Petition Alex Plank to discuss Treatments and Research!!

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I want to be accepted for the human being I am.

I also strongly agree as well. Nobody has to sign if they don't want to.

Seems a bit out of order to me to petition a guy volunteering his time to help like minded folks. Smacks of a sense of entitlement as does dictating that posters cannot criticise in the thread. This is a forum ran privately and volunteerly - not a government service.

John Robison is not a neurodiversity activist, and Temple Grandin barely qualifies as one.

Just being autistic and outspoken about autism does not make you a neurodiversity activist. You have to be communicating the neurodiversity viewpoint - that conditions such as autism are differences rather than illnesses.

atdevel,
am one of those who is under that one size fits all label of 'lf', and for the past four years have lived in a incredible residential centre which provides a lot of inhouse different autistic therapies,medications,building adaptions,equipment and communication aids etc,am also pro choice of the whole 'cure concept' whether in terms of treatment to lessen issues or the actual cure idea,and am also a local activist in autism and LD [US=intelectual disability],am not a supporter of neurodiversity when its about removing the disability label in favour of better accomodating those who do not have a disability in their autism,as the official point of having labels is to get support/services/accomodations etc,its what autists whose autism is a disability need to get access to things.
am always accepting of hearing other views though because understanding language is a weak point of mine and do apreciate being helped to understand other sides.

saying that,from own view it does not feel ok to petition alex as it doesnt feel very nice-as it feels like putting pressure on someone when a simple discussion coud do the job [whether theres an agreement or not],a discussion is more involving on all sides whereas a petition feels like force and not really giving a damn about the other sides view.
alex has always been a stern supporter of neuro diversity and anti curism so itd look pretty out of place on WP,however alex has been open minded enough to give a soap box to people of any belief here providing they follow the rules and treat others with respect,the batsht crazy pro cureist; john best junior used to be a regular here,not even autism speaks gave him room to share his opinion back in the very first forum of theirs,which shows how respectful alex is of others views even when he doesnt agree with them.
so it is possible may be one point he woud be-or woudnt,be willing to do a board,but this is why it makes more sense to actualy discuss it with him first.

I don't like the sound of sensory intregration, what is that? make someone sit in a noisy room with lots of chaos and bright florescent lights till they either 'get used to it' or have a mental meltdown or shutdown.

Sensory integration is activities that are designed to help regulate your sensory systems, and/or to help your brain practice and improve on processing different types of sensory information. It's sort of like exercise for your sensory systems. Sensory integration activities are tailored to the individual and are usually fun/soothing things, not painful/overwhelming things.

Okay, if sensory integration activities are usually fun/soothing things.

I still want it to be something that I choose to do, maybe in a series of medium steps if I so choose, not something that is foisted upon me.

It can definitely be done wrong. Like any therapy, it's not without its risks and not without "therapists" who think causing distress is okay.

But it can have benefits. Weighted blankets are an example of sensory integration. Playing with clay or putty is pretty common. Music therapy. That kind of thing. It is counterproductive to expose somebody to sensory input that causes distress because that'll just cause the person to strengthen the mental connections between that input and the escape/avoidance/fear/fight reaction.

Sensory integration therapy isn't thoroughly researched, but it's fairly commonly available and what research we do have seems promising. I think it's just important that we should have some particulars on what works, what doesn't, and why it works when it does.

How about splitting the Computers, Math, Science, and Technology forum into two forums? One for science and technology, and the other for psychology and medicine? That way we could have a place to discuss recent research, without flooding out the posts from the science junkies who want to discuss computer programming or astronomy.

For now, there's really nothing preventing us from using the Computers, Math, Science, and Technology forum to discuss autism research. But maybe it would spark less controversy to have a forum just generally for psychology and medicine, rather than something like treatments and research. It would give us a venue for discussion without forcing WP to take any kind of official position on the research itself.

That's very true. I've read a few horrific anecdotes (one of them was part of a case study in a paper about sensory integration) and I'm sure there are more than a few people out there who have had really bad experiences -- but if sensory integration therapy is done properly and ethically it should not involve causing distress.