What Autism Acceptance means, setting the record straight - Page 3

[Kristine233]

A friendly bump.

I also want to say that showing emotion also includes the ability to love.

[ShaggyDaddy]

Originally Posted by Kristine233

A friendly bump.

I also want to say that showing emotion also includes the ability to love.

thank you, I caught that too, and yes we can and do love people.

[QueenOfTheMeadow]

Just bumping to see if anyone has any other links or references for autism acceptance and awareness.

[fanniefarkle]

here is a wiki post for autism acceptance (maybe it wasn't posted before. I didn't go back and re-read this thread.)



I get a newsletter from an autism rights group in Canada, but I can't find their site. I think that it is TAPP??? anyone know what I'm talking about?

[VijayOwens]

I like http://www.autisticadvocacy.org/ I learned about it because a friend is on the board of directors.

And there's a movie coming out in the fall http://www.neuro-typical.com/

Hope that helps,

-Vijay

[BethSLP]

just out of curiosity, what is the Autism Acceptance explanation for the explosion of autism we are seeing currently? Just that there are more environmental insults producing autism like symptoms? Clearly, there is no such thing as a genetic "epidemic" (sorry if that's a loaded word, but thats what you hear it called most in the media). By epidemic, I mean the explosion in the number of autism diagnoses.

I've heard some people posit that there is better wider diagnosis now and that in the past people were just labeled MR. as a therapist, I call b.s. on that one. I've seen whole schools open in the last 10 years to treat children with moderate severe ASD. Genetics alone can't really explain this IMO. There is clearly without a doubt in my mind a WAY higher incidence of kids with ASD. So is it merely environmental insults causing autism like symptoms but not true genetic autism in your view?

XOXO
B

[aja-belly]

we've totally discussed this before (and it's a really interesting subject to me). i'll see if i can find a link....

here's a link to a thread with discussion about this and some articles - http://mothering.com/discussions/sho...58#post8511858

[QueenOfTheMeadow]

Bump!

[BetsyNY]

No disrespect intended, but I can't for the life of me see what good it does to differentiate between "Autism" and "Autistic-like traits" except create MORE barriers, MORE separation in an already fragmented community.

I'm so very glad that we found a doctor that sees it that way as well. My son has autism most likely due to a brain injury, and he needs the SAME therapies, the SAME treatment (yep, I said treatment) that "real" "organic" Autistic kids get. Could we have all lived w/o the Autism diagnosis? Absolutely, but to get services he needed that word on a piece of paper. That's how the game is played--yet another problem in a broken education system, but I digress.

I just can't see how distinguishing "TRUE Autism" and autism due to injury/insult helps anyone.

[Kristine233]

Originally Posted by BetsyNY

No disrespect intended, but I can't for the life of me see what good it does to differentiate between "Autism" and "Autistic-like traits" except create MORE barriers, MORE separation in an already fragmented community.

I'm so very glad that we found a doctor that sees it that way as well. My son has autism most likely due to a brain injury, and he needs the SAME therapies, the SAME treatment (yep, I said treatment) that "real" "organic" Autistic kids get. Could we have all lived w/o the Autism diagnosis? Absolutely, but to get services he needed that word on a piece of paper. That's how the game is played--yet another problem in a broken education system, but I digress.

I just can't see how distinguishing "TRUE Autism" and autism due to injury/insult helps anyone.

I don't think getting an Autism diagnosis to get services you need is wrong. The problem we have is when someone gets an Autism diagnosis and then they "cure" whatever it was that was causing the traits. Especially when they know that it wasn't Autism in the first place, but had to get the DX to get services. Then when the treated child is no longer able to be diagnosed as Autistic and the parents insist that they "cured Autism" and now all Autistic kids should/can be cured. Its really mostly to do with the attitude towards the overall Autism Community that our children should be cured. Some insist that because they've treated vax reactions or metal poisoning that its the SAME as Autism itself and don't recognize that these things can coexist.

So not really about segregating more, but accurately diagnosing things in the first place. I think everyone here would agree that if you need a certain diagnosis to get the services you need, you do whatever you can to help your child. I think I can safely say I'm pro getting everyone the services they need and I don't think parents should have to jump through hoops and fit into specific diagnoses in order to get those. If that was the case the gray line and debate about that probably wouldn't be that big of a deal. Unfortunately the medical community is behind in that area and not as willing to do that as we are.

I hope that makes sense. We talk about "organic" Autism here only to explain our point and to clarify a few view points. Out in the "real world" it doesn't really work that way.