Cure for Autism

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They should be the ones to convince me since they've made such ridiculous claims.

I feel compelled to add to this thread that I have observed with much interest that a) people who don't have autism often have similar trouble understanding us as we do them (if not even less ability, having not been surrounded by us during development) and b) the other people I know personally with Autism can often tend to understand me (another autistic) quite well... So a lot of our "social problems" come from not being understood by neurotypicals as we think in a different way.

Sooo, for our problems to disappear what we need is less a cure than better education and training for NT's to understand us, and better education/training for us to understand them.

Education is the key to most of the worlds problems!

In general, in principle, with few exceptions, I think dogmatism is an ineffective and unethical approach to the challenges of life. Compassionate ethics and a recognition of the complexity of experience, and situation is better.

People who discuss a cure for autism often have an idea that a cure is somehow a switch labeled "autism" that can either be on or off. This is a useless and foolish conceptualization, at odds with everything we know about autism. Somewhere in the interaction of a thousand or more genes and the in utero environments that each person develops in, the vast array of features that combine to produce the behavioral patterns that we call autism emerges. There is no binary switch here and talk of such a thing is pointless.

The poll attached to this thread is based on that useless model, so I can't answer it, though I am tempted to answer "no" as way of saying "this is a dumb idea." But I disagree with the dogmatism of anti-cure activists as much as the unconscious, simplistic eugenics of some of the pro-cure people and I would not want a "no" vote to appear to lend support to those misguided ideas.

I have noticed that things that we conceive of collectively as being members of a group, such as "trees," "seashells," and "people" are never that much alike when two individual examples from that group are closely compared. Even when you look at things which seem very similar, such as leaves of a specific genus of tree or clam shells, there is tremendous variation in each individual leaf or shell. Striations, veins, thick spots, thin spots, signs of blight, symbiotes and parasites: each one of these "things of kind" turns out to be unique when examined in detail.

This is no less true of people who carry a particular diagnosis or distinguishing feature such as autism, bipolar disorder or black hair. Each person who can be identified as a member of that subgroup of humans is unique and in unique circumstances. Few would be silly enough to talk about the need to cure black hair, and most recognize that bipolar disorder can bring positives as well as negatives and this varies from person to person. Autism is no different.

If we take compassion, and more precisely mitigation of pain and promotion of happiness and self-determination as the basis of our ethics, then the question of cure is no longer about being in some political faction with a dogma but a question of what is good for the individual. An approach to autism based on these ethical principles would ask what symptoms are beneficial and what symptoms are harmful and what therapeutic intervention can mitigate harm and promote well-being.

If someone is in pain, misery and sorrow or totally unable to communicate their needs and wants to others, these are negatives that it would be unethical not to treat, if useful therapy is available. If some one has unique characteristics that do not cause them harm, then altering the function of that person's mind and body to more closely conform to some model of normality is unethical.

I think this is a better way of thinking about therapeutic intervention for autism than "should it be cured."

If possible, it would be great to reduce or eliminate expressions of autism that are harmful to specific individuals in those individuals. In general, it would be wrong to try to "cure" features of autism in people who are not negatively affected by them. In general, when there is some complex balance of benign and malign impacts, the individuals affected should be afforded self-determination in regard to any therapeutic intervention that would change that balance.

Hey Brian, I get what you mean.

No, I don't know the neurology of millions of brains.

However, it should be noted that autism probably has MANY causes. Will the "cure" apply to all the causes?

I am one who THOROUGHLY believes in treatment for the symptoms which affect a person's functioning in a negative way. I am also for maintaining what is good within the person, and within the person's autism.

I know you're pissed with your autism right now. I get that feeling!

But look at the Temple Grandins of the world--and perhaps the Isaac Newtons, Albert Einsteins, etc. Without autism, where would they be--and where would the world be?

It should be noted that I don't have any special abilities owing to my autism. I'm not a dumb guy--I have a brain in my head--but I do wish I had some of the special autistic abilities--like synesthesia, for example.

I can see why people with ASD would be justifiably wary of any "cure" that's likely to be offered by the real world. Such a "cure" would likely just be an attempt to chemically or surgically poke around with the brain, and history is full of examples of that kind of approach having unexpected adverse consequenses, as well as failing to truly abolish the target problem, because in messing with the brain, medical science is tampering with something it doesn't fully understand. And ASD itself isn't normally painful or life-threatening enough to warrant taking such risks. It would only make sense for an Aspie to submit to such a "cure" if they were convinced that there was no other possible way of alleviating them from a level of anguish so great and permanent that the risks were worthwhile. And my experience is that tweaking the environment can work wonders.

I'm fairly happy with the way I am. I'm not causing problems for others & I'm not very distressed usually. What I would want thou is to treat or cure certain symptoms/comorbids. I'm already treating some & am fairly happy with that but a cure for just the things bothering me would be even better.

If I had been asked that question 25 years or so ago, (although I didn't know I had Asperger's then) I probably would have jumped at the chance to be 'normalised'. But I would not want that now. I don't seek to be 'normal', my aim now is not to become somebody I am not, my aim is to become the person I have the potential to be. I am still learning who that person is, but I know that person is not neurotypical. I can appreciate my uniqueness a lot more now.

I also know that taking away my autism would not solve all my problems. I don't really wonder what I would be like if I didn't have AS, but I do wonder what I would be like with just Asperger's and without all the mental health difficulties that for me go along with it. It is more difficult to help somebody who, like me, is diagnosed in adulthood because by that time it is not just the autism you are dealing with. A lot of psychological damage will have been done through us being so misunderstood and often being mistreated for having difficulties that other people don't understand. For me, selective mutism, social isolation and social avoidance became almost a matter of survival for me; they were really the only coping mechanisms I had. I missed out on several decades of normal social experience and normal social interaction and I wouldn't be able to catch up socially now, even if my autism were taken away. I could still never be 'normal'. At least four decades of social avoidance often comes back to bite me. That is what I suffer from, rather than from autism and there is really no 'cure' for that.

I voted yes but now I changed my mind. I would not want to be 'cured' because that would change who I am, however I would like to experience life as NT for a few days to see what it is like......... but is it possible for *me* to experience life like a NT whilst still being ND?

Maybe I'm just weird because I would also like to experience a few days as a woman, as a different race/ethnicity as well.

No, I like who I am, and I especially don't want to I wish my memory or the way I see the world just for other peoples' convenience.

The most disturbing part of this is that twice as many of us do not want to be cured as people who would consider a cure and yet so much money is poured into research to cure Autism. Can we start a fund to cure NT people of their clique-y, white-bread, bullying nature? It's really a menace to society. I'd also like to cure them of their irrationality. It's truly a hindrance to scientific progress.