Stop Bashing Autism Speaks!

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Thank you! "Communication Breakdown: Hacking Autism Provides a Dose of Technology" is a story told in three parts, and three layers. On the surface, it describes Hacking Autism's goal to use technology to facilitate communication for autistics. Look closer, and you will find a deeply personal account, which reveals the communication breakdown at the very heart of the human condition. It is also a political satire, which sheds humorous light on yet another communication failure, which has separated the autism community to either side of an idealogical divide.

http://blog.autismspeaks.org/2011/10/24 ... ment-27154

What if I ask him when he is an adult "remember those times when you were really upset by something, and you couldn't tell us what it was..would it have been nice to be able to be able to let us know?"
What do you think his answer will be?
A cure to me can mean addressing the symptoms, or the underlying cause and therebye the symptoms in the process. Any of those things might be useful. Thats why I support research into and better understanding of Autism.

Here is Nostromo's statement that you responded to in suggestioning he was projecting his negative experiences on others with autism who don't have severe disabilities like his son:



He was talking about his son's inability to talk as a disability, which technically it is definitely a disability, not just a difference. He doesn't talk about a cure for autism, he talks about a cure of whatever it is that prevents his son from talking, if the mechanism is better understood. You suggest he is projecting his negative experiences with his son who has severe disabilities on other autistic people in your first reponse to his statement,

Now you assert that Nostromo was talking about all autistics.

He only talked about his son's experience of autism, and how he saw it as disabling, not just a difference. And expressed that he hoped a cure could be found for whatever it is that prevents his son from talking. This doesn't mean curing autism, it means allowing his son to talk, just like he can, you can, and I can.

The ability to speak doesn't mean a person is not autistic, but it enables one to do things in life, that they would not ordinarily be able to do in life without this ability. No where in his statement did he mention anyone else other than his son and himself. Now you are asserting that he was talking about all autistics.

I really hope no one would seriously question the disabling aspects of other people's children's autism.

That is beyond insulting.

Ahogday and Nostromo, thank you so much for being open about this. I know it can't be easy.

I've been trying to get some autistic interest in the Hacking Autism project in this thread...


http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt178929.html

I haven't had much luck so far.

No problem, just trying to add some perspective; there aren't that many autistic people here who have identified themselves as having or having had severely disabled autistic children; it provides a different perspective of life, that no other personal experience, picture, movie, story, or brief encounter with another can.

I've listened to the comments some people have made about parents of autistic children in the past; I've never heard an autistic person with a severely disabled autistic child, make those kind of comments about other parents. There may be a good reason for it: a different perspective.

Wow you Americans really do have a big problem!

40% of your children with ASD cannot talk with a further 25% losing the ability to talk. With incidences of ASD running at 1 per 110 children that means approx 1 in 2oo children in america can't talk.

Thats unbelievable, well it is for anybody living outside the US who knows about ASD's

One could be forgiven for thinking that an influential organisation with an interest in scaring the population might have somehow misrepresented these statistics.

Lawl yeah, why didn't I pick this out?

Here is a lie that is used for a calculated redefinition of what I said:

And here is the part of the statement that I actually responded to:

The reason why he made it is because he made this statement earlier:
It was levelled towards ValentineWiggin. After a response by ictus75 Nostromo said what aghogday quoted above. I was simply trying to point out that his comment about has autism been good to you was in bad faith because it suggested that all autistics suffer in some way and I was trying to make a reasonable response to this.


Putting words in my mouth. I said that not all autistics are like his son and we seem to do quite fine. At the same time I was recognizing his son's problems. Don't get defensive aghogday.


Argumentum ad infinitum isn't going to work here aghogday. :D

That statistic has nothing to do with Autism Speaks. It is provided by the Government through the government agency the CDC, Centers for Disease Control, as listed on the official government agency website, per the link here:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html

Most of the information that autism speaks provides for education and awareness is through third party sources. A misconception some have is that they come up with the statistics themselves.

Autism speaks website would suggest that they have been in partnership with the CDC since 2006 in order to study the epidemiology of autism.

Have you ever heard the expession,
You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.

It's all really very simple, and there are no real conflicts between different interest groups because, whatever the problem, being exploited as a cash cow by unscrupulous and self serving people is never the solution...

End of.

Nostromo's account of his son's inability to speak and other difficulties, was in direct response to Ictus75's response that autism was neither good or bad to anyone, that it was a difficult one for his son, he didn't say it was a difficult one for anyone else. He specifically asked Valentine Wiggin was autism good to her, he didn't say all autistics. Perhaps you are inferring that Nostromo was implying autism was bad for all autistics, but that is not what he said.

In fact, per quotes below Nexus asked Nostromo if he was implying that all autistics are low functioning with his question to Valentine Wiggin and Nostromo qualified that it was a question in this case not an implication, that he invited Nexus to feel free to answer himself.

ValentineWiggin wrote:
I'll stop bashing Autism Speaks when they stop bashing Autism.

nostromo wrote:
Autism's been good to you then?

Nexus wrote:
>Implying we're all low functioning.

nostromo wrote:
Its a question not an implication in this case, I am not being disingenious. Feel free to answer yourself.

Nostromo has already clarified that he was only talking about his son, and clearly understood that all autistic individuals didn't have the difficulties that his son has.

You specifically asserted per your quote below that "Nostromo was talking about all autistics", you didn't suggest, you asserted. Those are you words as quoted below, not ones that I put in you mouth.

All you have is two statements a question to one individual Valentine Wiggin, and a statement about his son. That's two autistic individuals not all of them; there is no evidence that Nostromo was talking about all autistics, he clarified that he was not implying that all autistics were low functioning with his response to Nexus' question about this, and he has clarified in response back to you that he was only talking about his son's difficulties and no one else's, there is only your inference, assumption, or assertion that he was talking about all autistics.

Aghogday wrote:


Gedrene wrote:

Last edited by aghogday on 05 Nov 2011, 1:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I can define it, just as Asperger and Kanner said.

What else can I define? Politically Correct words. Mentally ret*d became PDD NOS, Birth Defect became PDD NOS, Fetal Alcohol Syndrom, PDD NOS. What is PDD NOS? It is an Autism Spectrum Disorder that does not meet the criteria for Autism, not even close.

How did this happen? Money.

According to who is making up the numbers, 10% to 25% of ASDs are Autism Traditional, the rest are filler added when Autism got Funding.

Why? Because people who have an IQ under 70 who are non verbal, needed to have a chance to discuss their problems with a Psycholigist. That is a lot of billable hours.

What did they say? Nothing, they are non verbal.

Millions and millions of billable hours, and no one telling annoying stories.

It will be perfected in the new DSM, where anyone who can speak, write, use the Internet, Sue, will no longer be Autistic, just potential terrorists to be reported to Homeland Security.

Anyone with normal to above intelligence, who can speak, write, is obviously running a fraud acting Autistic, from something they read on Wiki, or saw on U Tube.

Like Emo, Goth, Cosplay, they are just teens trying to put one over on adults. Well this time they went too far, tried to defraud Professionals! We define Autism, have all of the funding, and are going to keep it.

What was once falsely called Autism, by Asperger, Kanner, are getting reclassed as The Unemployed Defrauding the Government.

If they can speak, why don't they get a job!

Autism, A Registered Trademark of Psychcorp.

Misuse of our Trademark will be proscuted to the fullest extent of the law, and then some.

The statistics on percentage of children with ASD's speaking you questioned were referenced by studies on the CDC website, done in 2004 and 2005, before any joint private public efforts with the CDC to study the epidemiology of autism.

There is no proof of any nefarious activity between the government and autism speaks; private/public efforts are common government iniatives in the US. The government though, is ultimately responsible for the facts they produce.

So what is your explanation for your government putting out such misleading figures that even an intelligent person such as yourself is fooled by them.

The idea that 1 in 200 US children (probably more by now as you say the figures are old) can't talk is absurd.

And that figure doesn't include the NT children who can't talk for various reasons.