What do you think of autism speaks now?

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Would you not be worried if you thought your autistic traits were about to intensify? If it were me, I'd be terrified, I'd expect to itch more, be shunned more, make more social blunders, be more mind-blind, have more difficulty in a lot of areas.....I sure don't want a double dose of the thing that's (to some extent) blighted my life, even if there are a few good aspects to my condition. I don't know much about full-blown autism, but I gather there can be a lot of alarming physical problems.

Though perhaps we're in a more depressing position - maybe we have enough neurotypicality to understand more clearly what's happening to us. And I think society tends not to give any help at all to people whose symptoms fall below a certain threshold, e.g. if you can't sit in a classroom without having a meltdown, they'll spend some money on you, give you one-on-one tuition and a therapist, but if you're one point short of an ASD diagnosis, or even if you have the DX but can just about cope as long as you push yourself so hard that you'll probably burn out in a decade or two, you'll get nothing.

I am not saying that certain areas of the spectrum don't have it harder then others. I just feel it's divisive spending massive amount of time and energy on the question. All are suffering and most are suffering a lot from a combination of the Autism, but mostly co-morbids and outside reaction to us. That is what time and energy needs to be spent on not who is suffering more

After what I have read about this organization , I will not support them in any way or form.

This is what I think of Autism $peaks

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Autism $peaks is a lie. They don't want to help us, they want to cure us because we're a burden to society. Once they're able to detect autism before you're even born, many will choose to abort.

Last edited by darkphantomx1 on 04 Apr 2015, 10:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Well, if we're agreed that certain areas of the spectrum have it harder than others, there's no need to spend time and energy on the matter. I just mentioned it as part of my attempt to explain why Autism Speaks says such preposterous things about us - the less autistic a person is, the more preposterous it is to say such things about that person. Rather like some folks on AS Partners who can't distinguish between "some" and "all," which boils down to bigotry.

Yes, I would. I'd also be worried if I started becoming a lot more NT. Any kind of substantial change to my personality or abilities would worry me, particularly since it might indicate a serious underlying medical condition such as a brain tumour.

But if I found that was my new reality, I'd come to terms with it and deal with it, and not go around wailing that my life is ruined unless I get a cure. In other words, I'd react the way the vast majority of people with acquired disabilities react.

DarkPhantom, that is one of the worst pieces of hate propaganda I have ever seen. I could hardly believe what I was hearing. Thank you for posting this video (for raising my awareness of what AS is doing, not for the horrible experience of listening to it). The claim that autistic people are incapable of any morality, of knowing right from wrong, are inherently destructive of every relationship, family and encounter they are in, combined with the implicit subtext of this video that we are killers-in-waiting, waiting to destroy normal human beings, is bone chilling. That it uses a child to portray this Nazi-ist type propaganda shocks me terribly. It's modelled on the German propaganda films that were used to condition ordinary German citizens to view Jews as the destroyers of their lives and well-being. It is so serious that I am distressed, and shocked, it's so bad. I worry that children are going to be targeted in horrible ways by some of the hateful "normals" who view this video and use it as a form of entitlement to badly abuse children on the spectrum. I worry that more are going to be murdered because of this.

Again... that video sounds scary. The only people I would want to destroy are people who try to destroy me or the likes of me.

What the hypnotically toned voice of the adult is narrating are the hallmarks and symptoms of psychopathy; Autism Speaks is using this video to portray 100% of autistic children as psychopaths, thus designating the entire group as "enemies of decent people and decent society".

What would Pope Francis think if he saw this video? Would he be sucked in or would he see the hateful propaganda of Autism Speaks for what it really is?

I hope the UN Committee (which oversees the concerns of people with disabilities arising from the UN protections under the Convention which applies) takes note of it too, and issues a strong statement about the harm of hate speech.

The Pope is against abortion, but probably for capital punishment, so I am just praying (to a God that probably isn't the Pope's God) that they don't move forward and start "eliminating" us.

Worrying about a brain tumour could also apply if the autistic traits were increasing, unless current scientific opinion is that a decrease is more indicative of a brain tumour than an increase. The question I'm asking here is about the attitude to the increase or decrease itself, I figure that very few ASDers would for example submit to a procedure that would heighten their symptoms, even if it were a harmless procedure, and especially if the effect might not wear off.

You make a salient point though. I have to admit I don't know for sure if I'd submit to an ASD-reduction procedure with the same specification. I don't believe that ASD is a personality thing, so I wouldn't worry about that changing. I'd expect to be enabled in a number of very useful ways, e.g. comfortable in my own body, good intuitive grasp of the feelings of others, and of my own feelings of course, able to hold a reciprocal conversation with ease, good executive function, good at self-advocating, special interests given the priority I really feel is appropriate, less aversion to change. So I'd be very tempted to give it a whirl, but I'd worry that my autistic strengths might diminish, in as far as I have any. Frankly I don't think my autistic strengths amount to much, but I'd need time to consider that more carefully. I might well miss something or other.


Yes most of us get used to things. But if an increase in my autism hurt my partner and my friendships, as I think it well might, that would be harder for me to live down.

I am going to say this again even though the first time I first said it in November 2013 most people did not understand where I was coming from or were totally opposed the idea. What I see in the this film and the I thought about driving off me and my kids off the bridge video was Autism as Satan and the families as exorcist heroes. Mr. Wright has a religious private school background. Also since I broached the topic alongside the idea of "curing" a disease is the old Bruno Bettelheim idea of "recovering" some poor innocent kid who has been kidnapped by an the evil entity Autism coming more to the fore.

Satan is never specifically mentioned in these videos a point I was criticized for because Autism Speaks had to appeal to nonreligious and people of varied religions. But the idea of a devil like entity stated or implied is familiar to those of us grew up seeing horror films from "Rosemary's Baby" in 1968 to the 1980's slasher flicks.

I keep on waiting for this music to be in the background

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 05 Apr 2015, 9:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

APOM, I think it is entirely valid to say that this video was created with the specific intention of demonising all people on the autism spectrum (according to the non-religious meaning and use of the word "demonising").

"to portray someone or some group as evil, eg the way that the Nazis portrayed the Jews" according to one dictionary.

Last edited by B19 on 05 Apr 2015, 9:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

They won't get me, I'm a British citizen. Autism Speaks has no power in the UK. Here, the State largely ignores our condition, unless it's full-blown autism. The NAS doesn't seem to have the problems that Autism Speaks has.

Autism is more "politicized" in the USA than any other country, so far as I can see. It is not a political issue in New Zealand, and there are not hard lines of division between fanatics like AS and people on the spectrum. There are no fanatical organisations like AS here that I know of. Thank goodness...

EVERYTHING is politicized in the USA. Everything. Usually in a variety of really damn stupid ways.

This just increases my absolute, undying hatred for politics even further. As if I didnt already have 984734 other reasons to hate it.