Aspies For Freedom

http://autismrealitynb.wordpress.com/?s=aspies

At this blog I seem to find critic that could indeed be valid for some people in the ND camp. Example: That some neurodiversity supporters might talk nasty to parents, and might even hold prejudices against parents of autistic children.

I don't think it is the parents who believe in possible scams that is the "enemy", rather the actual scams themselves.

Such prejudice does exist in places, but this particular blogger is not responding to it.

If you read the ND writings closely, you'll find that they are all for *treating* autism via accommodations and services - much the way you "treat" blindness or deafness without necessarily "curing" it.  You give them tools and educations that will help them use their strengths to make up for their weaknesses.

This person makes a couple of mistakes common to people who don't really try to understand the Neurodiversity movement before they condemn it.
The first mistake is that he claims that 'NDers' don't want to TREAT autism at all.  This is not true.  We oppose a cure, but support speech therapy, teaching social interaction, ect. that will improve the quality of life for the autistic person.  We only support treatments that are not abusive, do not focus on iradicating behaviors like stimming, and are not aimed at making the child "normal".  This can sometimes confuse NTs, who see us condemning one treatment and assume that means we condemn all treatments.
The second mistake is that this parent calls Amanda Baggs a "savant".  The definition of a savant is someone with a severe intellectual disability who nevertheless also displays a talent in one specific area that would be considered amazing even in a non-disabled person.  Amanda Baggs does not fit either criterion- she is not mentally retarded and she doesn't have a talent that would be considered amazing in a "nomal" person.  This parent assumes that Amanda's ability to communicate through writing is "a savant ability" and therefore not the norm for autistcs, when in fact it is quite common.
This parent clearly does not expect his son or other children like him to change as he grows or make significant progress (without treatment, anyway).  That is also a mistake.  Research has shown that autistic children do develop and gain more skills as they age.  There are autistics who spontaneously begin speaking at age 35.  Many autistics who perform extremely poorly on IQ tests, later become able to communicate, and it becomes clear that at the time they simply did not have the capacity to understand the test instructions or communicate their intelligence.  It is ridiculous to write off an autistic child as never able to change or gain skills or marry or speak at such a young age; it's the equivilent of a parent of an NT bemoaning the fact their toddler cannot sit still, as meaning that they will never have a job.

You're right that I'm not a savant, but you're incorrect on your definition of savant.  A person does not have to have an intellectual disability to be a savant.  Jerry and Mary Newport are both savants and neither of them have an intellectual disability.  Unfortunately what happens is that anyone autistic who is talented at anything (or sometimes even average at anything) ends up being called a "savant" by some people.  The doctor who originally diagnosed me said I had "idiot-savant qualities" merely for being good at certain things (in particular he gave me a test that was supposed to measure the "wisdom of the body" and I scored in the top 4th percentile of adults at the age of 14).  But that's not being a savant, that's just ordinary (for autistic people) uneven abilities (as compared to non-autistic people).  A lot of people, even some professionals, confuse the two things.

Actually the definition of "savant" is where you have one very high ability with the other abilities being fairly low. The term "prodigy" is used for those with normal intelligence.

No, actually, officially, it doesn't require having all other abilities be fairly low.  It does generally require occurring in the context of something considered a developmental disability of some kind, and standing out in great contrast to the person's other abilities.  Both of the people I mentioned above have diagnoses of Asperger's syndrome and officially normal intelligence and are recognized by experts in the field as savants.  There is such an official thing as a prodigious savant (someone with a particular isolated skill that would be outstanding even in a typical person) but that's still considered a kind of savant.

A quote from a Wisconsin Medical Society FAQ on savant syndrome (written by one of the most prominent experts on savant syndrome out there):

Given that a diagnosis of AS requires at least a "normal" measure of intelligence on standardized tests, yes, it's possible, and yes, in the current definition a person can be a savant under those circumstances.  (It just does not mean that every single skill an autistic person possibly has is a savant skill or something.)

Whoops, I stand corrected.  At least the main point of my argument still stands.
On the other hand, is it kind of sad that I only just realized who you were, anbuend?      I guess I should check people's profiles more often.

Well that was the traditional definition. Definitions do change overtime though, as I have seen with quite a number of things. Sometimes it's a good thing, other times not so much.

Current definition allows it within the context of a developmental disability of some kind, which they said on that page can mean low IQ, but also can mean the official categories of autism, Asperger, PDD-NOS, Williams syndrome, and other things like that that don't necessarily go with low IQ.

I do think we often ignore the lower-functioning members of the Spectrum. We should stop doing that.

We should stop being so adamant about "autism is not a handicap" or even "asperger's is not a handicap" because, sometimes, they are; and to insist on it is to deny that people have problems, and obliquely to imply that disabilities are unacceptable.

What we need to do is advocate for all of the spectrum--including people who can't talk, including people with an IQ of 20, including autistics who don't have any special abilities to offset their very real disability.

What we need to do is make the point that, yes, we're different; yes, some of us are disabled; and no, that doesn't make us inferior to anybody else,  no matter how typical their brain structure is.

NTs think in categories, and we know it. But we need to stop trying to fit ourselves into the NT category of "oppressed minority", and instead start trying to fit the entire category of "different"--disabled or not--into the category of "acceptable human being". Because if we just say that Aspies are different and not disabled, and that means NTs should accept  us, then we're not just excluding the disabled people--we're making it worse for them.

Not only that, but as far as I'm concerned disabled is just one form of different, a form that's shut out in particular ways, and disability is not ever entirely just within the person.

I agree

Well said, Callista, Anbuend.  
That's one of the things I'm going to cover in my course.  That, and the way some people react if you tell them they are doing wrong by advocating that autism is not a disability.  They suddenly treat you as the enemy even though you are on their side.  I've also had this reaction when I ask people to stop saying "We're not like those low-functioning autistics, we're better".  This is one of the really big divides you get in the movement- whether or not LFAs deserve to be included, and whether or not AS is a disability.

A good example of a prodigious savant (an NT person of gifted intelligence) is Brad Rutter, who dethroned Ken Jennings on Jeopardy in a 3 game mini-contest to win 2 million dollars (if I remember right.)

He has a "flypaper" memory whereupon every fact he reads or takes in is somehow stored permanently, almost an unconscious ability.  To see the way he composes himself is very NT, and it doesn't look like there's any PDD in sight.