Tag: autism

iamthestrangerinmoscow:

lola1b:

iamthestrangerinmoscow:

“We need a cure for autism!”

Well you will never get it, no matter your stance on the subject. Autism is likely genetic and studies show that by six months of age there are already detectable changes in the brain that predict an autism diagnosis later in life. So even though we don’t know what autism is, it’s definitely something you’re born with and it is impossible to change that after the baby is born. Nothing will ever turn an autistic person who is alive into an allistic person. You can’t rewrite their entire brain anatomy.

So why do Autism Speaks talk of “the cure”? What they mean by cure is prenatal screening that will allow parents to abort fetuses with certain traits or genes. It means stopping autistic people from being born. It means getting rid of us even before a fetus develops a brain. It means that from their point of view not ever being alive (so essentially death) is better than existence as an autistic person.

That’s what you are saying when you’re advocating for a cure. “I wish you were never born”. “I wish your parents would have aborted you before you developed into a person”. “I think your existence is worse than death”. “I think you would be better off dead”. That is your message. That is your opinion.

Think about that next time you talk about a cure for autism.

I think my idea of life and yours are wholly different, because to me aborting a fetus and saying “I wish you were never born” are widely different things. And you’re really guilting parents who want the best for their kids here.

Thing is, if we agree abortion should be legal in its current form, then we must agree on two points
1) a woman can abort for any reason, and so you shouldn’t judge if she chooses to abort a neuroatypical fetus
2) it isn’t a child yet, otherwise I’d be child murder. So you’re in essence advocating for a lump of flesh that might develop into an autistic person. So why is aborting it so bad? If regular abortion (the, I’m just not ready yet variety) is ok, then why is it not ok in this case? Only because it might become an autistic person? People sometimes abort and pre-select embryos based on gender, too.

Point is, there’s no reason people can’t start over to give their kid the best chance they got, cause what’s inside the mom at that point is just a lump with some blueprints. If the blueprints aren’t ideal; why no start over? You may think it’s heartless or somehow that it’s an attack against you, but if my fetus had any sort of abnormality, hell yeah I’d abort it and try again. There’s nothing wrong with being autistic, but you also can’t be so within your own experiences to think all forms of autism are good and have no difficult bearing on the child and it’s family.

So I think we shouldn’t guilt women who want a cure after they had an autistic child. Because they love their kid, and they wish they had the best chance they could, and autism can rob that of you. They just want to make sure the next parent can have a healthier child.

Yes of course it is a lump of tissues at that point. Yes of course every woman has a right to abort a fetus if she doesn’t want to carry to term. No objections there. However, there is difference between getting an abortion because you think you won’t be able to give a disabled child all they need and getting an abortion because you just don’t think life with a disability is a good life.

Funny thing about disabilities, they can happen to you at any moment. You can get into a car crash and become paraplegic. You can get an infection and become deaf as a result. You can lose a limb due to an accident. You can get ill all of a sudden and live with chronic pain for the rest of your life. And same can happen to your child.

You can abort a fetus and that’s not a murder yet, absolutely. But if you aren’t ready to have a disabled child for moral reasons… just don’t have a child. Cause if that child will turn out to be disabled later on, you will not be able to start over, you will have to love that child and take care of that child, no matter your ideas about what a good life looks like. I’m not guilting women for wanting abortions. I’m guilting some women, and all kinds of people, for their ableism.

Furthermore, well I don’t know about you but I wouldn’t want to never have been born. Yes my life is difficult, but it’s not difficult only because of autism. I’m also bisexual and transgender, and if there were genetic markers for that, would you say it is okay to abort a fetus that will develop into a gay or trans child? I mean, there are many parents who killed their autistic children, as well as their LGBT+ children, so I guess some people find other solutions.

Also thanks for saying my blueprints weren’t ideal. I mean yes they weren’t cause I’ve got a bunch of nasty genes, but that doesn’t mean you are better than me because you are allistic. “All forms of autism” – there are no forms of autism, there’s a mix of traits, situations and comorbid problems. I don’t know why we assume that some autistic traits immediately deem you “low-functioning”, but that is not the case in the real world. There’s only one neurological phenotype – autism.

(And btw, even though I hate hate hate that argument, some autistic people were and are brilliant scientists, artists, musicians and so on; when aborting a fetus with certain genes, you don’t know which mix of traits they got – so you just might be stopping another Einstein, daVinci or Mozart from being born)

And lastly, think about all the money that is going into research for prenatal screening. A ton of money. Money that could go into helping me and people like me live better. Because here’s a thing, the vast majority of our disability comes from lack of accommodations and support. If I had money to fix that, I probably wouldn’t be so dependent on my parents. And thousands of autistic people need accommodations while the money is being spent on preventing us from being born.

Now if you had constantly heard that your life is the worse option, that people think any mother would want another try, that not wanting a child like you is “wanting the best for their kids”, that your neurotype “robbed” your parents of the child they wished their had, and that the money that could help you and people like you live a better life should rather go into preventing them from being born… you’d be pretty angry as well.

Not a writing question but I was wondering what your opinions on the organization Autism Speaks were.

scriptautistic:

mydreamisgone:

scriptshrink:

scriptautistic:

scriptautistic:

Ah, thank you for offering us an opportunity to share something very important to us. For those who aren’t aware, there is an organization in the US called “Autism Speaks” which claims to be a charity working to help autistic people. They are not a charity. They are a hate group.

Autism Speaks is not run with the help of any autistic people. It’s run by allistic people who think of autism as a horrible disease that needs to be eradicated. They run propaganda ads talking about autism like a plague which is destroying lives. They compare it to cancer. One of their propaganda videos famously shows a member of their board talking about contemplating killing her autistic child – while the child is in the room listening to her. Their goal is to “cure” autism – to wipe it off the face of the planet. They don’t see autistic people as people, but as tragic burdens to those around them. They want to take care of all the poor moms and dads whose lives were so tragically ruined when they found out their child was autistic. And they support organizations that torture autistic people and call it “therapy”, like the Judge Rotenberg Center.

This is not a charity. They think of us as broken, inhuman monsters who should be expunged from society. They are not helping us – they’re trying to exterminate us.

Their propaganda is a big part of why there is so much misinformation out there about autism and autistic people. The average person is likely to believe their claims that autism is a horrible disease, that the best way to help the people who have it is to cure them and make them “normal”. Especially the parents of autistic children might like the idea of “fixing” their kid.

News flash: We’re not sick. Autism is not a disease. At worst, it can be considered a disorder or disability, depending on your definition of such, but the vast majority of autistic people are perfectly happy being who we are. Our biggest hurdle isn’t some terrible defect in ourselves – it’s the negative attitudes and lack of understanding in those around us, and the expectation that our primary goal in life should be to act less like ourselves and more like the “normal” people who make up the majority (pro tip: there’s really no such thing as normal). Autism cannot be cured, because it’s not an illness. Our brains are hardwired differently than others, and that is a fundamental part of who we are. If you asked me if I would like a cure, I would look at you the same way as if you asked me if I would like to remove the color from my pizza, because it makes the same amount of logical sense.

Imagine if someone asked you if you would like to stop being (insert your nationality here). Like, just completely remove it from yourself. What would that even mean? Removing all your memories and experiences from that country? Erasing your native language and replacing it with another one? How would that even work? That’s the kind of thing that’s being proposed here.

What autistic people need is awareness, education, and sometimes assistance, depending on our individual needs. We dream of a world where seeing a person rocking back and forth gently and not making much eye contact isn’t met with indignation, disgust, or pity, and where our strengths are valued (and we have many!).

It should be noted that recently, Autism Speaks has changed their official platform slightly, supposedly focusing less on a “cure”, but I’m afraid I don’t buy it for a second. Anyone whose goal includes a “cure” at all is not advocating for our rights, and even if they did have a different mission now, the damage is long since done. Many of us may struggle, and many of us may wish there were certain problems we could do away with, but a “cure” is not possible and our goal should not be to eliminate autistic people from the world, especially given how much we contribute to society. Very few autistic people would actually desire a “cure”, even if one were possible.

So what does this have to do with writing? If you’re writing an autistic character who gets help from a charitable organization, do NOT make it Autism Speaks. That’s not what they do. If your character has any interactions with Autism Speaks, it will be more along the lines of being told they are broken and must be fixed, having the people in their lives treat them as less than human (or as deformed or defective) because they have believed the propaganda, being told they have no right to speak for themselves, and possibly suffering abuse and even torture at the hands of those who think they are “helping”.

There are plenty of good charitable organizations to help autistic people with what we actually need. If you want your character to support an organization in your story (or support the organization yourself by giving them positive exposure in your story), try one of these (and a little Google-fu can help you find a local one for you if you don’t live in the US or UK – search terms like “autism advocacy” and make sure it’s run by actual autistic people). We strongly recommend contacting them, letting them know what you’re writing, and asking how you can include them in your story and represent their work accurately:

Autistic Self-Advocacy Network (ASAN)

Autism Women’s Network

Autistic Rights Movement UK 

-Mod Aira

I think it’s important to reblog this right now. It’s currently “autism awareness month”, and Autism Speaks is running a campaign encouraging people to use a blue puzzle piece to symbolize their support of the organization. Please DO NOT take part in this campaign, and if you know anyone who does, please gently inform them that they’ve been taken in by the propaganda campaign of a hate group and ask them to take it down. We always recommend supporting organizations like ASAN and the others listed in this post, as well as any other advocacy groups in your area which are run by autistic people. If you’re looking for more information, simply Google “autism speaks hate group” and you’ll find all the information you could want.

If you are looking for a symbol to show your support for the autistic community, please do not use a puzzle piece. The neurodiversity symbol is greatly preferred (the rainbow infinity symbol, a version of which we use as our avatar for this blog). 

Thank you to everyone for all your support and understanding, and for simply taking the time to find out what autistic people actually want this month. And keep those autistic characters coming, so the world can start to get to know us and start to give us the understanding and support we really need. ❤

-Mod Aira

Reblogging for my followers because this is important.

Can I translate this into my language? This is very important!

Please do!

hi dr. smith i’ve been following you a while i’m autistic and have trouble eating i can’t digest certain things or the food just turns me off. is this an issue for you? how do you deal?

I’m sorry to hear you have so much trouble, I do relate.  I prefer to eat very simple foods.  When I was very young, my mum had trouble getting me to eat anything mashed or gelatinous (I still don’t like, but it doesn’t bother me so much now), I’d only eat eggs if they were poached (still true).  I won’t eat margarine. I won’t eat canned soups or microwave meals. I tend to eat the same things over and over, as well.  I’ll eat the same breakfast or dinner for weeks.  Is this your experience?  My coping with food is just to be aware of all that I’m eating. I do read labels and I do ask questions about what is in something (I like watching food being prepared whenever I can).  If I don’t know what it is, I won’t be touching it.  

Most autistic people need order and ritual and will find ways to make order where they feel chaos. So much stimulation streams in, rushing into one’s body without every being processed: the filters that other people have simply aren’t there. Swimming through the din of the fractured and the unexpected, one feels as if one were drowning in an ocean without predictability, without markers, without a shore. It is like being blinded in the brightness of a keener sight. Autistic people will instinctively reach for order and symmetry: they arrange the spoons on the table, they line up matchsticks, or they rock back and forth, cutting a deluge of stimulation into smaller bits with the repetition of their bodies’ movements.

“Songs of the Gorilla Nation: My Journey Through Autism”
(via a-modern-major-general)

Hi Doc I’m also autistic and am mostly non-verbal. Communicating online with friends is really important to me. Do you experience nv periods? How do you deal with them if you do? I want to learn sign but I’m not social so I don’t see the point. Do you sign or use some other method?

Hi there, I do experience NV episodes a lot, I’m easily triggered in fact, so online communication is important for me as well (especially with students). I wanted to study sign language when I was younger, but felt discouraged as no one in my family was interested in it.  When I was nonverbal as a kid, I’d write to communicate, using flash cards. I still do, sometimes.  Since being NV usually goes hand-in-hand with other issues (like anxiety), I usually avoid social contact as well, or, if I can’t, I try to let those who will be around me know ahead of time that I won’t be speaking. Most of my family and those who work with me know what to expect and have been very good with it.  

I use my iPad a lot, too – there are so many great apps that can help you communicate effectively.  If you use a tablet, try looking up some that are age-appropriate and available in your area.  

mx-antonia:

Anywho it’s April now so friendly reminder to actually LISTEN to autistic people this month. If we’re telling you not to support a certain organization because of what they’ve said about us, LISTEN. Don’t light it up blue. Don’t use the puzzlepiece. Don’t call this month “Autism Awareness” month, we’re all well aware that autism exists. Don’t do anything that would be in support of Autism Speaks. Don’t support an organization whose entire goal is centered around hating autistic people for being autistic.

Autism Creativity Month: Week One

autisticworlds:

Theme: Autistic characters (canon and headcanon)

Let’s celebrate (good autism) representation! For week one, we are talking about autistic characters in media – movies, books, TV-shows, computer games, comic books and so on. I wanna know your faves, your not-so-faves, your general opinion and so on. What I will post:

-fanfiction, fanart, fanvids, fanedits, etc featuring autistic characters (canon or headcanon) – created by autistic people
-original works featuring autistic characters (created by whomever)
-headcanon posts about characters you think are autistic
-reviews of autistic characters in media
-autistic OCs
-anything related to the theme you might think of

Submit your posts, or tag (@) the blog into them. I will also monitor the following tag: #acm2017

I will post as many things as possible. Okay, now let’s have some fun!

One of the best pieces of fan fiction I’ve read that featured an autistic character – You’re Magic and You’re Real by @unicyclehippo and @possibilistfanfiction.  Based on characters from The 100, Lexa is autistic (and features positive representations of NB, disabled POC characters as well).  

Unicyclehippo is also writing Supergirl fan fiction featuring Kara Danvers as autistic.  

8 Things Autistic People Want You To Know

autisticliving:

autisticliving:

1. Autism is a fundamental part of who we are and how we experience the world and it cannot be separated from who we are as people. Autism is not something which is clearly separated from our identities and our personalities – it’s something which affects every aspect of how we think about, experience and interact with the world around us. Autism isn’t something we have or something we’re suffering from, it’s something we are. For the vast majority of autistic people, autism is a part of our identity which means that despite common belief most of us prefer to be called “autistic” as opposed to “people with autism.” 

Do not tell us that we only have value if we can separate our identities and our personalities from autism.

2. The vast majority of autistic people do not want a cure, we want acceptance and accommodations. Do not put your time and money into researching how to cure autism and how to prevent it, put time and money into accommodating and accepting autistic people. We do not wish to become neurotypical, we wish to change society so that we can be accommodated, accepted and included as autistic people. Our goal isn’t to become as close to neurotypical as possible, it is to get the opportunity to live happy, fulfilling lives as autistic people. It is society that needs to chance, not us.

3. We do not support Autism Speaks or their campaign #LightItUpBlue and neither should you. If you want to support autistic people, check out ASAN or Autism Women’s Network instead. If you don’t know why autistic people don’t support Autism Speaks, check out the many resources linked in this post.

4. Functioning labels are at best inaccurate and at worst actively harmful. 

Functioning labels (claiming that some autistic people are “high-functioning” while others are “low-functioning”) do more harm than good, not just because they aren’t able to give you an accurate impression of what supports an individual autistic person needs but because they’re mainly used to either silence or invalidate autistic people. Autistic people who speak up about the issues concerning them are labelled “high-functioning” to invalidate what they have to say as being inaccurate and irrelevant for other autistic people and so-called “low-functioning” autistic people are being silenced and spoken over because they are written off as too ‘low-functioning’ to have nuanced, relevant opinions or even communicate at all. Instead of forcing autistic people into one of two boxes, name the specific issues or strengths that you are referring to when you’re calling them low-functioning or high-functioning. Are they non-verbal? Say that instead of calling them low-functioning. Are they able to manage a job? Say that instead of calling them high-functioning.

5. Non-verbal autistic people can and do learn to communicate using other communication forms than verbal speech and they’re all individuals with their own thoughts, feelings, wants and opinions. You do not get to speak on behalf of non-verbal autistic people. You do not get to assume that you know exactly what they think, want and feel, especially not when you have never made any effort to communicate with any of them. Instead of assuming that you know what non-verbal autistic people think and feel, try listening to what they have to say by reading the words of some non-verbal autistic people such as @lysikan or Amy Sequenzia or Emma Zurcher-Long.

6. Applied Behavior Analysis, the most widespread and well-known therapy for autistic children, does more harm than good. The goal of ABA therapy is to train and force autistic people into hiding their autistic traits by all means possible as if passing for neurotypical should be the goal of all autistic people regardless of what consequences it might have for their general well-being and their mental health. If you don’t see why that is a problem, check out this masterpost by @neurowonderful.  

7. People diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome are just as autistic as people diagnosed with other variants of Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Aspergers is autism and to emphasize this, aspergers and other variants of autism have been united under a broader diagnosis called “autism spectrum disorder” in the DSM-5, Back when aspergers was a separate diagnosis, the only difference between whether you got diagnosed with aspergers or autism was whether you spoke before you were three years old – something which says approximately nothing about your struggles and abilities later in life.  The common misconception that aspergers and autism is two different things is just that – a misconception.

8. If you want to learn more about autism, listen to autistic people – not our parents, our siblings, our therapists our or caregivers. Autistic people are the ones who know the most about being autistic, so if you want to learn about autism we’re the ones you should ask. If you want to learn more about the different aspects of autism, @neurowonderful‘s youtube series “Ask An Autistic” is a good place to start. Here is an index over all the episodes so that you can easily find the topic you want to learn about. 

You can also visit @askanautistic where autistic people are ready to answer whatever questions you may have about autism.  

Please reblog this post. It’s time tumblr starts listening to autistic people.

April is autism awareness month and this post is here to counter some of the many misconceptions people have about autism and what it means to be an ally to autistic people. This April, make an effort to listen to autistic people and to boost our voices – you can start by sharing this post with your followers.