kraftiekortie wrote:
Think about the reaction should anybody tweet that "autistics aren't people."
That has been said in so many ways plenty of times. The why Eric's statement hit an immediate nerve with me.
the autism crisis science and ethics in the era of autism politicsQuote:
For example, in a recent New York Times “notable book of the year,” an internationally acclaimed psychological scientist segregated autistic people from other humans and placed them “together with robots and chimpanzees.”
Dr Gernsbacher has not named this acclaimed cognitive scientist, but he is instantly recognizable as Steven Pinker. She also provides this quote:
“it’s as if they [autistic people] do not understand or are missing a core aspect of what it is to be human”
Without peeking at the references, I have no trouble instantly attributing this one to Bryna Siegel, who has been an expert witness for the government side in more than one Canadian ABA legal battle (e.g., Wynberg and Hewko).
Dr. Gernsbacher goes on to explore of the work of Micheal Tomasello (again, not named, but unmistakable), who published two major target articles in the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences, in 1993 then in 2005. Dr Tomasello has authored many other articles as well as a highly praised and influential book, which have in common his contention that autistics, like apes, lack the essential features defining humans as human. Here is how Dr Gernsbacher describes the 2005 BBS article:
In a more recent scholarly article, also written with the aim of delineating “the crucial difference between human cognition and that of other species,” autistic people were again segregated from other humans and placed with great apes. After acknowledging that the empirical literature demonstrates that “great apes and children with autism are clearly not blind to all aspects of intentional action,” the authors raised the bar (“understanding the intentional actions and perceptions of others is not by itself sufficient to produce humanlike social and cultural activities”), and continued to pound home their belief that autistic children do not “engage socially and culturally with others in the ways that human children do”; they do not “interact with other persons in the species-typical manner.” Their social behavior is just not human.
What Dr Gernsbacher does not point out is that the examples she provides are not exceptional. There is a list of famous scientists, currently prominent in various disciplines, who have in various ways denied that autistics are human (or even alive). In addition to Steven Pinker, Michael Tomasello, and Bryna Siegel, this list would include Peter Hobson, Fred Volkmar, Thomas Insel, V.S. Ramachandran, Ivar Lovaas, and Paul Bloom.
A lot of the anti vaxx and autism "recovery" movements is predicated on the idea that autistics might have been born fully human but our humanity has been kidnapped or damaged. The anti vaxx movement has had a lot of blowback for a lot of reasons, bad science, epidemics etc, but for implying and outright denying the existence of older autistics, not very much.
May I remind you the title of this website is also suggestive of that sentiment. No uproar whatsoever. Most everytime I have asked about the name or it has come up for discussion the offensive name has been overwhelmingly and emotionally supported.
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Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity
It is Autism Acceptance Month
“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman
09 Jun 2017, 6:49 pm
