Not sure what you specifically are for or against.
Ofcourse there are many in each side of a debate who don't understand the viewpoint of others' whether or not they are in the same camp of the debate.
I guess some people who are very inspired by AFF's viewpoints go around on "crusades" without really knowing what they're arguing against - I was once caught in thinking that all ABA was like the one we see in Judge Rotenberg Center with skin-shock devices. Things like that may give you a bad impression, but it also gives a bad impression when people like Cure Autism Now demonizes a condition that many more than just those aggressively seeking a cure have.
All anti-cure are high functioning?
Yeah and all curebie parents are wealthy snobs who think they can "fix" everything.
</sarcasm>
The founders of (I think it was ANI, but I'm not 100% sure) one of the autism anti-cure organizations of the 1990s were all of the LFA type. The functioning labels do not determine who is pro- or anti- cure. With proper supports and services, someone considered LFA can be just as happy and happier than a person considered HFA. Although, I imagine it's harder, since so many people who need these supports are put into institutions, abused, and so many other problems due to the lack of adequate support and the prejudices of society.
Not that it's a walk through the park, but it's not that we argue that being HFA is easy, or that we lack problems. So having difficulties, being disabled, is not itself a reason to want a cure. Where people often put the division is to where people put the dividing line between "should be cured/I think I'd want to be cured in that position" and "should not be cured/I would not want to be cured". We use the labels HFA and LFA to denote this distinction.
Of course not all autism is equal, but the differences and the lines we draw to demonstrate these differences are not themselves the reason for believing that that type of person should or should not be cured, nor are they the reason why that group of person would believe that they should or want to be cured or not.
Hedgehog - I pretty much agree with everything you say. Speech therapy can be very positive, and I support anyone's efforts to teach people to speak. The only exception I take is when the therapist is forceful, abusive, or something of that nature, and when the type of therapy employed is just training someone to use speech so they can speak, whether or not the person is being taught to communicate.
After all, one can speak things and still not be speaking of what they want/need to express. That's why assistive communication technologies are so important for those who aren't going to speak, or who can speak but it takes too much energy. That option should always be available.
How many diagnosed autistics are there who have not gone through any kind of bullying or abuse anyway?
I often wonder how those not bullied or abused are different.
Yeah, willpower don't last.
At least that's my experience with homework.
Odd that the blog is dated at March 20, 2006. Who is this person posting up this? The original author?
Please check links and dates!!!!!!!!
Oh, so the recent readings couldn't have been...
I learned exactly where excessive willpower (which I've had most of my life) gets me: It gets me to crash and burn, really hard, and then get treated like crap and/or laughed at by people who expect me to continue doing whatever it was that made me crash and burn in the first place.
Also my experience - except this....
...it enabled me to live when if I hadn't of had it I would have died.
I can see where that could happen. I know people that's happened to.
In my case, my willpower didn't allow me to avoid hunger or dehydration (I would not have survived forever the way things were going). It just meant that I'd hit the (invisible) wall I kept hitting whenever I tried to function enough to do various things, and I'd hit it harder than usual. It kind of turned into a feedback loop where the harder I tried the worse I could function, but if I went easier on myself that didn't make me function either. (Where "function" in this sense -- not a universal sense by any means -- is only tied to eating, drinking, using the bathroom, and keeping the apartment above minimum standards of livability.)
Even with some assistance after awhile, it got really, really bad.
Basically, after a point, and especially when I'm not getting proper nutrients or anything, I can no longer perceive anything, including my body, in ways that allow for extensive (or, sometimes, any) purposeful movement, let alone complex intentional activities. Nor can I at that point form enough of the right kind of conscious thought to even conceive of what the necessary activities are, let alone do them. At that point, even if raw willpower is preserved, it's got nothing to work with, and even if exercised, will throw me in the wrong direction entirely. And the effort itself will decrease my ability to perceive, move, and understand the right things to do what I'm supposed to be doing. That's the feedback loop right there.
It's sort of like you are told to drive somewhere that is only a block in front of you, and you have to do it by car and only by car, and the steering does not work so there is no way to turn sideways, and the only gear you have is reverse. No matter how much engine power you have, you'll either ram into something or fall off a cliff or into a body of water or something, or run out of gas, but you won't get to where you're going. Even if where you're going is not all that far away by anyone else's standards.
So, for me, willpower has definitely done amazing things at times, but it's certainly got limits and isn't infallible. I guess it did save me in one very different situation, which was during bouts of severe depression. I have always had a will to live that thwarts nearly all suicide attempts no matter how determined I get. (And, just so anyone's not confused by this, the description I gave a couple paragraphs above, isn't severe depression, it's severe overload combined with severe neglect. I've done severe depression, it's extremely different than that situation.)
I there's a big difference between motivation and willpower. Somehow reading a piece of homework is alot more effort for me than reading five times more of Autism Hub blogs.
I think there's a big difference...
Anti-cute, hilarious typo.
Yeah, I don't therapy in general would have helped me much as a child. No doubt it helps some people but I don't think kids should be forced into having it if it really upsets them.