shivanataraja wrote:
...It did make me rethink slightly whether early diagnosis is a good thing - i did think my childhood might have been a lot better if i was diagnosed with AS from an early age, but these kids all seemed to resent and hate having AS, seeing themselves a "defective" and wanting to be "normal", without seeing any positive value in being themselves and not "normal"... it seemed perhaps that the teachers constantly telling the children that their problems were due to their autism probably made them attribute everything negative to autism, and see themselves as inferior to non-autistic people... the difference perhaps being that i found the label for myself and found it explained my life, whereas they would probably feel that a (negatively judgemental) label had been imposed on them...
I think Channel 4 could have done a lot better if what they were aiming to do was produce a documentary to increase understanding of autism...
I think it mostly depends on the environment and the perspectives of the people interacting with the child in question. When I was diagnosed at age ten, my parents encouraged the positive aspects and told me some Aspie success stories. I wasn't treated condescendingly by school faculty, and my parents didn't blame every negative aspect of my behavior on AS. Resulting, through even the toughest times of adolescence I've remained with a positive, non-limiting attitude regarding my future and potential.
On the topic of defective-ness: sure, ASD people are flawed--flawed just as EVERY human being is flawed, albeit some of the problems that Aspies encounter are different
kinds of flaws, it is not to say that people on the spectrum are inferior to neurotypicals. It's just a different kind of problem that needs to be accepted for the positive and negative aspects of it so the individual can have more complete understanding of his/her own actions and be able to relate to others, a perspective I have thanks in part to the way my parents raised me and how I choose to think. BTW, if I've inadvertently said anything glaringly stupid in the midst of this, please let me know.[/i]
_________________
"There are things you need not know of, though you live and die in vain,
There are souls more sick of pleasure than you are sick of pain"
--G. K. Chesterton, The Aristocrat
30 Jun 2005, 12:11 pm
