Hans Asperger on the prognosis for autistics.

I stumbled across this on zazzle. It's the first time I've ever seen the quotation and I find it rather inspiring.

"For success in science and art, a dash of autism is essential." -Hans Asperger

I'm going to make my own version of that quotation. I'm thinking of putting it into my blog header, too.

But here's another Asperger quotation that is perhaps more to the point of the month:

We are convinced, then, that autistic people have their place in the organism of the social community. They fulfil their role well, perhaps better than anyone else could, and we are talking of people who as children had the greatest difficulties and caused untold worries to their care-givers.^[3]

Yeah. What he said. I perhaps might add that one's success may well be inversely proportional to the degree with which worry and difficulty translates into "interventions" designed to minimize autistic distinctions that serve our distinct social purpose.

What is that, you may well ask?

Well, I'd have to say, if I were forced to explain my own role and generalize based on other aspies I know, it would be reality checking and social criticism. (Or systems analysis, looking at all sorts of different systems and rules sets.)

As children, our expectation that rules, strictures and diktats should make sense often gets us into a great deal of trouble, and as adults we tend to look back and try to make sense of it all.

He [Asperger] followed one child, Fritz V., into adulthood. Fritz V. became a professor of astronomy and solved an error in Newton’s work he originally noticed as a child.

I can just imagine how well that went over in a properly Germanic pedagogical context.

Well, I imagine it was received about as well as criticisms of the revealed doctrines of ABA and Chelation Therapy, or the observation that a treatment that improves a co-morbid condition, such as gluten intolerance, is not therefore a "cure" for autism, or indeed, suitable for all persons with AS issues.

I suspect that the sons and daughters of those obsessively searching for ways to impose normalcy upon them will grow up to be an immensely productive disappointment to their parents. I know that my father's form of bigotry made a deep impression on me, and my personal disconnect between internal reaction and facial expression probably saved me many a beating, such as the day he informed me that he was a much more valuable person than Martin Luther King, because he, my father, was a blue eyed white man.

Yeah. To this day, racism strikes me as being indescribably stupid, the refuge of those with no better distinction than being a completely undistinguished member of a visible majority - and generally an example most other members of that majority would do well to exclude.

The tragedy, of course, is that in attempting to suppress what I was and am, my parents spent little or no time considering how to inform and empower my abilities, being focused exclusively on what they saw as my deficits.

Neither seemed able to understand why I was so ungrateful for the benefits of their tender concern, or my lack of interest in continuing in that same vein once I was legally permitted to ignore them.

Even so, I consider myself immensely lucky to have not "benefited" to the extent many persons on the AS spectrum have - and the rates of both suicide and homicide of autistic spectrum persons tends to grimly underline the dark side of "awareness."

For some, "awareness" promotes xenophobia, rather than compassion. When you see that reaction - dissociate yourself. Fear is contagious - and it does more to debase and destroy families and civilization than any degree of autism could. And I factor the cost of care into that equation.

Credit: Asperger Quote by jillgo4th

The Life of a Free Range Aspie

Autism, Aspergers, PDD, PDDNOS are all conditions that exist on the Autistic Spectrum. All are classed as "disorders" in the DSMIV. That means they represent a billing code - and the world is filled with "cures" and advocates of "cures" for the whole range.

Inasmuch as there seems to be no serious consensus on what causes autism, or whether, in isolation, it's a problem outside of the extreme, (and those extremes do have protocols associated with them), the faint aroma of bubbling snake oil ought to be tickling your sinuses at this moment.

Some of us who are unquestionably on the spectrum do not see it as a "disorder" so much as a distinct difference with inherent communications difficulties - at least, when it's not in it's extreme forms. In many ways, it's social and personal impacts are similar to more obvious things, like blindness or deafness. And, as is well understood, any sensory deficit brings with it compensations that are arguably advantageous if the differently abled person finds a niche where they can bring that enhanced ability to bear.

(You know, I believe that's the first time I've ever used that PC phrase in a literally meaningful way.)

But I will say that "differently abled" is a much more useful way of thinking about aspergers, autism, and indeed almost all "disabilities." For the most point, the fact that such a person is unable to cope in the way almost everyone would requires they develop abilities that are comparatively rare by definition. And that - especially when those abilities are guided and developed with that idea in mind - is a valuable thing.

Unfortunately, groups like "Autism Speaks" are unwilling to comprehend that. Indeed, they are unwilling to even admit that autistics capable of communicating their preference to not be spoken for exist. As for aspies - well, there's nothing wrong with us that a few months in a skinner box couldn't fix. It's merely demoniacally inspired willfulness. It should not be particularly surprising that Autism Speaks and allied organizations are composed almost entirely of social conservatives; people for whom "not fitting in" is considered a crime of willful disobedience, or a disability of such crippling extent that any "cure" up to and including lobotomy or abortion is better than the "disease."

If you have stumbled across this almost unavoidable (and odious) viewpoint in a search for autism information, you might wish to trundle on over to autistics.org for the autie point of view, or you can drop by wampi.org for a mother's perspective on successfully raising a "free range aspie," without the "benefit" of most interventions and no aversives at all.

Todd is now in high school - and not a particularly aspie-aware one, despite our best efforts. And yet, while being more aspie than I am in many ways, he has friends, he's well liked, he's respected by his peers and his teachers, and this is all despite behavioral issues that one could easily label as "annoying."

Charitably.

The fact is, when everyone involved knows what's going on, it's a lot easier to avoid tripping the xenophobe circuits that lurk in our hindbrains. Our reptilian bits are convinced that what is concealed is potentially deadly dangerous - and there's been nothing in my conscious history that could argue with that first presumption all that effectively. Once we know that an annoyance is merely that - an inevitable and understandable consequence of a person being who they are, it's a lot easier on everyone involved. Particularly the aspie or autie who is no more immune to seeing themselves as being dangerously different than anyone else.

But of course, before you can be upfront about what you are, you have to understand it yourself. Alas, I had no words for what I was before my early forties - while Todd's mom knew from very very early on.

And, I should add with a proud grin, didn't much care. Nor did his dad (not I) - I will say with equally proud smugness. As a result, he's had appropriate accommodations his entire life - with no expectations whatsoever along the line of "fitting in to the world around him." That's an excellent thing, both philosophically and practically - if there's one thing a person on the AS spectrum is unlikely to be able to do effectively, it's "fit in" - and efforts in that direction will trigger pink monkey syndrome.

Trust me on that - my entire primary and secondary education was an exercise in tossing a pink monkey into the primate cage to see if he'll be able to pass THIS time.

It's hard on the pink monkey - and trust me when I tell you, it can end up with rather scuffed "normal" chimplets and primate attendants.

Of course, living in an area with larger catchment is a great thing; Todd was lucky in that he nearly immediately found his pink monkey posse and we-all just gutted it out as he geeked it up with his strange little friends.

I never, EVER want to hear the word "Pokemon" again.

And at the same time, I realized that with a shift in time, there I was geeking it up with MY strange little friends with the equally baffling Dungeons and Dragons - a bootleg first edition, actually. No, paperback.

Yeah, THAT old. Hell, I even wrote supplements. Todd's obsession never reached those heights - in regard to THAT topic. But the capacity will serve him well, since he didn't have parents who swatted him every time he wandered off into his head.

And yet, if you are concerned that you are doing the wrong thing as a parent, allow me to reassure you to a degree. I've come to the conclusion that in regard to my own personal configuration and nature, I had the worst parents possible. My mother was neurotic to the point of insanity (borderline, perhaps) and if my father was not a clinical sociopath - it was probably due to him being barely clever enough to avoid any significant attention.

So, aside from the obvious, the problem was that I could never rely on my parents to do the right thing, or even the predictable wrong thing. All I knew was that to bring an "instance" to their attention would raise it to the level of an outright "situation."

But nonetheless I managed to survive and find a niche. I am now fifty and content with my life - a fact that would probably baffle the hell out of an impartial neurotypical, for I have nothing of significance that most people would equate with proof of success. Me, I have all the proof I need.

I look at most of the things I'm supposed to want as "crap I have to dust." It's amazing how starkly different your values are if none of them involve impressing other people and expanding your social network. It's not surprising that many neurotypicals still see us as alien and therefore dangerous; there's absolutely nothing they think of as prime motivators that strike most aspies as being good things. Social dominance. Control of large, complex organizations. Having a full roladex. "Winning."

Todd LOVED t-ball until he discovered that winning meant someone else had to lose. Then he was done. He loved martial arts - as long as it wasn't a "sport." And he's one hell of a good fencer in particular and loves swordplay in general - but not at all interested in scored matches.

Like me, he's only interested in becoming better than he was last week. And like me, at some point, having had to come up for air, he will run head on into the fact that he's objectively as good as anyone else doing what he does - possibly better - and have no freaking idea what to do about it.

Fortunately, it appears that there's already a profession intended to deal with this matter.

We call them "agents." And pragmatically, that's the most significant accommodation needed for any aspie, whether they are literal agents, or simply family, spouses and partners that act in that way.

Pick any aspie of significance - like, say Einstein - and you will find that there was a person who is steering them toward the best applications of what they are, and steering others who need those talents toward them. I would not be horribly surprised to find that a large percentage of those persons have as rare a wetware configuration as our own.

But even left to our own devices, and having to cope with very nearly the worst possible combination of circumstances, I note that as we age, we tend to settle down and, as I said, find our niches. With help, we can probably find more impressive or lucrative niches - but I wonder to what extent that actually matters to us as aspies. It probably matters more to the people to whom we matter, frankly.

I think of myself as well-tested proof of concept.

My writing is distinctly aspie-style communication - something you may come to recognize as you go from place to place, reading what other aspies and auties have to say about themselves and their lives. I have little or no motivation to create other than the act of creation, whether it is writing or artwork. I love electronic media because it eliminates most of the out-of -pocket expense of being an artist or writer.

I've only lately really grasped that sometimes, in order for the effort to be meaningful, there has to be some objective proof of utility. Or, at least, that's my feeling. Lord knows, within the art world, I could point to exceptions. Nonetheless, those exceptions seem to get a lot of attention and attract commissions, so perhaps it's merely a different expression of my view.

Had I had different advantages - such as the upbringing Todd enjoys - I would very probably be ensconced in some comfortable tweed-lined academic niche. I'm not at all sure that I'd be more content than I am, and I'd only be as content as I am if I had people to cope with the things I could not cope with well or at all.

But certainly I would be of greater utility to more people and be making a broader, more lasting and I would hope positive impact on society.

On the other hand, with exactly the wrong set of circumstances - I could have been Karl Rove or Condi Rice. So all things being equal, I'll settle for the angels I have. I was on my way to achieving a niche of that sort when a parental idiocy sent me into a state of clinical depression that left me rather behind the curve.

But seeing as that diversion left me with an expertise and understandings I hope to ghu no more than a handful of other people can match, I am content - for I still have decades to apply it, goddess willing and the sky don't fall.

I think it's reasonable to state that whatever I think about the views parents in some factions of the autism awareness movement, generally parents wish their children to be as happy and as successful as they. And I'm here to say that no matter how badly you think you have screwed that up in your well-meaning way, that's probably still possible.

Whether you understand why they are as happy as they are, and think of themselves as successes when you don't is quite beside the point, really.

But of course it will be ever so much easier on everyone if you accept them for what they are. It could be worse, after all.

You could have a charismatic 89 IQ high-school linebacker with abnormally high testosterone levels and an addictive personality, doomed to a career in door to door appliance sales.

Frankly, I'd take Todd over even an average teenager. Some times Todd screws up, of course, like any other inexperienced human being. But the thing that relieves me is that he always errs on the safe side; he doen't take foolish risks and he does not seek out the company of people who do. I don't think I can think of an instance of him making the same mistake twice. I get to sleep at night, knowing for near certainty that there will be no emergency in his life that cannot wait for daylight - and it will almost certainly be deliberately caused by someone else.

Usually someone who thinks they "know better" and have a right to impose that vision upon us.

On such occasions, with such people. I find myself having no difficulty maintaining eye contact and smiling. None whatsoever. Oddly enough, they find it a lot less reassuring than all their theorizing says it ought to be.

An Aspie moment, caught on tape

I was bumbling about myspace and found this amazingly true-to-real-nightmare video.

If you aren't aspie or autistic, you will think it's funny. But to us - this is our Blair Witch Project!

Aspergers and me

Add to My Profile | More Videos

tag: aspergers, autism, aspie, video, myspace, funny, hilarious, social stories, original film,

Cho Seung-hui - symptom of an ugly social disease.

When Cho Seung-hui fired his last round into his own head, I am personally, morally certain that he did so feeling both a sense of relief and with a sense of having struck a blow for justice.

He was wrong, of course.

But after looking over such information as I've been able to find, I strongly suspect that there was a high barrier to him coming to a more "reasonable and rational" viewpoint - and a great deal that leads me to suspect that - within his own narrow, but probably quite sane perspective - his actions were completely rational and justified.

It's pretty damn clear that within his lifetime, there were few, if any reality checks or positive, useful interventions, nothing to introduce a bit of reasonable doubt regarding the universal malevolence of "normal people."

That would be the distinction between him and me - the realization that as strange as "those others" were, they were not all out to get me - and that from time to time, I was just as able to misinterpret their actions and misunderstand their motives as they were apt to screw up with me. Which leads us to the current spectacle, which is providing me no little morbid amusement, with patches of deja vu as the media and blogoshere attempts to "understand" Cho Seung-hui and his rampage in Blacksburg.

Why, how; everyone wishes to know - so long as they are reassured that there is absolutely no fault to be found with them, the institutions they value or the prejudices and odious assumptions they hold dear. All are concerned with finding a "reason" that will permit society to continue as usual, or at least, find some identifiable group to impose restrictions upon in the name of safety.

As a "person of difference," with many characteristics in common with Cho Seung-hui, I am understandably concerned that I will be so singled out. I'm even more concerned on behalf of my Aspie step-son.

But let's call a spade a spade - seeing that is what I do - all this amounts to is a wish to be "kept safe" from people who may possibly react violently in response to bullying and harassment. So if you want YOUR child to be safe - you should ensure they are not a bully or abuser. And that, of course, requires a reality-check on your part, if for no other reason than this; if you live like that, it's sometimes true that you die like that. More likely, you live to regret that other people are harmed or die as a result of attitudes and behaviors you helped reinforce. Among adolescents with Autistic Spectrum issues, suicide is one of the leading causes of death.

Va. Tech shooter was laughed at - Yahoo! News

BLACKSBURG, Va. - In high school, Cho Seung-Hui almost never opened his mouth. When he finally did, his classmates laughed, pointed at him and said: "Go back to China."

As such details of the Virginia Tech shooter's life come out, and experts pore over his sick and twisted writings and his videotaped rant, it is becoming increasingly clear that Cho was almost a textbook case of a school shooter: a painfully awkward, picked-on young man who lashed out with methodical fury at a world he believed was out to get him.

Hm. Is it delusional to believe the world is out to get you when most or all personal interactions clearly demonstrate the truth of that belief?

There's increasing speculation that he may have been autistic to some degree, as descriptions of personal presentation and behavior emerge. (The first mention may have been here; julietpain.blogspot.com.)

Another possibility is that he was autistic to some degree, and unable to communicate or express himself appropriately; a constant theme amongst those who were acquainted with him is that if he replied at all, it was most usually with a single word, whilst the intensity of some of his attempts at communication were alarming enough to be regarded as stalking.

Katherine Newman, a professor of sociology at Princeton University, said most school shooters are rarely loners, but rather failed joiners.
"People who continuously try to join social groups and are rebuffed," said Newman, the author of "Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings." "And their daily experience is one of rejection and friction." CBS

The room-mates interviewed so far have spoken of their attempts to be friendly towards him, and of how they soon gave up, as he didn't respond or didn't respond well. Initially, though, he had gone out to eat with them, and to parties; at one of these he had revealed the existence of his imaginary supermodel girlfriend, and 'their' nicknames for each other - Jelly and Spanky. That sounds a bit like the sort of thing a somewhat autistic kid says as the exact moment his new friends stop being his friends and start thinking he is weird, and saying, "Watch out, here comes Spanky..."

Not that his family was much help, even given early indications that autism might be a possiblity.

''From the beginning, he wouldn't answer me,'' Kim Yang-soon, Cho's great aunt, said in an interview with AP Television News on Thursday. ''(He) didn't talk. Normally sons and mothers talk. There was none of that for them. He was very cold,'' she added

''When they went to the United States, they told them it was autism,'' said Kim, 85, adding that the family had constant worries about Cho.

Neither school officials, who have Cho's educational records, nor police who have his medical records, have mentioned such a diagnosis this week. Autistic individuals often have difficulty communicating, but the diagnosis would not necessarily explain his violence.

Ah, well, as to that, google "aspie rage." But it seems family concern was limited to being concerned - and prayer.

Meanwhile, the young man, whatever his mental issues, was in a nutcracker, between religious and family pressures at home and reportedly constant bullying in school. Whether or not he had mental issues to begin with, bullying is one of the most common precursors of such events.

Va. Tech shooter was laughed at - Yahoo! News

A 2002 federal study on common characteristics of school shooters found that 71 percent of them "felt bullied, persecuted or injured by others prior to the attack."

The report said that "in some of these cases the experience of being bullied seemed to have a significant impact on the attacker and appeared to have been a factor in his decision to mount an attack at the school. In one case, most of the attacker's schoolmates described the attacker as the kid everyone teased."

So this is far from being a unique or unexpected incident. Frankly, those who persist in being surprised are those who do not wish to face the disease that these events symptomize. If you must have something to blame; a pointer toward doing something to truly address the situation, then let us see it for what it is; a reaction toward the casual, routine abuse of power.

Whether it is bullying in school, a toxic work environment or a government that cannot seem to formulate any policy that doesn't involve the use of force, we live in a culture that values having power and the presumption that those who have power deserve to be able to wield it against those they see as weak or "outside the group" with impunity.

But perhaps we need to remember an Old West aphorism - "Sam Colt made all men equal." And there's another very pragmatic observation made by Robert Heinlein: "Never frighten a little man - he'll kill you."

Ultimately - and in no small part due to the typical ending - I tend to view this as "death by natural causes," in a sense. That is to say, a dangerous situation was allowed to persist and fester, a situation that (like living in a trailer in the midwest without access to a storm cellar, or going into Grizzly terratory with neither gun nor bear-bells) can be statistically predicted to have a high potential of ending badly. Getting hung up on the moral or ethical culpability of such persons does nothing to prevent more such outbursts of deadly rage.

In this case, if one lesson is to be derived from it, I would say that it should be summarized as "don't poke the aspie." On rare but very dramatic occasions, you might find yourself pulling back a bloody stump.

Illustration : Don't Poke The Aspie! by webcarve

tag: Don't poke the aspie, aspergers, aspie, ethics, abuse of power, bullying, cultural warfare, bigotry, prejudice, xenophobia, abuse, VA Tech, Blacksburg, Cho Seung-hui

The Real One Percent

Some Asperger on Myspace Says:

I have Aspergers Syndrome and live in the UK. One of my special interests is building and riding custom motorcycles.

I read an article recently which stated that 1% of the UK population has an Autistic Spectrum Disorder and having a mind that naturally thinks outside the box, immediately realised that we autistics mirror the World of 1% motorcycle clubs.

1. We have rejected societal norms.
2. We have dedicated our lives to our special interests.
3. Aspergers isn't a weekend activity, but a way of living.

Naturally, I would not want anyone with Aspergers to be forced to have to attend any kind of meeting or participate in any kind of social setting. So in true Aspergian style I have created The Hells Aspies MC MySpace Chapter.

If you have Aspergers and ride a motorcycle, then register your support by adding me as your friend and sending me a picture of you and your bike as a comment.

And of course, any motorcycle club worth it's salt has an initiation rite.
Your initiation task is to click here and email hells-angels.com to ask them to recognize this chapter. (A person who truly has AS will be naive enough to do this).

If you are a neuro-typical biker and do not understand this web site, then please click here to learn more about autism.

I am not so naive as to think one or two emails will convince the Hell's Angels to recognize the chapter, but I AM Aspie enough that trivial considerations such as "what will people think" will not stop me - and if there's one overriding social norm among bikers, it would have to be that.

I don't ride, myself. But the damn things have always fascinated me. And by "damned things," I mean Harley's. There are bikes that are mechanically more reliable. There are bikes that are a better value for the dollar. There are bikes that are even more unconventional and defiant of social norms - I have a 350 cc Vespa in mind here.

But none sound like a Harley. None quite have the "vibe," the deep throated comfortable grumble of that distinct engine. It has always attracted me, like a big warm secure blanket of sound.

I have congenital shoulder problems and I fear riding the Harley of my dreams could well be my last act of social defiance; I doubt I could control the beast I desire at speed. The bike I could ride sounds more like a mosquito on steroids, a nasal "waaaaaaaaaaaaa!" And you know me. No Whining includes my transportation.

So until they come out with power steering, I'll stick to the sedan.

I mean, somehow, a chauffeur and a sidecar takes it to another place entirely. And besides, you can smoke in a car.

tag: Hell's Angels, 1%, one percenter, MC, Motorcycle Clubs, Aspergers, Autism, UK

The other side of Neurotpical on the Autistic Spectrum.

Incorrect Pleasures: The marriage between the findings of this study and Baron-Cohen’s systemizer-empathizer theory falls into conflict when one ponders how these marriages between similarly-minded people are possible in a world that does not yet legally recognize same-sex marriage. To simplify Baron-Cohen’s theory, while looking at page 150-151 of his book, many people have a brain type that is a balance between empathizing and systemizing, while males are generalized as having a systemizing type brain and females are generalized as having empathizer type brains (already this theory seems inconsistent, doesn’t it?). Autistics are described as having extreme systemizer brains, and the people who are theorized as having extreme empathizer brains are undiscovered territory. The Constantino and Todd study suggests that most people marry others with similar brain types, so explaining marriages between the “balanced” people in Baron-Cohen’s scheme isn’t a problem, but one wonders where do systemizer males find systemizer women to marry, and what kind of guys do empathizer women marry? The kind of guys who like other guys? Are there really more empathizer males and more systemizer females than Baron-Cohen’s book suggests? Do systemizers and empathizers really need to gain an understanding of people who are their opposite type? Do most of these types of people get through life happily by simply avoiding contact with those of their opposite type?

In my experience, people I'd now consider to be on the opposite end of the Spectrum either avoided me as if I had cooties, tried to force me to accommodate them or tried to eject me from wherever I was. I was seen as a threat, unless I assumed protective coloration, and if I were to guess, I'd place Lennie Schaefer and other sorts of Curebies as probable examples of people with this sort of deficit.

Fortunately, fooling such people is a trivial exercise, though only worth the effort in a protective sense - one simply has to convince them that you are not in competition with them for whatever it is they are seeking. When that is not possible, one has to remember that bullying is part of their repetoire, and bullies are both predictable and react to effective confrontation by running away.

tag: Asperger's, Autism, PDD, Neurotypicials, Social Skills, Autistic Spectrum

Evidence of Malice

This is what happens to Autistics who try to communicate their own individual reality - or at least, when it might cause reasonable people to doubt the advisability of subjecting their children to dangerously unproven therapies. This blog would be more honestly titled "Hating Autistics;" I have rarely had the misfortune of encountering such an outright slimy person.

Amanda Baggs Snows CNN (Hating Autism)

My posactive anti-puzzle-piece autism awareness design that states "The Issue is Intolerance" and "Help Find a Clue!" Partial proceeds go to stress relief.

What I just watched on CNN with Amanda Baggs playing the role of a low functioning autistic was a disgrace. Low functioning autistics can't type anything. They can barely pay attention to anything, nevermind keep up a conversation by typing 120 words a minute. Cute little girls don't usually turn into fat ugly monsters either.

Did anyone else notice the little blond girl who turned into this beastly brunette? That little girl's eye contact with the camera looked normal to me. Perhaps her whole face changed when she was smitten with schizophrenia. Maybe she's not even the same girl.

How come Amanda can focus long enough to type without stopping to twiddle her fingers? One who deals with autism every day knows that expecting a low functioning person to pay attention to any task for long is expecting a lot. This overacting is a dead giveaway that Baggs functions much too well to be considered autistic. Why didn't she space out in the middle of answering a question and go finger twiddling for awhile? Bullshit, this imposter can focus long enough to make her point for CNN without having any autistic "moments".

Autism occurs a spectrum and every autistic manifests differently. This is complicated by a number of other "comorbid" conditions that tend to show up with autism, but are not in themselves autism, and which also occur in other contexts. It's a difficult diagnosis even if you are not a quack, because there are overlaps with many other possible conditions - and all of this is generally determined without the input of the person concerned using diagnostic criteria that can only be described as "maddeningly vague."

I should state for the record that there is, factually, NO credible scientific evidence of a link between mercury toxicity and autism. I have to admit that I was somewhat surprised and skeptical, seeing that mercury is by no means health food, and does have cumulative neurotoxic effects. But Autism is not the damage mercury manifests, and there have been enough studies to make what seemed like an attractive quick fix obvious quackery.

Likewise, Applied Behavior Analysis and other such Skinnerian behaviorist approaches cure nothing. What they do is create a set of conditioned reflexes, which may or may not generalize into understanding of why the behavior is desired. Autistic children are trained in the same way the "white stallions" are trained to caper and dance - they learn that disobedience results in a shock prod to the genitals.

This overcomes their reluctance to do nonsensical things they are uninterested in doing.

Surface compliance is not a cure, nor is obedience evidence of respect. But I think this person is so insecure in his own masculinity that he takes his' son's autism as being willful disrespect for his authority.

As far as I know, the only real cure for disrespect is to be respectable. Alas, I suspect that cure to be outside of John Best's grasp. He's far too attached to his own dysfunctions and personality disorders to either deserve respect or respect anyone with divergent, more useful viewpoints.

tag: cure autism now, neurodiversity, posactive, pro-autistic, aspie, aspergers, AS, autistic spectrum, autistic parenting, chelation therapy, Amanda Baggs, Autism Quackery, xenophobia, bigotry

Evidence of Nonsense

The term Autism has become a vast catch-all for a wide variety of traits that range from those that are functionally incapacitating to those that mildly affect behavior and social interactions. Nobody knows quite what "autism" is, save that it is obvious that it's probably far more than one thing and that it causes a good deal of fear and confusion among parents who are moving heaven and earth to find treatments and cures.

Which is wonderful of course, but it's also terrible.

ScienceDaily: Ped Med: The autism treatment challenge: "'There are no standards for safety in autism treatments,' said Steven Gutstein, psychologist, autism specialist, researcher, child, marital and family therapist and co-director of The Connections Center for Family and Personal Development and of the Relationship Development Research Institute in Houston.

...

'There's not a single study to see if anyone is harmed by the treatment, be it biomedical or behavioral,' Gutstein said in an interview. 'The assumption is both are better than nothing, and the more the better, but there are no data to confirm that.'"

Hey, I have an idea; how about asking an actually autistic person?

"I am not a puzzle, I am a person."
This shirt design supports Autistics.org, autism awareness and neurodiversity in general.

Now notice the language I used. "Autistic Person," not "Person with Autism." Speaking as an Aspie - diagnosable with Asperger's Syndrome - and speaking from my experiences dealing with actual autistics, such as those at Autistics.org, It's pretty common for folk on the spectrum to think of autism/aspergers/whateverthehellitis as something they are, not something they "suffer from" that could be cured.

I'd rather be "cured" of opposable thumbs.

And that with full realization of all the downsides that I and those who love me cope with every single day - much to our blended amusement and frustration.

Interestingly - even astonishingly enough, many full autistics, who seem to suffer quite badly from clearly crippling "downsides" feel exactly the same way; our minds are beautiful places to live, and from our perspective, being able to live fully in a neurotypical world exactly as neurotypicals do seems like a "cure" that is far worse than the "disease."

Oh, don't get us wrong - we'd definitely like the hard parts to be easier - but we'd also like you to notice the things we do well without words like "idiot-savant" being thrown about. "Geek" is somehow better, frankly. Not a LOT better, but at least it's an honest word.

Personally, I prefer "eccentric."

UPDATE: Autism Diva has a great long article up that I'd like you to read. I particularly like these two 'graphs, which illustrate her point rather well - and the one I was trying to make. Autism - and so many other things in life - are much more issues of perception than substance.

Autism Diva is reminded of a caller to the Diane Rehm show when Dr. Grinker was on there promoting his book. The caller said something like: "I'm from a large extended family from Tenessee," (maybe he said, Kentucky) "the behaviors I see in my son, that the doctors call "autism" is just how my family is. No one in my family would have sought out a diagnosis in the past because so many in the family are just like this. It's normal for us."

So it sounds like if you come from a family where lots of the kids spin can lids and stop answering to their names at 12 months, everyone just says, "Yup he's a Johnson, awrighty. Wonder if he'll be able to do that calendar trick like cousin Ted." The caller certainly didn't indicate that the family had a habit of mourning the birth of another of these weird kids, and it's safe to assume that some of the members of the family were quite autistic and others were more like normal-ish, like it is in little Hayden's family.

tag: autism, autistics, autistics.org, autism awareness, cafepress, tee-shirts, t-shirts

Give a Clue this Christmas!

My Latest Autism Designs and what they mean.

People who are neurotypical tend to think in boxes. One problem with being on the Autistic Spectrum is that you tend to not think in boxes. As far as I can tell, our thought process is highly relational. We tend to not even SEE the boxes and we don't think in a binary way at all.

A great number of problems come from the inability to understand that different people can have starkly different ways of understanding the world around them.

We tend to assume that people who came up with a functional solution for a problem came to it in the same way; indeed, by way of the same initial perceptions. Autistics and Aspies are as guilty of this as anyone; indeed, it's been studied within the AS population. The reason it's not been studied within the NT population is simple; in the case of NT's, the assumption that another person has a thought process that works like yours does is statistically likely to be correct.

So, when an autistic person makes this unwarranted assumption, it's called "mind blindness" and the autistic is gently handed a clue in the form of "social stories." When an NT does it, it's in the form of an organization called "Cure Autism Now."

If "autistic thought" were not valuable, there would not be such a roster of famous thinkers, such as Einstein and Newton now thought to have been probably autistic to some degree. By the same token, it should be a profound clue that there are courses to teach neurotypicals to "think outside of the box," and almost all higher education is aimed at rooting out simplistic, either-or thinking and to over-ride fear and submission responses when you have to communicate about or defend your work.

The ability to think and function outside of the box is an asset of significant value; recognising that is especially important if you are planning to "do something for autistics." Their ability to function in 'in an appropriate way' is limited, but that does not imply their ability to function, given an appropriate context is as limited as it appears. The trick is to find that context; and in that context they will not have so much difficulty "being appropriate."

There's no area where this insight is more critical than in regards to the parents of autistics themselves.

Make no mistake; autism can be a crippling condition, and it's made worse by being a condition where you absolutely must depend upon others to accommodate your needs and accept limitations that those without the condition cannot easily see or understand. But even the most obviously disabled "autist" is as severely affected by presumptions of how their disability affects them and even more by refusal of others to accept our word for the accommodations we need.

This following paragraph is emblematic of the crippling parental fears that the 800-lb gorilla of the pro-cure movement exploits for funding and validation:

You are never prepared for a child with autism. You will gradually come to believe it, but never fully accept it, get used to it, or get over it. You put away the hopes and dreams you had for that child - the high school graduation, the June wedding. Small victories are cause for celebration - a word mastered, a dry bed, a hug given freely. - FAQs about Autism: Cure Autism Now

Those of us who object to such fear, panic and the pervasive bigotry that exists with in the pro-cure movement - as well as it's seemingly obvious ethical deficits are pretty soundly attacked, with all kinds of terrible motives assigned us. (Theory of Mind, eh?)

A great deal of the work on the support groups that accept AS persons as contributors - something of a rarity - is to get non-AS people to accept that our "inability to cultivate friendships" is not a crippling condition to us. Once we have our one or two friends - friends as geeky and weird as us, generally speaking, we are done. My personal limit is two, and what NT's call "friendships," I now interpret as "Acquaintances." Yes, of course that has profound effects in terms of my ability to sustain a social network, and that has cost me many opportunities; indeed even jobs. I try and work things so that one of my two has the social skills I lack and the willingness to use them on my behalf.


Unfortunately, there is a lot of very bad advice out there and some very bizarre ideas as to what will be helpful to people such as I, who are on the spectrum and who are nonetheless potentially articulate and intelligent beings. Mostly this revolves around the idea that a bad job of conforming to the expectations of others is superior to a good job of being me. Here's Lennie Schafer on the topic of "fake autistics" like me.

(What about "high functioning autism" and how does that fit in? Simply put, it doesn't fit in anywhere. High functioning autism is not clinically defined and is not in the DSM-IV, and for good reason. High functioning autism is an oxymoron. If one meets the criteria for a diagnosis of autism, by definition one cannot be high-functioning. It would be as silly as the term sharp-eyed blindness.) (1)

So why would a handful of people, amongst a few others, who apparently are for the most part Aspergers, if anything, want to identify themselves autistic? Perhaps because autism is a profound disability and Aspergers is a disorder that is mostly not. Autism thus carries more moral weight than Aspergers and therefore has more moral clout for self-esteem building political and social agendas. "We autistics don't want to be cured" carries much more punch than "We Aspergers don't want to be cured", especially given the reality that there is no movement anywhere that seeks to "cure" those with Aspergers into being anything else.(2)

Aspergers-labeled alone, they would be ignored by the press and would be denied the juicy sense of empowerment that would come with a high-profile "oppressed minority" movement article like the one in the liberal New York Times. (3) (4)

The New York Times reporter failed to do a journalist's most basic homework. She failed to check the credentials of those doing the complaining, despite my urging. Anyone can call themselves autistic and write cranky letters to the editor. So how does someone determine if a person is truly autistic,or is an autism imposter with Aspergers? Ask to see their diagnosis. If someone claims to have autism for purposes of making some political statement, ask them to prove it. In any of the correspondence I have had with the autism "imposters", not one has ever supplied such documentation. (5) Of course, it is highly unlikely to ever see it. The irony here is that if someone has enough language skills to effectively complain about the treatment of autistics, then they themselves cannot be autistic.(6) Apparently more than one big city newspaper has failed to see through this deception, so eager are they to get an unusual victim story into print. Can we afford to allow the interests of our autistic children and everyone else "on the spectrum" to be pushed out of the public eye and displaced by a handful of imposters crying a contrived victimhood? Who speaks for autism? Not this bunch.

Note that he, and those like him don't like being quoted, even under "fair use" constraints.

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Of course, if I committed so many foolish rhetorical errors in public, I'd prefer not to be used as a hideous example either.

1. Argument from Authority. Of course, the process of determining what goes into the DSM-IV is pure and objective science .
2. Aspergers is, in fact an autistic spectrum disorder and has quite a range of effects. As a step-parent of a diagnosed Aspie, I'm very aware of the fact that there are very significant issues involved. They are not so inconvenient to US, as parents. They are going to affect HIM quite significantly unless we find some adaptive strategies that work for him.
3. As opposed to the entirely legitimate empowerment that comes from suffering the hideous, horrendous burden that is Autism.
4. Of course, it's a liberal thing to be concerned about the civil rights of children being abused and neglected for the sake of the convenience and social comfort of their conservative parents. This is the root host for "Autism, A Debilitating Disease, not a Culture," a page that links to both Free Republic and Free Dominion, while telling Canadians they a vaccilating, unpatriotic fools for not joining the "Coalition of the Willing." Snark aside, the fact that this site, is associated with Authoritarian Right Wingers explains a lot about the entire, very authoritarian "curebie" movement.
5. For myself, I want to see Lennie's MENSA results, his HIV status and full financials proving he's not unduly profiting from his activism before I deign to speak with him. I suspect he's unworthy of my attention, but if he proves otherwise, I will of course listen.
   
6. Factually untrue.

Unpuzzled is my most militant anti-curebie design, with the slogan, "help find a clue."

I know, it's rude and confrontational, but I've found that sometimes you need to swat people with a clue-by-four in order to startle them enough so they actually listen.

Those "seeking a cure" tend to ignore everything from those of us who ARE on the spectrum because it doesn't fit into to their mindsets, just as they reject "inappropriate" responses to communications from their autie and aspie children.

This is especially true of issues about communication style, reasonable accommodation and most importantly, the concept that a difference need not be AS disabling as it seems from an "NT" perspective. And, speaking as someone who's gone round and round on this at various times and under various circumstances, those who most boldly wave the "puzzle ribbon" seem at times to be making a point of their puzzlement, and their inability to understand to be the issue of auties and aspies.

See point above about how many friends and relationships an autie or aspie needs in an emotional sense. We do not absolutely require a relationship with the biological parental units. It's a nice thing to have, but we cannot and some quantity of will not be as easily coerced by family emotional ties as neurotypicals can be. This is not just because we have a "faulty" connection between emotions and reasoning. Our reasoning is not emotional, and our emotional responses seem to be quite different - across the board. Put two aspies in the same room and they will communicate quite well indeed - but their body language, topic choices and intuitive negotiations of "status" will be starkly different - and one of the greatest differences is the relative lack of huge tooth-bearing grins with full eye-contact.

To an aspie, to most sensible primates and all cats I've ever met, bare teeth and a full-on gaze is, at the very least, a statement of territorial or situational dominance, inviting a ritual contest of wills to determine who will be in charge and who will submit. Your typical aspie doesn't wish to play that game, having no need or real desire to join your pack, so if you do see them bare their teeth - it's probably in the context of a genuine, non-ritualized warning that Bad Things Will Suddenly Occur If You Do Not Go Away NOW.

What part of "Agggh! [flap flap flap] [throw object] LEAVE ME ALONE" is unclear to you people?

The "Unsmily" design honors the "aspie smile," a neutral expression that essentially means "hailing frequencies open." That look of slightly blank attention is a sign that an aspie or autistic is willing to let you talk at them for a while. Indeed, oft-times we are listening so hard that we are not thinking about what we will say next.

No pointless social noises please! Talk about something that is both objectively important and something within the realm of my interest and ability to have an opinion on. Make a full statement, then shut up and let me talk at YOU for a while. Then it's your turn.

Appalling, isn't it?

Well, that is the way aspies and auties communicate best - asynchronously. The full give and take of an NT conversation is difficult for us, and those of us that can manage it are doing it because we realize that style of communication is important to our NT friends all out of proportion to anything actually communicated. Mostly we grunt and make what experience has taught us to be socially appropriate noises at the expected times.

We are quite unlikely to put up with attempts to get us to conform to your expectations of what people like you should be. We are not 'like you,' and while we do very clearly appreciate that you have social advantages we do not, and we all understand that any parent would wish their child to have every possible advantage - we also know that many of those "advantages" come with a price. Some of those prices are ones we cannot pay - and for many of us, compromising who we are or being less than honest about what we know to be true is a price we will not pay - no matter how politically incorrect it may be to point out that the emperor has no clue.