Board index › General Discussion › Autism Politics, Activism, and Media Representation

Autism Speaks

Page 2 of 2 [ 19 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2

Previous topic | Next topic

CockneyRebel
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 17 Jul 2004
Age: 51
Gender: Male
Posts: 121,252
Location: In my own little country

13 Dec 2009, 2:43 pm

I'm lucky that I was around, long before Autism Speaks, back in the 1970s.


_________________
The Family Schlager


Dark_Red_Beloved
Toucan
Toucan

User avatar

Joined: 27 Mar 2006
Age: 41
Gender: Female
Posts: 256
Location: Southeast Wisconsin

14 Dec 2009, 3:31 pm

wigglyspider wrote:
They focus only on severely autistic children, and the unhappiness and confusion that can come with them, and don't acknowledge the fact that many autistics grow up to be much happier and/or more successful than that. It is aimed at parents and promotes curing their children and turning them back to normal instead of nurturing them as you would real children and being happy with them how they are.*

They don't have or want anyone autistic on their staff, last I heard.

And they sued a 14-y-o girl for having an Autism Speaks parody site.

*I couldnt put quotes around the stuff in this sentence because Autism Speaks never really says these things, but this is what their ads imply. The words I use like "real" and "back to normal" are not based on MY views.


And as long as we're on the subject of severely autistic people(funny how autistic always seems to carry the connotation of children :wink: ) ,who's to say that one can base the quality of another person's existence based on the similarity the average person?To their own existence? Even if 1 in 150 children were severely autistic, it is thoughtless and arrogant in the extreme to assume that because of what they see on the outside,that another person's existence must be inferior to their own.

In addition by saying including only children and the most severely affected individuals without speech into one's paradigm of autism they are effectively wielding a ban hammer against any who might disagree with them.



starvingartist
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Oct 2008
Age: 46
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,032

14 Dec 2009, 5:27 pm

http://www.kerrysplace.com/homepg/main.htm

this is the site for the community organisation for autism support in my area. if you look at their mission statement and their statements about their vision and their values, you can see what the goals and the message of a group that exists solely for the purpose of providing support to people on the spectrum SHOULD be. autism speaks is nothing like this, and has only messages of hopelessness, ignorance, and fear, to offer. it's criminal.

kerry's place wants to help autistic people find their places in the world, on each individual's own terms. autism speaks wants to destroy the difference we represent--either by assimilation, or elimination.