoted everything together first in hopes it would make more sense that way:



But isn't being reduced to that image a problem for all autistic people, including those who actually fit it to whatever degree -- who do a lot of screaming and self-injuring, and/or have intellectual disabilities?

Speaking for myself, there has always been more to me than the screaming and self-injury of my meltdowns -- and there is more to any person than their IQ -- much more.

A picture of me screaming and hitting myself is a picture of me having a meltdown....that's it. It doesn't tell you much about my autism, my areas of ability/disability, my skills or my interests or thoughts or feelings or much of anything, really -- all it tells you is that I have meltdowns....it doesn't even tell you how often or why I have them, just that I do.

I know that the image might not be of someone having a meltdown...maybe the person screams all the time and self-injures as a non-meltdown type stim, or because of tics, or for some other reason I'm not aware of. I also know that the stereotypical image is usually of somebody who is totally nonverbal/nonliterate and, while I may have some problems with language, I am neither of those things....but my point remains the same:

I think that image has the potential to hurt any autistic person it's applied to if that's the only image that's ever used to represent them, because it ignores every other picture of them that exists in reality. No matter how accurately that image portrays someone's behavior however-much of the time, it's not a complete picture of them.



But why should anybody be embarrased or ashamed about being autistic -- at any level of severity or functioning? What is there to be embarrased or ashamed of?

Why should I be ashamed or embarrased because I sometimes fit the screaming, self-injuring image? Why should anybody be ashamed or embarrased about fitting it? If I break things that matter to me or somebody else, or if I upset somebody, I'll feel bad about that and try to make it right -- but why should I be embarrassed or ashamed?

And why should anybody be embarrased or ashamed of being intellectually disabled?

Seriously, why?



I can understand wanting people to see you for who you are rather than as a stereotype that you may not even remotely fit, I can understand not wanting anybody to limit you or deny you opportunities or treat you as lesser in some way...but just shifting all that stigma onto other autistic people (even if you're only passively reinforcing it, as opposed to actively) is not a good way for anybody to get others to see them for who they are -- it may be effective but I don't think it's right.

Keep in mind you're responding to someone who outright said that so-called "low-functioning autistics" are inferior.

Of course there's nothing shameful about being autistic, despite the fact that there's a lot of push to link "being autistic" to 'shameful" by groups such as Autism Speaks (but then she also says no one should oppose Autism Speaks and instead quietly navel-gaze their "low self-esteem").

That is, this isn't someone who is promoting neutral or positive perspectives, but someone who promotes a rather negative perspective and then tells people to not engage that perspective because they are somehow the real problem and need to fix themselves instead.

i am happy to be me.

as I want to be, more than now

You're right to point it out.



I think of it as being pseudo-intellectual snobbery. People who think they're being smart by looking down on others. I think that sums up those attitudes.