A few quick comments: The reason a blind man is president of blind society and not a parent is that a blind person can speak for themselves. Most autistics unlike you and me (i am mildly autistic) cannot speak for themselves, so that parents are delegated to advocate for their children.

The reason that blind people don't have to undergo ABA and other treatments is that autism is a topic that appeals to people with a certain type of personality, so you won't get ABA type charlatans who will purport to make blind people normal the way the ABA people claim they can make an autist completely normal. Special educators and ABA therapists are the lowest of the low and they are beyond ethical reproach.

Edited by author 02-09-2004 11:02 PM
My experience as a teacher who is autistic is that in regular schools I was accepted as a competent person able to disseminate to my students [primary and secondary] the necessary information and skills on the syllabus and teach appropriate social behaviour that met mainstream society's expectations of an NT child who has been educated for life. Children enjoyed my classes and enjoyed the tight structure I needed to cope; they felt safe as did I.

When I entered the field of special education I suddenly found out that I did not have the necessary ability/attitude to be an acceptable professional: I did not wear my heart on my sleave. I did not care in the right way. I did not show requisite public empathy! I was "hard", tactless, blunt and actually expected the "poor handicapped" children or adults to learn and become more independent. As a consequence I was subject to frequent scurrilous attacks, some covert, some quite public and defamatory, yet I have cared enough to choose [for the last 25 years] to work only with clients who exhibited the most confronting and dangerous or difficult behaviour. The people who consistently criticised, attacked and slandered me came from those professions who pride themselves on their care for others: therapists, family counselors and social workers. It appears that in the politically acceptable culture of the "caring" there is one proper way to care. It is the caring of sentiment, but rarely [in my experience] of action. The culture of sentiment or emotionalism does not seem to include action. These so-called professionals were never to be seen working with clients who smeared faeces or self-mutilated or attacked staff. Yet they claimed they cared, but I a HFA adult of great experience am considered second rate because I cannot care in the correct way! I care by doing, not by sentiment!

Another paradox which is generally not considered is that most autistics are males and the intuitive trait of empathy is largely lacking in autistics. However the majority of people, whether carers or professionals who work in the autism industry, are women and generally highly empathetic. Few, if any NTs, seem to consider the clash of "cultures" that occurs when emotional, sympathetic caring women meet head-on from the beginning in early intervention programs, schools and other agencies with "systemising" [to quote Simon Baron-Cohen] autistics, mostly male. In essence it is a form of cultural imperialism in which autistics are compelled to surrender to the "forces" of the NT and adopt the patterns and conventions of behaviour of NT society. The reverse rarely occurs: try asking an NT to leave his/her emotions out of an interaction with an autistic and the standard defence/excuse for almost any bastardry is "I care!" It seems the most severe crime an autistic can do is to hurt or ignore the precious feelings of an NT, yet it is alright for NTs to impose their noxious personal emotions on and into autistics as though it is a special favour!

Edited by author 10-21-2003 08:02 PM
I am Autistic, age 48, a successful nurse manager, and proud of it. Nearly ALL the pain and suffering I have endured has been at the hands of "normal" people, intolerant and ingorant people all. I feel as the Ugly Duckling who lived a life of abuse, only years later to discover he never was a duck at all, but something other, something good, nay, something wonderful. And I wonder what his life would have been like if he had been raised among his own kind to begin with. If autistic children could be raised among our own -- what a concept.
I don't want to be "cured". I am not ill. Try as you might, you can never turn a swan into a duck, and why should you want to? This is what autism treatment strives to do: make us something we are not, while making us ashamed of what we really are.
I well understand the reluctance to come out of the closet: in the US, ASD is classified as a mental illness, "childhood schizophrenia". But to make change, we MUST come out. I hope your message reaches far and wide.

I know little about autism but I cetanily relate to your perspective because I had polio at age 4 1/2 months and relate to the experience of everyone panicking to combat and fix the polio while simutlaneously leaving me, the indiviual with it, out in the cold. I particularly found it to be abuse by the medical profession. Please keep fighting!

Edited by author 09-15-2003 08:07 PM
merlin, IMHO the first step would be (the old saw), stand up and be counted...which applies to professionals as much as it does to autistic folk...transparency would be a great help in sorting this mess...

so, how do we all act together to enforce accountability?

Hi,

This article is fantastic. I hope that many people are able to read it.

Camille - 44, AS, mother of an adult child also on the spectrum

Edited by author 09-13-2003 04:57 PM
Post your comments on Bettelheim's Worst Crime, Autism and the Epidemic of Irresponsibility.