I need to apologgize and make a confession.

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Almost a year ago before I joined wrong planet I signed up to do the autism wal with autism speaks I never attended the walk and they got all of $25 dollars from me well actually that was a donation.

When I joined I had joined under false beliefs. I had been told that autism speaks was an organization that helps autistics and thier families and spreads autism aawareness. I was P*&sed when I realized the truth

I started to learn the truthe whenI I attended thier "motivsational," thing that supposed to motivate you to go out and get donations. When I went there excited and expecting to meet other autistic like myself. When My boyfriend, friend kraig, Nim and I arrived however I was shocked (Thinking back I am not shocked anymore) that there was not 1 autistic person I could find. NONE no one brought thier autistic children! I was so disapointed!

Then they gave thier motivational speach and spoke of war with autism and this confused and angered me it was all I could do to not cover my ears and scream.. I was amazed ! autistic person WAS ther (I think they hid him in the basement or something cause I couldn't find him before) When we left I was so confuse and went home and set up my donation page online uploaded a photo read the auto text and was so upset by it I signed off and never went back. I did my research and realized I had been told lies and was betrayed and trapped capaigning to this organization. DevistatedI prayed for answers and was torn to keeping a promise and attending the walk or protesting outside or joining the protest. I prayed for an answer and friday before the walk I was running for the train and broke my elbow The doctor said I needed surgery and I could NOT attend the walk I did want to protest butshe said no.

I wanted to tell you all this and apologize and ask for your forgiveness and I wanted to be the one to tell you encase it came out later. I feel the need to be honest and hat lying.

I truely hate autism speaks now and am planning to protest them this year! I would love to have a protest organize in each state! I briefly had hope they were changing but was wrong.

anyways I wanted to say I am sorry for believing the lies they have told and I have scene thier lies and propaganda and have turned my back on them.

There is no need for an apology from you. You did no wrong. In fact, you are as much a victim here as many others. You only wanted to help improve the life of autistic people and was misled by an organization which did not provide you with the correct information. You were defrauded of your hard earned dollars. It is Autism Speaks that should be apologizing to the autistic community, not you. If you still want to donate to help autistic people, Alex Plank, the creator of Wrong Planet is soliciting donations on Wrong Planet's home page. He is collecting money in order to purchase a new server to host this site.

No need for an apology! You did what you thought was providing aid to others like you, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. You now realize what Autism Speaks truly is now, and you will never support them again.

They fool non autistics too so you have nothing to feel ashamed about, your heart was in the right place

don't be so hard on yourself. i thought autism speaks was awesome when i first heard of it. ees allll good.

I never heard of autism speaks. what is it that they do? do they just collect money, or is it something worse?

As I understand it (based on very limited experience of them), they are primarily a support group for parents, and hold the views that a) autism is a disease which must be cured and b) those of us on the "higher functioning" end of the scale have less or no right to talk about it than parents of children on the "lower functioning" end. Which are understandable viewpoints, though they can be challenged in many ways. However, they have a reputation as being particularly militant and sympathetic less to people with autism than to the families who are inconvenienced by having to put up with us. Hence the dislike.

As a kid, I would have been the perfect poster boy to promote Autism Speaks. I had all the same behaviors as the "worst" of the kids they portray. Now that I am older and can function in society, I suddenly have no right to talk about it in their eyes. They do not have any person on the autism spectrum on their board of directors or decision making staff. In addition, one only needs to look at the salaries of their top people to smell a rat.

Yeah, it's like, either you can't talk for yourself so they've got to talk for you; or else you can, so you're too high-functioning for your opinions to matter. It's a great way of shutting up autistics.

Their research money doesn't even go to research that helps autistics. It's all going for genetics, to find a pre-natal test to abort us before we're born, which is apparently their definition of "prevention".

They've published a lot of stuff that's outright offensive to autistics. Apparently, we cause our mothers to want to drive off bridges with us in the car... it's quite understandable, of course, because autism is so horrible; and quite understandable for said mother to say that with her kid right in front of her, because obviously, autistic people are also deaf... Oh, and there was the latest "awareness" video which portrayed autism as worse than AIDS or juvenile diabetes, a monster that drained your bank account, ruined your marriage, etc. Horrible stuff. Even leukemia doesn't get this kind of a portrayal in the media.

And they wonder why we show up and protest their events...

Ah well. Live and learn. May a suggest a better organization?

www.autismhighereducationfoundation.org

It has autistic people on its board and has a focus on education for people with autism. Two people whose names you may recognize are Temple Grandin (rather famous, especially with her new biopic) and Matt Savage- a jazz pianist whose focus is music education for people with autism. He himself just turned 18 and is quite a prodigy. So put Autism Speaks behind you and maybe turn towards these people. That's where my financial support goes, at any rate.

know nothing about the organization, but sounds like a group built around selfishness rather then selflessness.

I'll admit that when my son's pediatrician referred him for an assessment, I signed up on their message boards. They are one of the first sites that pops up in Google when you look for "Autism support," and then in order to follow any of their links for diagnosis and support info, they want you to sign up for membership. It didn't take very long looking around the site before I figured out that nobody was really interested in helping kids adapt -- the vast majority of parents there wanted to blame vaccines or "cure" their children. All the talk of chelation and special diets and the pissing contests between parents over who was the most put-upon by their terribly damaged children was a REAL turn-off. And yeah, the ones who will admit it's genetic and not environmental do seem set on "genetic counseling," which is just creepy considering their name implies that they're speaking for people on the spectrum (most of whom I would venture to guess are NOT suicidal). But since they pull in so much money and have such a big advertising budget, it's not surprising that it's the most visible site for parents.

If you're in America, the Autism Society of America isn't half-bad. Also, ASAN (Autistic Self-Advocacy Network).

ASA isn't into the autism rights movement per se, but they don't do the pity/tragedy thing that Autism Speaks does; they seem to be more into daily life, getting kids decent accommodations, etc.
http://www.autism-society.org/site/PageServer

ASAN is more disability-rights oriented, and made up mostly of autistic people (rather than professionals and a few autistics, as ASA is).
http://www.autisticadvocacy.org/

Don't apalogise, we don't mind!
On the surface it looks like a good organisation that actually cares but once you take off their disguise you see their true colours.
I'm glad there's no autism speaks in the UK.

Please don't worry about that---and there's no need to apologize. I really respect you for telling us this. I must be honest, Autism Speaks delivers their message in such a way that it can draw in many into its organization. When I first looked at their site in 2008 I first thought, "Wow, what a great organization." Then, I saw how people here at the WrongPlanet talked about Autism Speaks and I discovered how they operate. But, had I not been warned, I might very well have gotten drawn into them too. The important thing is that you found out what you needed to know about them.

Thank you all I just needed to come clean and apologize

I am emailing autism society of America and asking them to do something I saw the ASAN doing, it is called the I exist capain . I want to know you opinions first. They are pushing for more services for people with autism. I am afraid to trust it with out asking for advice so let me know what you think. I think it sounds kinda like a good idea but again I am not sure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiDp8qF8-oA
thoughts?
I trust every one here