(no subject)

[jfb]

From today's paper, some autism activists argue that it's not a disease and we shouldn't try to cure it.

"People don't suffer from Asperger's," Justin said. "They suffer because they're depressed from being left out and beat up all the time."

Comments

[emmacrew.livejournal.com]

None of them are fully toilet-trained, one of them cannot speak, and they have all injured themselves on multiple occasions, they wrote: "We flap, finger-flick, rock, twist, rub, clap, bounce, squeal, hum, scream, hiss and tic."

You know, I've got no problem with flapping and tics. Humming is pretty annoying; Pip will go "lalalalalalala" on a single pitch for 5 minutes at a time. But not fully toilet-trained as an adult... that's really not an admirable goal.

biug whoop

[rutemple.livejournal.com]

Just wait till you're a few decades older - it happens (again) to most folks. And your point is?

That's what Depends are for... no, I'm sure it's a messy embarrassing pain, but neither is it necessarily the End of the World. And there's room for compassion suddenly, and maybe that's the point.

Re: biug whoop

[emmacrew.livejournal.com]

My point is: that's a very distressing article for the parent of a four year old autistic child -- who has recently been removing his diaper and peeing or pooping on the carpet multiple times a day and yet is terrified of the toilet -- to read.

Do I think my son is going ever going to be cured? Hell, no. But I think there are a lot of ways to make it easier for him to live in the real world. There's a line somewhere between "people should be more accepting of differences in behavior" and "fuck conformity, we don't need to learn to live like other people." In my family's life right now, not caring about not being toilet trained is on the wrong side of that line.

ah - now that makes sense

[rutemple.livejournal.com]

thank you - I hope it works out easier for your son, and likewise your whole family, and you as She Who Cleans Most of it Up!

*hugs*

good point about that fine fuzzy grey area between "acceptance/compassion" and the "fuck conformity, I'm Just Fine As I Am" extremes.

Re: ah - now that makes sense

[emmacrew.livejournal.com]

Whew! Misunderstanding cleared up. :-)

I'll have to look for the Moon book. My husband and I occasionally bat around a sci-fi story concept where there's a colony ship that goes out, full of people like, well, us... and a few generations later, autism is the norm and "neurotypical" folks are a strange minority who need to be "fixed" to fit in to the society that has developed. We figure they'd have incredible technology due to the hyperfocus many autistics can have. Not that we get far beyond the concept; once we start pondering what the storyline would be we run out of steam.

book recommendation!!

[rutemple.livejournal.com]

After a handful of splendid SF and fantasy novels, the incredible writer Elizabeth Moon "disappeared" as a writer of the kind we'd expect to see new books from every year or maybe a couple a year; and then comes this splendid novel, The Speed of Dark, with "high functioning" autists, that also lets us know what E's been doing the past 15 years instead of writing - raising an autistic kid. Interesting plotlines and complications and and and - and she gets various kinds of autism down.
One of the plot-wrinkles is: what if one *could* undergo a risky operation, and become either "normal" or lapse into a sort of post Flowers for Algernon state? There's a hefty carrot attached to the what-if, but that whole subplot takes place in the second half of the book...
The early part of the book has a handful of folks working for a huge corporation, where they've got all the ADA aids & accommodations an autist could wish for.
Of course when the risky operation comes along as a possibility, there are managers who want to push folks into trying it, so they could save money over the long run by eliminating the ADA "perks".... it's good writing and a good, fictionalized to get a good handle on the topics, look at some of the complexities.