Aspies For Freedom

I don't dispute the power of art, but you would have a hard time trying to hold someone accountable or contradict them using art rather than words.

We always have the choice to control language rather than have it control us, at least while writing. I would never, ever claim that I am good at controlling the verbal communication process, perhaps that I why I prefer to write. When I am describing Aspergers with reference to myself I try to avoid these words: afflicted, sufferer, victim, tragic, serious, cure, therapy, intervention, "help", carer, support, disorder, defect, abnormality, pathological, mental illness, cocoon, bubble, lost, isolated, reach, locked, enigma and puzzle.When I look at this list of words I wonder if the people who write about autism and aspergers also work part-time as scriptwriters for daytime soap operas.

I might use the words "impairment" and "disability" and "deficit" with regard to aspergers, but if I do I will try to remember to mention at least one of the impairments that are a part of the condition of neurotypicality with the next breath or in the same paragraph.

I will never own up to "failing to make eye contact" because if I don't look someone in the eye, that is the result of my choice, and therefore I have not failed to act as intended. I don't get "lost in a world of my own" either. I don't need to take a *** compass with me when I am having a think. I wont buy into the "lacking empathy" caper either. I seem to have more empathy for many of the people that I know than most people have, so I think I'm doing pretty good in the empathy department. What is empathy anyway? The word is obviously too general to use when defining a condition. Does it include "love" or "sympathy"? Is it an emotion or a cognitive ability or a kind of delusion? I think the word "empathy" needs to be replaced with a group of much sharper and narrower words.

Personally I like the way some homosexuals reclaimed the words that were thrown at them as insults, showing that they are not unaware of the things that people say about them, but in defiance they still have a sense of humour. My body language probably said "I couldn't care less" when someone once called me a reptile.

Davixen wrote They are all clear on one thing over the recent months, there is NO mild when it comes to Asperger Syndrome, you either have it or you don't.

I know I am wandering off the topic a bit, but I want to challenge your claim that there is a clear line between AS and NT, which seems to be what you are arguing.

I have read and heard so many references to people who have Aspergers traits only, or close relatives of diagnosed autistic people who represent the Broader Autistic Phenotype. Egocentricity seems to be an AS trait that can be inherited with only one or two other AS traits, and you end up with a person who is constantly looking for and finding friends and then losing them. Such a person has an impairment, but they aren't obsessive and they do enjoy imaginative type pastimes, so they aren't even close to an autistic diagnosis. You only have to look at some families of diagnosed people to see definite autistic traits scattered about.

Wouldn't it be better if the parents of aspie kids thought that autism is a thing that is part of our family rather than an alien scourge that has fallen upon our outcast child?

Perhaps you are arguing that the specific features of AS that are problematic are not found in mild and harmless forms, but are definitely present or not?


another quote: What depicts the way it affects an individual has a lot to do with their personality, their upbringing and social/environmental factors.

It really grates on me when people say that how we turn out is very much determined by our environment, because during my teens, the one time when it would have been helpful for people to know why I was failing, people assumed that my differences were due entirely to family dysfunction. This reminds me of that "Refrigerator Mother" tripe that people used to believe about autism.

I acknowledge that once a person is known to have AS they will do much better in a suitable job and social environment, but social deterministic thinking too often prevents people from finding out that they have AS in the first place.

My kids are very aspie, but probably not impaired enough to ever justify any diagnosis, and far from being a burden on society, some of the parents of their school friends like my child spending time with their child because my kids are sometimes seen as smart kids who positively influence the behaviour of their kids. My kids aren't angels at all, but I do believe they have something to offer to other kids.

6502 wrote

Personally I have a pretty high tolerance for any kind of kids behaving badly in public places (but not crime). What I don't have tolerance for is parents, NT or AS, who don't try to give their kids opportunities to learn and be involved with things.

AspieBoy argued in an earlier post that genetic explanations of autism can be used to justify eugenic eradication of autism. I would argue that the genetic explanation can also be used in an argument against eugenics. If autism genes are found in all groups of humans, and are so common in the gene pool (which they are if you consider that there are many undiagnosed aspies) then there must be something useful about this heritable characteristic.

Davixen wrote

I thought you would understand that I am rather more interested in discovering the truth and writing the truth than worrying about pleasing or not pleasing other people, but I most certainly did not mean to cause offence.

With regard to challenging VERY well respected experts, I am always happy to challenge well respected experts if I think they are wrong. Many experts in the area of mental health who were once well respected have turned out to be hoplessly mistaken or seriously unethical. I have noticed that many aspies seem to put some AS experts such as Attwood on a pedestal. I don't understand this, I believe aspies themselves are the most authoritative AS experts.

I wasn't being ferocious, I was just explaining the position of real people that I personally know, who do have peculiarities and problems that are clearly caused by an autistic inheritance (these people are all first-degree relatives of aspies), but who would never qualify for a formal diagnosis of any autistic spectrum condition.

With regard to well respected autism experts claiming that AS is something that you cannot have in parts or mildly, I am wondering if there has been a misunderstanding. It is indeed true that when a professional makes a formal AS diagnosis they are professionally obliged to follow the diagnositc criteria such as the DSM or WHO criteria to the letter. If they diagnose AS in someone who does not really meet the criteria they will lose credibility with their professional colleagues.

This is not the same as denying that there are people related to officially diagnosed or obviously autistic people who have some or many fully expressed autistic traits. Some autism experts and professionals do definitely recognise autistic traits in relatives of autistic people. If you don't believe me go to Medline http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed and search on the term "Broader autistic phenotype" and you will find citations to many articles about the BAT.

It cannot be argued that there are definite boundary lines around autistic disorders, the diagnostic category of PDD-NOS is proof of that. "Pervasive Developmental Disorder-not otherwise specified" is a diagnostic category for kids who display autistic behaviours "but do not meet the criteria for autistic disorder". As far as I can tell it is a catch-all category in the autistic spectrum.

Anbuend wrote, with regard to distinctions between HFA and LFA

I like the idea of classifying autistic people according to their skills, (rather than deficits), because this is such a positive way of looking at things.

I wonder if classifying autistic people by varieties should or could be done with reference to the etiology of each particular person's autistic spectrum condition? I certainly seem to fit Baron-Cohen's testosterone theory of AS, but I believe autism can be cause by things such as Tuberous Sclerosis and viral encephalitis (I admit I am no expert on this stuff).

When I told a few family members that I believed I had AS I had to quickly add that "Of course, I'm not ***" because I knew, being average Australians (ignorant know-nothings) they would think I was claiming to be seriously intellectually disabled.

I think it is a good idea to remember that all kinds of autism cause specific intellectual deficits. There can be superior skills and compensatory skills but there is no getting away from that fact.

I have heard of an autistic child who could not be given a second auditory test (I presume to test for auditory processing problems) because they could not understand the instructions. It seems to be a ridiculous catch 22 situation.

Yes I know all about the AQ, SQ etc etc.

Have you done the FQ and the Folk Physics Test? If you would like to know how to access these tests for free online I can tell you how. I scored like an aspie on 5 of 6 the ARC/Baron-Cohen tests, but I would not base a diagnosis on these tests alone.

I can guess why scientists doing a study of the genetics of autism/AS might not want to recognise the idea of mild AS or the Broader Autistic Phenotype. They might not want to examine the idea that specific autistic traits, such as superior systemising ability or an ability to focus attention intensely, found in people who are able to function well enough in NT society, might be incredibly valuable heritable traits that should be preserved in the human gene pool.

Let's hope that society will be educated to realise that autism falls on a spectrum and that the stereotype of autism as a person who is locked in their own world and can't speak is so wrong for most of us.

Personality aspects such as extroversion/introversion fall on a spectrum but also vary from situation to situation so why can't autistic traits?

BTW, there was a write up about me in a local paper a couple of years ago for autism awareness week and they said it was a form of mental retardation. I found that rather embarrassing and now wish I'd asked them to rewrite that comment into something more positive.

Check out http://www.deviantart.com

... I haven't seen any "modern" art yet, but there's alot of art.

...

I really like the decorations people put on crafted things whatever it was back some hundred years ago, especially in early industrial revelution which I think is unique.

My, my, people have gotten very sidetracked from the original point of this thread, haven't they?     Well, let's get back to it.

In addition to problems withe language surrounding autism, which is used by the parent communities and the media, there are also problems in language used by the disability community.
Take, for example, the common idea that we should put "the person first"- so you say "person who is blind", not "blind person".  This is NOT DESIRABLE for autistics!  Saying "person with autism" instead of "autistic person" implies that the autism is somehow detatched from the person, something not intrinsic to them, something which could be removed, cured.  And yet the disabilty community at large and certain people within the Autism community itself, still use this term.

Then there is the "LFAs, auties who don't even speak" phrase that crops up even here at AFF.  Admitedly this is more of a viewpoint issue than a language issue, but it is still relevant.
First of all, it's not even true.  There are plenty of auties who could be considered LFA who speak, or have spoken at some point in their lives, or will speak when they're older.  So it's totally inacurate.
Secondly, it's dehumanizing and seperatist.  There are significant differences between aspies and auties, but we cannot say we deserve to go uncured and they don't!  We can't say "they can't speak because they're stupid" and then expect people to support us, when we're so similar to them!  It's foolish and unethical to keep dividing the movement this way.

Tying into that, is the phrase "AS isn't a disability, Autism is a disabilty", or the related "I'm not disabled like those LFAs".
This is stupid.
All people with AS or autism are disabled to some degree, by definition.  If you don't have significant social impairment, you CAN'T GET DIAGNOSED.  Then there's other stuff that often comes with autism as well, like Executive Dysfunction, and I can personally assure you that that can, indeed, be disabling.  Stop pretending that we have to be non-disabled to be accepted and stop implying that Aspies deserve acceptance and LFAs don't!

Yes, as if it's not an issue. Autism is pervasive within the person, whether LFA, HFA, or anything in between.

There's another thing that I've heard that really bothers me, and what bothers me the most about it is that it comes from NTs who are trying to understand, to be accepting, and really beleive that they are doing the right thing.
They keep saying, "We're all the same".
One person I heard elaborated on this, something to the extent of, 'You may have autism, but it doesn't matter, on the inside we're all the smae, you're just like me'.
This is very dangerous because, even though the person is being open and accepting towards autistics, they clearly don't understand.  On the inside we're NOT all the same.  Autistics are NOT the same.  And that does matter.  It matters because if you treat us the same as you, we struggle, we fail.  Just because we really are different doesn't mean we can't be accepted, and the view that we all have to be the same "on the inside" to be accepted is very very dangerous.
This is something I'd really like to see being cleared up and understood better by NTs.

Grr, "Same", not "smae", EDIT BUTTON PLEASE!!!!!!

Yes indeed. I've had people say, "there's nothing the matter - just because you've got autism doesn't mean you should get any special treatment - you're just the same as everybody else".

I say let them live my life for just one day and see if they can then say the same thing.