Is it ok to not like being called a LABEL?

Post Reply New Topic

I know many low functioning people with autism. Many of these guys will bang their head till they bleed if they have a bad day. They might wear diapers and throw their poop when they feel frustrated. Still, I enjoy their company. In addition, most of them enjoy my company. Some of them really just want to be left alone. In fact, I know a couple low functioning people who experience great joy when they are alone.

Too me, these guys are cool people. The techniques for bonding with them are so easy. If they rock back and forth, I rock back and forth with them. If they need to stim, then I help them stim. If they need to relax, then I relax. If they start making vocalizations with a certain pattern, then I try to match the pattern.

Important Statement - Ethics, Politics & Human Dignity Relatively

Person first language outside of politics does not strictly say a disability is separate from a person. It simply respects the person as a human being despite a label for political and awareness reasons. Under the law even where person first language is dominate in agency policy the right to dignity and free expression is also protected. That means you can choose to call yourself and have others call you a label. Moreover autism in the political context when defined rigidly for anti-cure reasons is a self-philosophy. If it is so strict to imply that my saying I'd like treatments and the development of treatments by means of cure marketing is not allowed for sensory integration issues and to make that as wanting it to be separate from me thus gone is a violation to the right to treatment.

Autism remember is a third party descriptor to my original and organic way of being. It cannot be separated per say by the usage of words but the political context of semantics implies at times I do not want improvements for reasons of others rigidity when they themselves may many times not experience certain "symptoms" or said differences in the same way as me and others whether percieved negative or positive by another observer. It is a conflict of interest to demand autism be a person entirely that cannot be implied to be removed in it's parts (symptoms) of an individual if chosen. Remember human rights, dignity and the right to treatment are universal so others can decline treatment but in that process others cannot decline the treatment of others for reasons of personal dignity. It's just how the law works.

That is terrible, how they handled your issues. Like I said, special education and related services can be useful if done right. Clearly, in your case, it was not done right at all. Instructions and supports are supposed to be individualized to address the specific strengths and needs of a given student. Obviously, that's not at all what happened with you. It sounds to me like your school system treated *all* students with special needs as being the same, when that could not be more wrong. If you were not having trouble academically, you definitely should have been in a general education classroom, with perhaps some counseling services, and MAYBE speech and OT to address any specific communication and or/ sensory issues you might be having. You should not have been placed in the lowest level ability groups just because you were labelled as having special education needs. You should not have been dumped in with a random assortment of special needs students.

Like I said, labels can be useful when handled appropriately, as can special education and related services. However, when these are handled inapproriately, as they clearly were with you, they can unfortunately do far more harm than good.

The system isn't supposed to work that way, and it's a big problem that it does in some schools. That's honestly disgusting how you were mistreated by the system.
Sorry if this doesn't make much sense: I'm in a hurry right now.

Outer Borough Girl
They made me take speech therapy as well even though I had no speech delays. This only led me to belive my speech was deficient and made me less confident to speak in public. I did have motor delays and social delays so I guess they were justified in putting me in PT, OT, and Social Pragmatics. But I don't feel they were useful. I was always placed with people of low abilities so it was always reduced to their level. There was a lot of "creativity" and "positive reinforcement." That could be good for a preschooler, but by the time I was ten, I did not want to be told to "pretend you're a bunny" when I was practicing balance or patted on the head when I accomplished something relatively simple. I found it condescending and tedious. And for social pragmatics, I don't feel that advanced professionals, most of whom grew up in a different generation, could relate to the dynamics of my generation. My social pragmatist taught me based on her childhood in the 1950's, which I knew was not going to fly in the 90's so I ignored her.

Another thing about labels is that they lead you to believe that your problems will be permanent, which is not necessarily the case.