"Low Functioning Autistics". Are they disabled?

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I remember in an argument dealing with Autism rights people simply focused on those deemed LFAs needing assistance or the like. Do LFAs have a disability or not?

I would say yes. But we should have the difference people show up soon.

I thought being on the spectrum at all was a disability!?!

other wise, why make it 'something different' at all?


Merle

yes

I think that it is.

Depends on who you ask, and what they consider "disability" to mean. This is predominantly an Aspie site, and we do tend to have some snobbishness towards people on other parts of the spectrum. If we can consider ourselves to be non-disabled, so can LFA. A few years ago, there was a study released that Michelle Dawson collaborated on that found that those labelled LFA actually have on average completely normal intelligence levels, just they aren't measured very well on the traditional Weschler scale.

it seems that the term "Low functioning" suggests disability.

a synonym for low functioning would be lesser performance

which suggests reduced capacity, compitancy, capability

we all have differences that aren't disabilities. and following this we could say that everyone and anyone is disabled on the idea that no one is absolutely capable of everything.

i think the definition of disability that we are addressing is: legal incapacity; legal disqualification. or a physical or mental handicap, esp. one that prevents a person from living a full, normal life or from holding a gainful job.

being on the spectrum doesn't necessarily signify this



among other definitions of the word, we find:

lack of adequate power, strength, or physical or mental ability; incapacity.

anything that disables or puts one at a disadvantage


these are both subjective to one's situation.

I live next door to a LFA and he is disabled. He is 20 and he cannot cook, wash, shop, talk, clean, find his way. He can feed himself and clean himself.

Autism in any form is considered a developmental disability.

So yes, us high-functioning folk have a disability.

Cerebral Palsey can be severe or mild and it can be disabling to some and not to others, but it's still a disability.

I think we are just begining to understand autism LFA/HFA/AS...we have a very long way to go.

Defining disabled with out adding a value judgement of bad/good would help.

To parrot: the whole diagnosable spectrum is a disability in the ways that they are defined.

From the DSM-IV-TR in regards to Asperger's:

All autistic people are, regardless of functioning label, at least where I live. I haven't really seen any argument for autistic people not being disabled that doesn't rest on a particular narrow way of viewing disability as being another way of saying something wrong with specific kinds of people. (Which is not how the disability rights movement sees disability, nor even how the law is ending up seeing disability in an increasing number of countries.)

The entire disability vs. difference argument is a false dichotomy, and one I get about as sick of as my friend Joel who wrote this long rant about it did. And then I wrote this long response to his rant. And both of those are more eloquent than I'm going to be tonight on the topic (edited to add: there have been virtually nonstop people in and out of my apartment for 12 hours of today, not counting the number of phone calls, and I'm barely recovering), as is the second article I linked to in my response.

Oh, and Critic of the Dawn is a good description of two polar opposite views of disability, and how the end result is really an intersection of our differences with a world that doesn't plan for them. For people who might have trouble catching the metaphors, "Bruce" is an imaginary person embodying the "disability is a defect within an individual person and doesn't depend at all on the environment" view, and "Mary" is an imaginary person embodying the "disability is wholly imposed by the outside but inside we're all the same really" view, and she argues (at least as I read it) for it really being what happens when individual differences hit an environment planned for people who don't differ to that degree, or in that way.

I consider myself to have a disability... so if I do... then lfa definitely!

consider this: the same person could thrive well in one situation or completely fail in another situation.

so their situation itself is detemining whether they are now disabled or not and not their actual capabilities.

if a person's autistic traits provide that they actually excell in their particular situation moreso than causing a hinderance, are they then not on the spectrum?

the diagnosis manual is a guide used to allow for identifying certain things but does it really define what we really are inside?

truly, autism exists inside of people before it is given a name or a set of definitive traits. maybe then, you can't use a set of biast observations to define what autism is.

generally if a diagnosis is taking place, it's in aim of trying to address a problem. following this, if there is no problem then theres no need to diagnose, no need for a label. but if an autistic person happens to be in a situation that suits them, then maybe they won't encounter the problems that might typically go along with that autism in another situation. no need for outsiders to put a label on them. but that doesn't change what they are inside.

Last edited by Shayne on 02 May 2008, 10:49 pm, edited 4 times in total.

Of course LFA is disabled.

Honestly, i think they are, but not completly.I don't think any autistic is completly.

If they can't feed themselves, then give them food.If they need to be watched so they don't die then watch them.

But i think once they get to their teens they should make alot of their own decisions and such, they are people after all, and alot of them aren't MR or at least not severely MR.

If they can do it, then let them.