Do you think autism needs to be cured

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Yes, no doubt.

My life, despite the achievments, is mostly miserable. If I could do away with social limitations, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

I don't think it should be imposed... but I'd like one.

I don't think I would like to be completely cured, if I had the option. Cured for what? To become "just like everyone else", no thanks! I think my autism brings me as much good as it does bad in the way my mind works. If funding had to go anywhere I would like to go towards helping people with it in different ways, not just getting rid of it. I am quite happy with the way I am, but being more comfortable socially and less anxious would help me out a lot in my life.

I'm against curing all of the neuropsychiatric disorders. Rather, I'm a proponent for finding actual diagnostic tests, genetic tests to help choose a medication that will work the first time around, better treatments/medications with less side effects, and getting the person to a stage where their condition is manageable and they can function in the real world (but aren't CURED). The idea of curing things like ASDs and bipolar disorder and schizophrenia scares me. There are many skills and talents and realms of creativity that have consistently been linked with neuropsych disorders.

Creativity and bipolar disorder in particular has been studied by Jamison and others quite extensively, and it is a known fact that a disproportionate amount of artists, authors, composers, and other individuals in the arts suffered from a mood disorder. In addition, look at the savant talents that sometimes come along with ASDs or John Nash's brilliance that most certainly was intertwined with his schizophrenia. While not all individuals with a neuropsych disorder have a special talent or area of genius, I am very much a believer that, if these conditions are completely cured and the genetics are washed away, the talents that go along with certain cases and certain traits will also be washed away.

I really do believe that "there is no great genius without some sort of madness," and while I suffer from my neuropsych disorders many days, I also know that my different way of thinking and my splinter skills and creativity all are part and parcel of my brain being wired differently. If you ask me, there has to be some sort of reason that evolution has kept severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in the genetic line for thousands of years. I liken it to how sickle cell anemia keeps staying around because of how being a carrier gives no symptoms but helps fight off malaria. I don't like messing around with genes, other than finding out what genes cause what. I think figuring out how to turn off and on genes and eliminate genes is just asking for trouble...

I think that if there are people with the condition that wants to be cured, there should be research for finding a cure.
On the other hand, I absolutely object to the idea that you should automatically want a cure for something you have just because there may be a cure. Or other people assuming you want to be cured or thinking you need be cured.

I'm paralyzed, and I don't prey for a cure every day. I'm happy the way I am.
I understand that people are desperate for a cure for SCI's, and I don't blame them for pursuing it. It's just not for me. I see no reason to be cured. It's a part of who I am.

NO. That's just awful.

I don't see it as a necessity.

I have this service that delivers new journal articles about autism to my e-mail inbox. I get thirty, forty a week... sometimes as many as a hundred. And so many of them focus on genetics and cure, or pick apart yet another bit of chemistry or brain structure that's different about us. Very few of them are about teaching autistic kids. Very few of them are about integrating schools and workplaces. Even articles about which medications are most useful are less common than you'd think.

We need to flip those percentages. More research on teaching; less about picking apart our brains and our DNA. We have lots of autistic people in the world who aren't getting the help they need, and our researchers are sitting in their labs watching proteins dance for little or no reason. That is what the cure-focused approach has done: It's pulled funding and the best minds away from practical help for real people, and given it to a bunch of castles in the clouds that can't help anyone currently alive and probably won't ever do anything more than finding a genetic test that leads to more eugenic abortions. That sucks, and it needs to stop.

I think that society should arrange itself to better support the full diversity of the human gene pool. Consider that when the earth was hottest it had an average temperature of 40 degrees Celsius and the animals that survived in those conditions were, for some reason, much smaller than the animals of today. Maybe it has to do with volume to surface area ratio's and our ability to cool down by sweating, I don't know.

But assuming this is true then I guess that if global warming runs out of control then selective pressure might favour our species more diminutive members. And I know that many of society's diminutive minority find it inconvenient to live in a world built for average sized people, they might therefore wish they were the same size.

Be careful what you wish for. It may only be their children who survive the coming global warming apocalypse. (I'm joking, I don't really believe that there is a coming global warming apocalypse, but I think I raise a valid point regarding the rest.)

B.

I don't think autism should ever be cured.

how about we start up a rival company "the nt whisper" and we can cure being nt the ad should be a picture of a phone bill.