Which one of these people is doing more damage to our image?

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I'm starting to think he does that s**t on purpose.

As pointed out, the education system (for the past 20-30 years) is built on the same model as put out by Autism SpeaKKKs. All autists are diseased, therefore must need "assistance" in order to "develop properly" because they are, hence, "learning disabled". They are stigmatized (and essentially excluded and experience prejudice) by the way of SpED classes and all the other crap that comes with it.

I'm not letting Autism SpeaKKKs off the leash (hell no, f**k those anti-autistic bastards), but the education system is pretty bad, too.

I rely on and respect your experience and reports on the issues and oppression in the school system.

I follow Ms. SequenzIa and oliebean on twitter.she has no shortage of opinions that's for sure.most of her ideas are very good but I still don't trust the over opinionated

It looks like I have some research to do, as I have no idea who any of those are, and I haven't read any blogs from blogging moms. This Autism Speaks group though seems pretty bad.

I do wonder about the objection to the autism Moms blogs. I mean, some of them have kids who are low functioning and who are going to be unable to hold event he most menial or basic of jobs for their whole life and are going to need 24-7 care and these mothers are never going to have anything even remotely resembling a normal life even by parents' standards. I honestly wonder if maybe some of them are justified in thinking their children were mistakes and justified in regularly making themselves the victims because in a way their children have victimized them.

Yes, I can understand their episodes of frustration, anger, resentment, despair, disappointment etc. The troubling issues for me is that they blame others for their situation (often), frequently seem almost completely oblivious to the fact that others face much greater life challenges, some get so stuck in the cycle of rage and blaming others that their contributions are only ever destructive, to others, to their children and to themselves - and they are more determined to be right than to find peace, healing, support and solutions. Some of the rage is so irrational and emotionally/psychologically violent that I fear for the well-being of their children and their negative influence on already struggling children. It's a sad and painful situation that gets so much media coverage that "normies" probably think that these sad mothers represent the norm for ASD parenting. And that's a tragedy too. There are great parents out there doing a fantastic job. They get ignored..

The objection is about the bigotry. Instead of a disability like intellectual of dyslexia, they put their "low functioning" kids in with Autism and Asperger's and say that they're exactly what Autism and Asperger's is, when you have to make some rather outrageous generalisations to believe that, which in turn perpetuates all these vile stigmas about us. People will frequently think we don't understand what's going on, or that we go around banging our heads or any number of bizarre things. It is quite disgusting that it's taken seriously, and if you should object to it, they then find your opinion offensive and backward.

That's a fair point. But I thought that part of the issue to begin with is that cases of severe mental retardation are now being labelled as low functioning autism precisely because that it's less offensive than the ret*d label. And in fact that is considered a key reason why autism rates have been on such an upswing lately. And that this is a hey reason why high and low functioning autistics sometimes get grouped together.

As it turns out, the "epidemic" was actually caused by a change in the diagnostic criteria, meaning there's no actual increase in our numbers unfortunately.
http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=274499
Link to the study:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/tarahaelle/ ... new-study/

That would be a very specific stigma, thinking that AS is just a form of mental retardation. I'll not sure if you're referring to brain damage that can be the result of an accident, or something else.

Why is Simon Baron-Cohen even on this list?

You may disagree with his theories but he really hasn't done anything to make people with autism look bad. If anything, it's the opposite. He often goes on about good we are systemising, attention to detail and so on...

Also the mothers of children with autism and intellectual disability have the right to their opinion, even if it disagrees with yours.

Wait a minute. Hansen's disease *is* leprosy and people that have leprosy *are* lepers. Even though the word "leper" is used to mean "outcast" nowdays and is usually used as an insult, the term leper is still correct too. It's "ableism" now to use a correct word to refer to someone who has an unpleasant albeit treatable, disease? How much longer before calling someone a "diabetic" is "ableism", or "deaf" or "blind" or even "disabled" in general? What the hell kind of rationale is this when we accuse someone of one of the many new "isms" for something that isn't an "ism" at all, it's at worst a word associated with something that Jesus needed to heal? This is about as bad as those people who get offended that the word "lame" is used to describe something thats, well, just lame.

Could we all stop being so overly sensitive and PC and stop nitpicking every single word that someone speaks or types looking for any possible reason that we might be able to happily take offense to something and then slap a big ole "ism" label on the speaker? Would it be possible to pull our collective metaphorical panties out of our cracks and unwad them and get on with actual communication rather than acting like a grammar school tattletale and running to show everybody else how bad somebody else is and prove ourselves once again to be so inoffensive that we couldn't even kill a roach with three cans of Raid and a workboot?

I think it's probably time to try. Lepers have leprosy. Epileptics have epilepsy. Diabetics have diabetes. Hemophiliacs have hemophilia. Autistics have autism. Etc, etc, etc.

Leper is s loaded term which often refers to ostracism rather than illness. It was a poor choice of words on Wright's part, a choice that reveals how she feels about autistic people. It wouldn't be so bad if it was just a one-off, but their advertising uses the same scare tactics.

So because the word was used correctly by definition, it's a poor choice of words and shows how she feels about a completely different group of people? I think you may be stretching a bit too much there. I would guess that most people know of leprosy as "leprosy" and not as being called "hansen's" unless they have seen it mentioned on a tv medical drama, and most people rightly assume that the correct terminology for someone who has leprosy is "leper". So because she called lepers "lepers" this tells you that she has some kind of hidden feelings about autistics that we should all be offended by? Isn't that going way too far overboard with this whole idea of looking for offense everywhere business?

Sure, the word has been used to mean being ostracized in most conversation today but it's not used as an insult the same way "ret*d" is used. Are you honestly drawing a parallel between "They are treating him like a leper" and "Hey ret*d, nobody likes you, ya poopyhead"? If you look around on this forum you'll see tons and tons of posts confirming the fact that most of us are, or have been, ostracized more than others and anybody who has been on a grammar school playground knows that it happens to autistics a whole lot, so how exactly is it offensive even if she was trying to use it as a comparison? What was the context of the whole thing anyway?

Are we now at a point where autistics must be offended when anyone even implies that having autism is the least little bit unpleasant or not desirable? Why in God's name does everything ever said, written, thought, implied or hinted at about autism have to become such a personal affront to half the autistics out there? Just because a stranger called a leper a "leper" doesn't mean she wants autistics dead and thinks we are a waste of space. What exactly links her using a correct and nonoffensive word to implied dislike of autistics? If anything, I'd think that actual lepers would be offended by the use of the word to mean outcast, considering that it's treatable and implies that they should be in a colony ringing their bells and watching their own limbs fall off.

Not everything said is a personal attack on autistics, even if you find a way to make it seem so by playing some insult version of six degrees of Kevin Bacon. This obsession with looking for offense everywhere is childish at best and at worst gives us the image of someone who is so oversensitive and unreasonable that people are probably doing the best thing by avoiding us altogether so they don't have to go through the hassle of apologizing for offending when there really is no offense there.

Yes, we should be offended when people promote blatant misconceptions and stereotypes about autistics and when we are insulted we should certainly respond and let others know that we are just as worthy of respect and consideration as NT's, but when people start nitpicking everything to this level I don't see that respect is anything that they will be given and I honestly think that someone with that level of paranoia doesn't deserve to be taken seriously at all.

Maybe they ought to quit striving to have a 'normal' life than and strive for something more realistic that includes their low functioning autistic child/adult being well taken care of if they are unable to do so themselves. Having kids is a gamble you might get a functional workaholic who you can't stop from taking care of themselves even when maybe they do need help but wont admit it or you might get someone who needs support and care their entire life and is unable to hold a job. I think perhaps parents ought to think these things through before having kids and make sure they are ready for any outcome not just the one they want. I won't have kids because while there is the off chance I could have more functional children that would be more successful in life...there is no way I could take care of a baby/todler and if I had a severely autistic child who really did need consistent care throughout life I know i couldn't handle it .

Humans aren't perfect, and sometimes don't know what they can/cannot handle....which means there needs to be a solution for situations when parents are too 'overwhelmed' by a more disabled child....there needs to be an adequate system in place so if parents really cannot care for their children those children still get well cared for rather. In a perfect world a parent would just fix their flaws and make it work and not harm the child....in the real world much of the time children are harmed as they have no where else to go than stay with the parent who cannot care for them so is neglectful or is even abusive.

The quote appeared in another thread:
link

How would that have gone over at an event for multiple sclerosis?