Damaging story on ASD & child porn by Temple Grandin's m

Post Reply New Topic

I cannot say whether all psychologists use the same diagnostic tools for determining the presence of AS or HFA, but I do recall that in my case one of the first tests I was put through was the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, which is designed to screen for pathological thinking and personality disorders, in order to rule out the possibility that any other disorder might be responsible for Autistic-type symptoms and behaviors.

If this is a standard procedure in diagnosing ASDs, at least in adults, that alone should present strong statistical evidence against this woman's claims. If such a predilection were present in adults with AS, it should be evident even during the diagnostic procedures.

If that were the case, surely someone with academic credentials would have published research and statistics on it by now.



*(crickets)*

Dear Dynamite Monkey,

Excellent, excellent comment!

If Ms. Grandin's mother wants to get an idea of what or whom Aspergian or Autistic men are attracted to, she can take a peek into this really great website called 'WrongPlanet'!

There are over 70,000 people, affected by these neurological differentiations, and we discuss just about every darn thing.


I have been here a couple of years now, and oddly, have not read even one post by any male commenting about his attraction to children of either sex.

Wonder why? Could it be that it is not happening?


Sylkat

Is she suffering from brain eating amoeba?

Maybe dementia at her age.

Could be dementia. Because if you search for her she has done writing and public speaking on autism. You would think if she has a history of making assertions with nothing of substance to back it up somebody would have chimed in by now??

Emily Willingham wrote a really good response to this article on forbes.com

Link to article

Quote from the article:

She refutes much of what was said in the Cutler article and provides numerous links backing her statements.

What a f*****g nightmare

^ Excellent article, and says what needs to be said in detail.

Fixed that for you.

Thanks meems-- that Forbes piece was very good to,see this morning.

I saw a link to the original story on ASPEN's Facebook page that called it marvelous and wrote in a protest. I'm happy to say they took their link to it down.

I am working on the Daily Beast now. Please express your displeasure with Cutler's story directly to their editors at the link above.

Why thank you Sylkat. I personally dont watch any porn at all, and im pretty sure that is more common with aspies than watching kids.

i have never heard of a connection with autism and kiddy porn.this is a farce

Added this incident to my website (which is in my signature) under myth #8 "If someone has a relative on the spectrum, they are authorities who understand it." Hopefully it'll convince people to not accept things people say simply by virtue of relationship.

That said, I'm not sure how well I debunked it. You all seem to have analyzed it really well, so if anyone has ideas on how I could improve this, I'd appreciate it.

"In a more recent and perhaps more troubling incident, Temple Grandin's mother wrote an article for The Daily Beast called "Autism and Child Pornography: A Toxic Combination" in which she made one false claim after another, relying on assumptions to justify giant leaps of theory. For her main theory, that autistic people view child pornography in higher rates she readily admits that "the group is very small; numbers are not available, and few arrests are on record," ...and yet applies her theory even without these numbers to all men with autism. To give you a flavor for the article, one of her worst offending paragraphs was this one: "Though now equipped with a full-grown body and full-grown sexual drive, many ASD males are stuck emotionally at a prepubescent age. They look like grown men, but inside they’re only 10 years old. They don’t want adults to show them how sex is done; they want 10-year-olds to show them. Back in school when they were little and the other kids played “you show me yours and I’ll show you mine,” ASDs were left out. Now at last they’ve found a way to join the old childhood game and it’s with their trusty friend, the computer." Over and over in the article she infantilizes and stigmatizes people on the spectrum, even comparing them to computers. She relies on one assumption after another, and, in fact, mentions an 80% divorce rate in parents of children on the spectrum which we will thoroughly debunk in myth #10. She cites absolutely no studies to speak of. Instead, she simply quotes two other people's theories (not studies, mind you) to support her. You'll just have to take their word for it. The scary thing is, though, because of her status as "Temple Grandin's mother" many people won't think twice before accepting her many claims."

Formatting's different on the website (it's not such a big block of text), but the content is the same. It goes on to say "Those are just some examples [note: I also mentioned Scarborough talking about autism and violence], but there are many more. Many people assume that if you're related to someone with autism you understand it; worse yet, the relatives frequently think the same thing. But being related doesn't automatically mean you have all the facts about autism ..."

Thoughts? Constructive criticism (given nicely, preferably) is appreciated.

[Edited to add: My sister (Aspie) normally reads through anything I write before I post it, but she's still asleep so she hasn't read it yet. So if I say something stupid, please tell me (nicely).]

I think Temple's mother debunked that myth herself with her ignorant article. The only people who would believe this crap are bigots with low IQs. Most of the people who believe Temple's mother about Autistics being pedophiles probably think that Africa is a country. There's not much you can do to change their ignorant view points. You'd probably have better luck trying to explain to them that not all Brits personally know the queen of England, but even that might be kind of difficult for them to understand.

I wish I believed that. But it's disturbing how many people seemed to have grabbed on to this. Looking at the comments section of the article some people really do seem to be true believers and Adamantium said that ASPEN posted a link in praise of this prior to being corrected. It's just worrying... (Also, my mom teaches high school, and you'd be surprised by how many of her Honors/AP students think Africa is a country...sad.)

That's part of the problem. Anyone who's looked at a world map at least one time in their life should notice that Africa isn't a country. That information has been right in front of them their whole lives, yet they've still managed to ignore it. It's incomprehensible for me. They must have spent like every day of their lives in a daze or something. Too many people are insistent on never learning anything. If they at least tried to think once in while, we wouldn't have as many problems with people stereotyping Autistics.

Dear Mike1, every so often, I became aware of what the average high-school atudent knows or believes.

Then I get depressed.

Sylkat

youngsters dont want to do anything for themselves these days if they dont get a instant reward out of it but dont give overbearing close minded people an excuse.
some of us on the spectrum have intelectual disability which impacts on our ability to learn and understand complex information [for example,am completely ignorant at geography and am one of those who actualy does think africa is a country but its through lack of mental capacity not lazyness and lack of learning].
having a low IQ doesnt mean we are close minded,most people in life have been intelectualy disabled to some level and not one person has been close minded towards others differences-we lack social awareness,understanding of concepts;eg peer pressure and ability to compare ourselves to others to be able to recognise their differences so it likely isnt people with low IQ making these ridiculous judgements like labeling male autists paedos,am very surprised to hear of this from temple grandins mum.
people who are really closeminded probably have not had the life experiences with lots of different people to get a open mind.

am sure her age has had an effect on how she sees things but thats no excuse,if it had been on a UK website such a story coud be considered a disability hate crime under the inciting hatred law.

people excuse the elderly for being bigoted and closeminded all the time as if the elderly have a inability to update how they think.
thats rubbish,look at lorna wing for a great example,still going strong and knows the autism spectrum so well thanks to her tireless work with autism as a professor and pyschiatrist,her profoundly autistic daughter, and the creation of the national autistic society.
temple grandins mum shoud have known better,am sure if she had dementia the media woudnt have accepted stories like that off her without true evidence backing it up because of the legal impact it coud have on them.
had read this article via it being posted on a facebook disability group and thought what the hell are they doing without any