Anti-cure Cowardice?

Post Reply New Topic

Ah, clarification. A fun topic.

Oh Nominalist, where are you? There is some Neurelitism in this thread that needs to be crushed...

lastcrazyhorn,

It's a nice "criteria", but like I said last time, I know of an "aspie" who is nothing like that (I've seen many online who aren't like that too).

I've still yet to see someone counter why it's evil to attempt to cure those on the spectrum who cannot survive without an executive; those who'd die without someone preparing their meals and coercing them to eat. Those who want friends, but cannot attain them; those who want to work, but cannot due to autism; those who want a "cure".

I think it is extremely likely, and actually fairly obvious, and painfully so (to me at lease as someone with Aspergers at the severe level) that there would be no existence if there were only autistic and Asperger's persons. The social and communicative impairments would not permit any functional social and political and economic organization. And regarding your statement, "moving toward a new and different kind of existence", the "higher occurrence of autism diagnoses" is nothing unlike the higher incidences of cancer, heart disease, neurological disease, etc. And, the higher occurrence of autism diagnoses may, actually, mean that the quality and stability of society will be greatly compromised, and an increase in interpersonal conflict, decrease in social and economic and artistic and intellectual productivity.

Also regarding your statement ... likewise, it's possible the reason for the higher occurrence of cancer is that we as humans are moving towards a new physical evolution that will soon be determined.

A major failure of yours, and others, is failing to realize THE FACT that any person with autism was FULLY FUNCTIONING prior to the onset of autism at age 2 or 3, at which time there was a profound decrease in core functioning (social/interactive, communication, emotion, sensory, thinking). This fact undermines most of your claims.

I'm fairly certain that there would be no human society if there were only autistic and Aspergers individuals.

Wait a second elan i a DECREASE "in artistic and intelectual productivity?

Thats bull.

I just delted three paragraphs explaing why . No point.

Thats just bull.

Well, it's a little complicated. What they did was use the term LFA itself as demeaning, and presented LFAs stereotypically. "All LFAs are etc." They picked on one LFA woman, and said things that were, by the way they were said, applicable to all LFAs. Especially a comment stating that, according to what they knew, all those who are diagnosed Low Functiong are inherently unintelligent. I couldn't believe they'd say something so ignorant, presumptious, and so downright insulting! I still get little headaches just thinking about it, that they'd do something like that.

Besides, I think that it's just silly that they said all of that about "acting above their diagnosis." The woman was intelligent, able to communicate, and said thoughtful, interesting things. And that whole "acting above their diagnosis" is a silly notion to start with. If they can speak they ought to be heard. One of the most well known autistics is a woman called Amanda Baggs; She's even appeared on CNN. She was formally diagnosed with low functioning autism, but can type to communicate, and has been an inspiration and a large part of the online autism community, and I heard she even plays Second Life. She's certainly acting more capable than the stereotypical diagnosis would let on, but does it really matter? The whole nit-pick they were having over the finer points of LFAs and acting above their diagnosis really falters in the face of a woman like Ms. Baggs.

And if they gave her the same cop they gave the LFA woman, I doubt they'd be welcome on any autism forums... But then, I suppose that's how they did it; targeted the people they thought no one would care enough about to do anything for...

It's kind of funny, though. The woman doesn't really have a big public image of any kind. No one really knows about her here, except for me, it seems. I could say her name, and no one would recognize her, most likely. Kind of sad then, that they thought she was being bad for the Spectrum's image.

I sort of agree. The whole blanketing of all ASDs as ASDs really tends to make it a one perception fits all kind of autism. Public awareness needs to be raised that while we're all under one giant umbrella term, the conditions can be quite different. AS isn't exactly LFA, and distinctions should be made. The point I'm making here is that we're all different, and we all have our own general isssues that differ from spectrum disorder to spectrum disorder.

But yeah, I do agree that positives should be shown, though glossing over the negatives just makes things harder.

From some of the news clips I've watched I'm afraid if the public becomes more informed it'll turn into an overdiagnosed"what you don't know might hurt you" media witch hunt pharamcology moneymaking thing like ADHD.

Yes that was a run on sentence.

What is the exact quote? If you have it that is.



Joeker, unfortunately that is actually a medical fact. I've already argued on here about IQ. LFA's get treated much better than anyone elsewhere on the Spectrum in the provision of funding where I live. It is seen as an intellectual disability, and that includes an IQ of less than 70 as compulsory. That's why the Autism State Plan is so important to the rest of the Spectrum, to provide for the whole Spectrum - not just the part where an intellectual disability exists. It's a form of reverse discrimination actually (IMO).



If that's the case then her DX is wrong.



I have long believed Amanda's DX to be definitely wrong. Her DX of LFA shows just what is wrong with the DSM-IV, and it will hopefully be corrected by the DSM-V. It appears she has been judged on her physical issues, and it's debatable if those issues are a part of her Autism. I think it's something else entirely. She's HFA in my view, and I hope the DSM-V leads to a change in her DX. Mind you, she's had enough bad DX's to last her a lifetime!



Whilst that is true, the root Spectrum condition is the same. That's part of the problem, because that is also medical fact. The differences come with the development - especially during early childhood but also right through to early adulthood. And undiagnosed it could develop further still beyond that (and I can talk through experience on that not being DXed until I was 32). We are all different in our own way, but then that applies to NT's as well. Think of it this way - all males are males, all redheads are redheads, etc etc. All ASD people are ASD people. Take the next step - THEN you have the differences (LFA, PDD-NOS, HFA, Aspergers and so on). You can't shift away completely from the root condition.

Dave, that would only happen if the education process was flawed. It's important to get it right.

A truckload of pods? I have met NT's, I do not want to be one!

Well first I have to agree with danielismyname, by a citeria that it is an impaiment, only those impaired are counted.

Not to say it is not an impairment for those who just live there, and get by. The overall ASD numbers I have found speak more of grading from non-functioning, to NT. Where the impairments are less of a problem, they are not counted. I still say it is much larger than the 1 in 300, or 1 in 150, that is counted. The differance between is 100%, so they could not be counting the same thing. Some numbers put non-functioning at 1 in 20, the other 19 just being weird.

Medical treatment is a useful thing, and as long as Do No Harm rules, fine.

Cure has a whole other meaning. It means not treatment and control, but eradication.

Sycklecell affects Blacks, Jewish people have some genetic problems, both should be treated.

When cure means eradication, and only abortion could do that now, it is like taking the Jewish genetic problem as all, and then of course it will be like Downes, and embrionic testing will show, the child has a chance of being born Jewish! Curing through exterminination has been tried.

It is not a disease, it is families. Mine was loaded with oddballs, due to making really bad employees, they all went into business, and made more money than NT workers. Being focused, obsessive, most of it was chemical and electronic. Being socially excluded, they spent more time at their work.

Those who keep pushing the cure line also are working genetic testing, with the goal that families like mine would have all their children aborted. Yes, it is not ramdom, it is in bloodlines. So cure means getting rid of the line. It has been tried.

The blood in question is European, and it is said there is more genitic diversity in any African village, than in all of Europe. The Human Genome Project says 95% of Europeans trace back to one very closely related, read line bred, group of less than 100. They were much closer than brother and sister, near identical twins, and that is the foundaton stock of the line.

If you will look at history, Europe has done some great things, and some not so great. They stand out among cultures for Aspie traits, Art, Science, Math, Technology. Western Technology has changed the world, and we know who the geeks, inventors, and engineers are.

The second side of their character is not so good, wars over ideas, invading the lands of inferiors, enslaving them, and claiming the land. This does seem to be the NT side.

They would want the original inhabitants to be pro higher civilization, that they should want to be cured of being themselves, in their land, owning all, in favor of having a European flag flown, and being ruled by a European King, through his army and settlers on their best lands. They seem still ungratful.

Many NT's do not think Bill Geek Gates should have become the world's richest man, and in such a short time. They also do not like machines, designed by us, making them obsolete. This is the tech era, and Geek is the new power.

Strange that AS, Geek Syndrome, comes out the same year as Windows 95.

Geek is a power that cannot be stolen, and that leaves cure, tech is evil, to those who do not understand it, and it is viewed as the new witchcraft, power reserved for a few.

In the 90's I was dealing with a lot of software companies, and watched as one by one they were bought, money trying to gain control, and get rid of those strange people who worked there. They would hire proper well dressed college graduates, and when they did, they found they had some three year old software, and the strange people had started a new company, with a much better product.

They dumped billions into the tech bubble, trying traditional NT means of gaining control of a new industry, and lost it all. Ideas kept moving, and old in this business is eighteen months.

So people who cannot compete, control, have failed in a class action lawsuit against Microsoft, now talk cure.

They got that Asperger's Disease! We had to do something, because they was so sick they did not even want to be cured, and be like good NT's.

Your outsider view is being expressed on a computer, a product of Autism, over the Internet, a product of Autism. The Code that makes it work is a product of Autism. And you think we should want to be cured?

You are comic, a KKK'er at a Soul food resturant, eating chitlins and cornbread. You like the food, but think all them Black people should want to join the Klan. They should art least try to be White!

Now most crazy people know they are crazy, unless of course they are White.

At the deepest level, what you are not good at, Music, Art, Engineering, Science, the reason you are ordinary, is because all that stuff is sick, and should be cured.

You sound like a Bible thumper preaching to a dance band, about how dancing and music are evil, and should be cured. You are not researching a cure, educating yourself, just spouting the opinion that everybody who disagrees with you is guilty of something.

What you do not like, and millions of NTs like you, is the economy has been Autistic for a decade. We no longer just get the patents and do the lab work that can be bought and controlled, we are the tech business that is taking over everything. We are doing it from home on the Internet.

You want to cure IT? Computer Numeric Control? The Arts? Advances in Science? The Future that scares you?

Your highest goal for us is chit chat about the water cooler about football, and being good little employees?

If an ape and a human changed places who would be happy?

You are a loser who wants all the winners to agree they should be cured of mental agression?

Insanity is defined by doing/saying the same thing over and over, and thinking there will be another outcome, if you just try hard enough.

A Troll is a stranger who shows up and trys to upset people by picking a topic to incite them.

By that standard you are a failed Troll.

I have learned a good deal from the replies, those people make sense, Autistic to Autistic.

Most older people who have lived and worked in the world do like themselves, warts and all, and having met many NT's, are happy to remain themselves. That is good, for altering adult outcomes is hopeless.

There is a middle aged range of late discovers, and having survied being weird, they now know, their is a reason, and there are others. It helps in planning how to get through. It is still hopeless, but they do have Wrong Planet. We do seem to be very open and honest about advising people, I hope we can be of some help, and be there on bad days. You are still weird.

The first Offical Dx'ed seem to be hitting college, the product of overtreatment and not enough growing, in my opinion. They have been molded to fit in their NT peer group, but not into themselves, which is what plays out in life.

Teens complain, and mope. It sounds about right to me.

My great hope is the young, the first group raised and allowed to develop naturally. Accepted and loved. I do think a lot of the problems developed with people trying to cure what they did not understand, and the cure produced co-morbids.

Yes, we have a developmental delay, our development takes a different path, but if left intact, we develop better and quicker. The latest in treatment seems to be, quit doing wrong things. You can try to beat a Massaratil into a Ford Pickup, but it ruins the Massaratii, and it makes a bad pickup.

We can help the people we can help, and there are others who do not speak for themselves here, but people who love them do, and if there was a way, I will stand with you. I do not know, I can offer no hope, but I still have it.

I know my Science well enough to think none of us are different, yet we all are. I have no talent for music, other have perfect pitch and live for music. I can repair machines, computers, but writing code designing chips, is for others. We are parts, and some get the least useful.

Only my view, but the world has spent sixty years trying to change me, no luck yet, and when they stop, I move on to being me. It works for me. My goals were unknown to me, or anyone else, but I keep moving toward them, set back, I am slowed, then move toward them again. I have seen many things I dreamed of as a child come to pass. When I spoke of them I was punished, so I stopped speaking.

I was judged to be hopeless and useless, it turned out better than that. I was judged to be not worth educating, now I write books, publish them, and do fine art printing. It was all I did while growing, obstructed, but growing, as my obsessive desire to learn seemingly unconnected things. Now I use them all. It is a depth of knowledge that no education can replace. I was meant to be me.

With some love and understanding, I could have gotten there many years ago. The only things that work for us are love, understanding, and support.

I don't wish to speak for Amanda, but she is diagnosed with autistic disorder (via her website), which includes "HFA" (no secondary diagnosis of mental retardation), and "LFA" (an Axis II diagnosis of mental retardation). 2/3 of those with autistic disorder are "LFA" (it says so in the DSM-IV-TR).

I'm "officially" diagnosed with autistic disorder too; you wouldn't know it by looking at me however, which is the entire point of autism--we "look" normal (autistic disorder is per the DSM-IV-TR compared to AS, someone with more trouble in starting/sustaining a conversation; someone who doesn't interact with others as a child [barring select people], i.e., sitting down to play with others but not actually playing with them; most have a delay in the acquisition of speech, many don't acquire the ability to communicate verbally; most lack self-help skills for their chronological age (preparing food to eat for example; not noticing danger). Apart from this, there's not much difference between the two).

Most with autistic disorder have a really fudged up outcome compared to "normal" people, no matter how intelligent they are. I cannot see why a cure is bad for these people if they want it.

Asperger's is better than "HFA" in the outcome (LFA is "bad"), but not by to much. I cannot see why a cure is bad for these people if they want it too.

And what I say is a major failing of yours is a lack of acknowledgment that this isn't something brought on by vaccines or other environmental factors after birth, but that this is GENETICS and a result of birth.

You just can't admit that anyone with Aspergers isn't fully functioning the way they are.

This fact undermines most of your claims.

Regardless of the possible cause of autism, the fact still remains that, as I wrote above, any person with autism was fully functioning prior to the onset of autism at age 2 or 3, after which time there was a profound decrease in core functioning (social/interactive, communication, emotion, sensory, thinking). The possible cause of autism is irrelevant for the point I made. The point I made is that there was observable full functioning prior to the onset of autism, and the proves that, IN AUTISTIC PEOPLE, THERE IS SUCH A THING AS BETTER FUNCTIONING. Proven. Observed. Anyone who denies that the difference in functioning between a pre-autistic child of 0-2 or 3 years old and autistic child (the same child) after the onset of autism, is not only irrational, but is conceptually impoverished, and profoundly biased.

Actually, some children with autism, specifically autistic disorder, display autism in the first year of life (I did for example).

However, with "regressive" autism (CDD), yeah, there is a time where there is "normal" functioning/development for a specific time period, and then a loss of social/communicative/self-help skills with the onset of CDD.

I'm sure the damage to the brains of those with autism will be reversible in the future (much like any neurological condition).

I'm tending to think so as well.

I wonder if anyone has thought of whether a sort of "Autistic Personality Disorder" may be common among some (or many) with autism and Aspergers, by which I mean something similar in nature to the other personality disorders, which is the typical (1) lack of awareness of the true differences between themselves and neurotypicals, (2) disinterest in seeking and receiving treatment and therapy, (3) believing they have no impairments or symptoms or that anything is "wrong". A main aspect of the so called personality disorders, I believe, is these 3 aspects, and perhaps others. This is one main reason why those with personality disorders do not seek treatment or therapy, ignore others (family, friends, etc) recommendation to receive treatment, denounce others for this. And, upon receiving a diagnoses (if they happen to meet with a doctor for whatever reason, such as by family or friend's insistence) they will often vehemently reject the diagnosis. And added to the 3 points above, one further point may be (4) the tendency to view themselves as superior to neurotypicals, and to view neurotypicals as inferior, and to describe neurotypical behavior as inane and lacking in value, and their own behavior as more meaningful and valuable.


This seems common among many with autism and Aspergers, to the extent that I wonder if it could reasonably be added to the DSM diagnostic criteria for autism and Aspergers as a possible corollary part of the conditions.

Actually in my family, no one could understand my reasons for getting counseling. The whole family's on the spectrum, I'm pretty sure, which gives me another reason for believing in genetics, other than just the science.

Reading your comments just makes me think of bloody sawed off wings . . .