Cure for ASD

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There are people with down's syndrome that are high functioning and hold down jobs etc, does their abortion make you shudder? We have all but wiped out their existence with the ability to check for and subsequently abort those with down's syndrome.

At the end of the day i think the parents should have the choice but it must be hard to go through with an abortion for any reason. Id say very few of actual genuises of the past were actually significally affected with autism so the world will still turn round without autistics.

As has been pointed out this is a totally hypothetical and no-one should go getting upset about it until if it ever becomes a reality by which time chances are we wont be around in the world anymore anyway. It would be unlikely high-functioning autistics could be dectected out from nuerotypicals in the womb and there isnt even any proof that autism is developed in the womb. There probably are genetic factors involved that make you more likely to develop autism however.

EAMONN YOU'RE BACK!! !! ! Oh er I mean *grins widely remembering that you don't like emoticons* Good to see you!! !

And yes, aborting Downs babies makes me queasy too. I'll admit that it is easier to dismiss when it isn't as close to home, but if I imagine myself being told that the child I was carrying had Downs and would I like to abort or not, I think I would have to say that I would rather not know and not be given the option.

Im not back for long (moving house defo today finally) until i get a new internet connection and computer for my new flat. I havent seen you around here much recently compared to the past Kitten, have you started a college course or just got bored of us or something?

I dont think i could test for a down's syndrome baby either as the option would be heart-wrenching as any decision would affect the rest of your life. Another issue is that the "screening" for downs syndrome etc often kills the babies anyway whether they are disabled or perfectly healthy.

Yeah, I've been a bit absent lately. If anything it's the opposite of starting a new course: I'm completely clueless as to where I'm going and lacking any sense of drive. I've sort of been bumming out a bit, withdrawing into my own little hidey hole. Went through a bit of a tough time with mum too but I seem to be working past that so here I am again!

Oh yeah, and I didn't realise that the screening process was so dangerous! Not cool... I can't help but feel that there's a lot to learn from any person though. Apparently Down's kids are often very affectionate in an undemanding way, and that's a beauty in itself.

Well you don't think many of the Scientists through time had any sign of Autism? You should read up on this topic. Don't try to argue with me about it until you read up about autism and read up about the scientists that you are trying to say were not autistic

Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) Spent his life documenting the stars and developed scientific method as we know it by making thousands of observations about the stars rather than just presenting a few like was the way before him that Copernicus did. He had Kepler work with him in his later years of life.

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) He was strongly anti social very acidemic with largly unautodox views about a harmonis solar system. He was obsessed with proving the Geometric perfection of the the 5 planets of the classical time and in doing so managed to decover some key things about planetry orbit that inspired people like Isac Newton and Galileo.

Isaac Newton (1643-1727) He developed the idea of Gravity but never marryed

Elbert Einstein

In the letter to Jacques Hadamard, Einstein confessed as follows: "The words or language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The psychical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images which can be voluntarily produced and combined."

It was as if Einstein played with pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

To the psychologist Max Wertheimer, Einstein reported, "I very rarely think in words at all . . . I have it in a sort of survey, in a way visually."

Einstein's mind was a perfect embodiment of scientific research: hard data plus solid skills of mathematics and praxis, plus theoretical preceptions, all working together in the theater of the mind. And in this mix, a visual imagination was crucial.


Do some reading Eammon most of the big discoverys that went againest the grain of accepted thought were from people who showed very strong signs of being on the autistic spectrum. I know my self of a fair few computer geeks and science nerds who are on the Autistic spectrum.

Eammon if you need me to give more indepth examles and explain the reasons I think Autism had some thing to do with them I will.

By the way Issac Newton never marred. He was opposed to the very idea of relationships.

Thomas Edison did very badly in school and was not thought to be very bright he was also not the most social person around but he presevered with his interests and the results are evident today.

Elbert Einstein also set rules for his wifes and was not very understanding of them. he also had strong global views and alot of the other people on this forum have as you will see if you have a look.

I know what you mean about bumming around. My drive is low too and i dont have a direction at the moment. From what little i know of you, you would be good at working with kids, animals or people with disabilities. Of course i dont know that for sure what your best suited at (i dont know what im suited for myself just what im not suited for) but it's just a sense that im getting from your posts.

Yes, Down's children are very affectionate and giving. Just dont get in their way when they are in a strop.

MindOfOrderedChaos, It's possible i could be wrong but it's also possible that most of these scientists were just eccentric or OCD etc. No doubt they had autistic tendancies but im not sure that many of them would be affected to the point of being diagnosed as having Autism or Aspergers these days. In those days there was far greater need to be able to socialise to get on in life or at least not rub people up the wrong way. No employment rights or welfare then. Only the very highest functioners would have a good chance of being accepted into positions of importance, even in scientific settings.

Of course even today any diagnosis of Asperger's etc is highly subjective so it is nigh-on impossible to post-humanely diagnose these figures of the past. Im not 100% sure on the issue as there are some scientists (such as Einstein who is well documented as having been likely to have a nuerogical condition such as Asperger's or dyslexia etc. Every "side" seems to claim him for themselves though sop it's all speculation to a degree) that seem to have a better case for being mildly autistic than others.

Im just throwing this out for arguments sake, my mind isnt closed on this. By all means elaborate on why you think the people you mentioned above were autistic, thats the point of a debate but please dont assume that i havent read up on things as you dont know that. I have read a lot on autism in recent years but will admit that my knowledge of science and scientists isnt that far reaching though their alleged afflictions have came up in both books about science/psychology and autism i have read.

Eamonn, you are chicken broth for the soul! It means a lot to hear you say that because those are EXACTLY the sorts of things I would like to do, particularly kids and disabilities. It's encouraging to hear that I don't seem to totally such at it! Thankyou so much for that, you really have just made my day! *uses the smiley emoticon then remembers and 'smiles'*

I don't really believe there will ever be a pre natal test for Autism. Or a realistic cure (although some advanced therapies may come). The condition - if thats what it is is way too complex for that.

But after 26 years I do wonder if it is a "Condition" at all. You see She can't really function in my (NT) world - so I live most of my life in hers. To be with her I have to be like her. It is almost like living with someone who comes from a different culture - a different race - a different planet- a different universe ??

I really don't know if I've put that across too well. Hope no one is insulted or upset by that.

Respect...

I am well aware that some people want a cure and some do not. I have a problem with saying that the desire for a cure, or lack of desire for a cure, should be based on, or excused by, an illusion like "functioning level".

I said illusion for a reason. That reason is that there are so many facets to autism, and all "functioning level" ever is, is a crude approximation based on how outsiders perceive a mere handful (if that) of those facets.

As far as I have seen -- and I have been watching autistic people for a long time -- whether autistic people themselves want a cure or not depends not at all on what kind of autism they have and has everything in the world to do with their worldview. Same goes for autistic people's parents.

I would have gone for a statement like, "We should not totally blame parents for feeling this way, because this is how they have been taught to feel by the medical establishment, this is the dominant view of disability in the world, this is how all people are taught to feel about these issues by some pretty dominant forces in society." I would have believed that, because as far as I can tell it's true.

I also believe that many of the ways people oppose a cure don't really challenge those forces. They only say, "Maybe the 'HFA/AS' people are okay, because of such-and-such a skill, but 'LFAs' are different, maybe they really are everything that the world says all of us are."

I happen to believe that none of us are defective. The fact that some people (who regard themselves, or are regarded, as AS, HFA, and LFA, as far as I can tell) regard themselves as defective, does not make me suddenly view everyone who regards themselves as defective as in fact defective but everyone else is okay or something like that. That seems silly to me.

I don't happen to regard "mental retardation" as a defect either, by the way.

The only thing actually written down about me to specify "functioning level" was "low functioning" by the way. Doesn't make me believe in it any more, the fact that some official person wrote it down, but that's what I was called, and when I was able to do a lot of things I'm not able to do now. I still don't identify as either low- or high-functioning because I flat don't believe that autism can be parcelled out like that. (If it were "low to high functioning" in one very narrow area, and then the same scale applied individually to a number of other areas, and if you could convince me that all of these areas could be truly measured, then I would believe in it, but as an overall measure of anything in autism it's unscientific and unrealistic.)

But the not-defective thing is my position, based on an overall sense of ethics, not based on "Gee it's this way for me and not this way for someone else," not based on how I "feel" about myself. If this is how I view things, and a lot of those regarded as "very high functioning aspies" think they need to be cured (and a lot of them do), what does cure have to do with this illusion called functioning level?

I mean with labels like mine, you're more likely to be thrown away and treated like dirt, I'll grant that. But with labels like "high functioning" you're likely to be thrown away in different ways, treated like dirt in different ways. I've had my chance to experience some of those too in the odd twists and turns of things.

It's very interesting, in fact, to watch the difference between how I and my down-the-hall neighbor are treated. She can speak, she can fake NT to a tiny extent, and she's better at a couple minor things than I am, but we regard ourselves as more alike than different when it comes to autism. When people get the two of us together, they lump me into low-functioning and her into high-functioning. The drastically different different ways we get viewed and treated -- neither very good, but in different ways -- are a testimony to how these labels and illusions work on people's minds.

At any rate, I don't give people special leeway in the cure department for happening to share, have shared, or be related to someone who shares a label with me. The only leeway I give is the leeway I would give to anyone, in that we are all bombarded with these messages of defectiveness, the same way women have been bombarded with a number of unpleasant messages about who we are (my generation in my part of my country got far less of those than the previous generations, but they were still there). Because I firmly believe that the issue of cure is not an issue of feelings as much as an issue of what we are taught about ourselves, about the meaning of "cure", about disability, and so forth, and of how we view all those things.

If you wanted the long answer, that's the long answer. It takes a lot of individual circumstances into account, but does not regard all individual "feelings" as equally ethically valid. And certainly I don't believe in functioning level as a valid concept for measuring autism-as-a-whole and it's not because I'm unaware the fact that the illusion called functioning level has a great deal of force in determining what happens in my life and the lives of all other autistic people for that matter.

And by the way, selective abortion for Down's syndrome has horrified me for a long time, and not because some people with Down's are so-called "high functioning". (It horrifies a lot of people with Down's, too, by the way.) The same way, exact same way, that selective abortion to make only male babies born horrifies most feminists (even the pro-choice ones, since there's a difference between the decision whether to have a child and the decision of what kind of child to have).

Indeed. What is Steven Hawking's functioning level? If genetic tests had shown he would develop ALS, would he have been aborted?