Aspies For Freedom

Who was the clown here several months ago who had "cured" himself of AS and was spouting his theories? I don't remember his name...

Care to publish them both?

Asides, personally I just think this poor guy has been hoodwinked a little, just like any other religious person. I dont tend to hate people for being simply misguided.

At the same time, I want to tell the anti-cure autistics more about why
people are the way they are, and the trouble autistics cause to other
people
which makes them develop a pro-cure mentality.

Cure Autism? Maybe
cheerful boy
I wrote this after meeting a lady in late June 2006. She thought that if a child shows affection and interacts with people, this means that he is cured of autism.

Even more surprisingly, she disagreed that autistics are disconnected from emotions. She cites examples of autistic children (who apparently underwent early intervention programmes) she knows who are cheerful and sociable.

She was surprised that I do not support the idea of teaching autistic children to act.
I was rather taken aback by this superficial view of autism. To me, autism is more than a set of (mis-)behaviors. Autistics behave the way they are because they have fundamental differences in perception, thought and being.

The behavior is not there for no reason - it arises from such experiences. I could not agree that correcting autistic behavior is equivalent to curing autism.

I replied that an autistic behaves like an autistic because of his inner experience. But she did not seem to understand what I meant and thought I meant a different belief system. But no, I meant a fundamental different mental operating system.

In other words, I proposed that it is entirely possible for an autistic child to appear to have his autistic behavior replaced with non-autistic behavior and yet remain autistic. You can put him on medication, use behavioral therapy and tell him what to say and do for all the social situations you can think of. But he shall remain autistic, even if he does not show it.

[No offense intended to any autistic; this is just an illustration.] As an analogy, I believe that we can train an ape to behave like a gentleman. But the ape is still an ape.The ape has ape instincts, ape thoughts and ape emotions. He can pretend to date a female human but in reality would only be interested in female apes. And the way he solves problems would still be that of apes, but hidden under human clothing of course.

Perhaps theatre can show how subtle these differences are. Most people who support theatre and acting believe that such media helps us understand each other, especially when you take up the persona of the character while acting.

On the surface, it seems like the perfect recipe for autistic children who are apparently in need of social skills. And if you try it, you may even get very good results - superb acting!

Yet I would be amazed if conventional theatre and play-acting have any effect on autistic children who have yet to understand the concept of "self" and "human existence". This means they don't become the character, because they are not "characters" themselves. They have no idea what is it like to "be a person".

They only deliver what you want to them to perform, exactly to your specifications. They will go through the motions and yet they will remain none the wiser.

Why? Because to an autistic, theatre is a social dream come true. You are placed in surroundings that can only change according to plan, people who speak according to script, and you are told exactly what to do and speak, down to the last gesture. There is no room for error, no room for spontaneity, and therefore no room for messing up the plan that you had painstakingly computed.

This seems just like the ideal autistic workplace: You go into your office at exactly 9 am, meet the same people in the same sequence, do these list of 20 things exactly the same way you did yesterday and leave at exactly 5 pm. The bus will arrive exactly in 20 minutes, etc.

Or the ideal date: Meet beautiful lady of your dreams at 6:50pm at this seat in this restaurant. Order specified food and drinks. Say and do a "dating" list you have memorized. Lady falls in love with you. Leave restaurant, wave goodbye in a specific way, and get married exactly 2 months later.

What I shared only scratches the surface of the subtle differences between autistic and non-autistic experience. However, I was not eager to get into an argument and I quickly changed the topic of the conversation.

I understand that people of this world (especially parents of autistics) are eager to see results to prove their work and effort. So if they see autistic children staging a great play, they would love to shout "Bravo! We have cured these children."

And not knowing the autistic experience, people can only trust what they see. So if an autistic child does not seem autistic or talk in an autistic manner, then he is cured of autism.

I know that some autism organizations like to collect lots of data from surveys and tests, make them into giant complicated charts, write loads of technical papers, then show off their professional work. "Hey everyone! We cured X% of all autistic children under our care! Please congratulate us and then give us more funds!"

I doubt that they know, or are interested to know, the experience of autism.

Hence, I remain very skeptical of claims of an autism cure. For me to accept such a proposition, a candidate should fulfill the following these minimum requirements:

   1. Should be permanent: No dependency on medication, therapy or other aids for daily functioning
   2. Demonstrates his understanding of the human world through his achievements
   3. Demonstrates his wisdom of the human world through through enjoying his life
   4. Expresses himself without any autistic tendencies (of thought, emotions and senses) whatsoever

Although many people find life a burden, autistics find it even more so because they are unable to join with other human beings. Anyone cured of autism should demonstrate that not only are they able to accept the human world with all its mess (of apparently nasty or disgusting like lust, war and political strife), but that they put these to positive use and excel (through their career and accomplishments).

To me, the primary function of living is not that we are able to fit in socially with people, or that we belong to any group. I believe that people who truly understand the human spirit will live a meaningful life. They will take their life of being human as a blessing, and enjoy it. Anyone cured of autism, should be able to enjoy living life as a human.

I don't pass this test, especially #4. But now that I have set the conditions, perhaps some day someone familiar with RDI and Son-Rise would tell me show me that my skepticism is unfounded.

Autism is about adaption, not cure

There are many high functioning autistics who absolutely detest the world "cure". They feel discriminated, as if someone wants to cure another person of being Jewish or Chinese. This is not without good reason - If you have been living all your life hearing from everyone that everything you do is wrong, what would you feel? Hence, I am adding this section to explain that autism is not neccessarily a disease.

There are some people who liken autistics to be from another planet, which has a totally different culture. This is the mindset I prefer to use. You don't cure new immigrants of culture shock, you welcome them and help them appreciate and adapt to your home culture.

I appeal to NeuroTypicals to respect this emotional wound and avoid emotional exchanges with autistics on this topic.

Last modified: Sun 18 March 2007
Note: This may be only a minor modification (e.g. changing a spelling mistake)

Simply interacting isn't being cured. Autism is like a scar; it may become better, but it's always there. It's we who wear the scar proudly

Besides, he's saying that we're all aggressive. We're only feeding the flames in that matter

To me, autism is a adaption problem. Autistics are like tourists arriving in a foreign land. They do not know its language, culture and systems and requires native people to help them. It is misleading to think of autism as a disease, but it is often a serious disability.

Autism does not affect everyone in the same way. There are both very mild and very severe cases of autistics. Each autistic shows different symptoms. However, autistics generally have difficulty in these few areas:

It is also common for autistics to suffer from depression or anger accumulated from their negative experiences with human society.