For those who think AS/autism isn't a disability

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The part where it's a bad thing? I don't get that.

I am sick of some aspies and auties here who say "IM NOT DISABLED" YES YOU ARE!! ! and disabilities are a good thing otherwise the world would be a sh***y place of people with no variation in abilitiies... end of story...

NTs are algebraiclly disabled - I can do algebra better than them.

NTs are have a literal language deficit. They tend to ignore some meaningful words, relying instead on their ability to deduce intent and empathize with the speaker on an emotional level. This makes them poorly suited for many tasks that are necessary for our society.

The English speaking people in the world are Spanishistically disabled - Most of the world's population speaks hindi or chinese, therefore the rest of us need to be "rehabilitated". In fact the average american NEVER learns chinese, forget about age 2. No child left behind indeed.


Variation in ability IS key to the advancement of humankind, however I do not see variation in ability to be a disability.

A baseball player likely cannot do the work of an astrophysiscist, or an auto mechanic for that matter - none of those people are "disabled".

Specialization is not disability, specialization is society.

Disabled means that you're unable to do something that an able person can do?

Everyone is disabled in one way or another.

I'd see a lot of NTs as disabled because they can't do things I can do - except that I generally won't try to push a definition of disabled onto anyone.

Disabled, like all the other terms is, in the end, just a label. I don't bother using it, since "aspie" is more appropriate and conveys more info without wasting words.

Actually, that's a good point. If you take the perspective that "disability" means things are more difficult for you than for "normal" people, then yes, left-handedness is a disability. Normal society strongly favors the right hand, and lefties sometimes even have to purchase special equipment to compensate and remove their disadvantage.

By this logic, Aspergers is a disability, since it makes it harder for us to deal with a world built for people whose minds are wired in a particularly different way - sometimes much harder.

But, if we lived and worked in a world where the lightbulbs were quality-tested to detect whether they emit certain frequencies, or clothing listed exactly the amounts of certain fabrics and chemicals it contains or was even marketed specifically to those with sensitivities, or people were taught that some people process info differently (like some are born darker, taller, gayer, or differently engendered) and their particular wiring is best communicated with through certain specific editing and publication standards....

Would we be disabled if society decided not to allow us to be disabled, and made changes in manufacturing, communication, and socialization to make sure we weren't disabled?

Society has made such drastic changes before, albeit gradually. They've changed employment and housing standards so that dark skin no longer disables you from real jobs and excellent homes. They've changed social expectations (for better or worse) so that being female doesn't trap you into only a few acceptable activities, all of which keep you imprisoned at home. They even built special lenses so that nearsighted people are no longer condemned to wander into bogs, or step in cow pies the rest of their accident-prone probably-shorter lives.

I think most working aspies are more "enabled" than most blacks during most of US history. I think a lot of aspies have more potential for enlightened, fulfilling lives than most women had during most of world history. Like other minorities before us, we really aren’t expected to accomplish much, and society doesn’t yet feel compelled to cut us any breaks.

It’s clear to me that this "disabled" thing is more a product of society's expectations and willingness to adapt than it is anything else. We are the way God made us. We haven't been mangled in car accidents. We haven't caught diseases that left us unable to breathe or get down the street without a wheelchair. We aren't damaged goods. We are people who want to do the best we can to live the one life we have with the one body we were given.

I think society can learn to make room for us to do that.

I'm confident that they'll get back whatever it costs them. Look at the bounty brought to so many of our more enlightened societies from the emancipation of race, gender, and sexuality. What wonderful returns are likely when we finally emancipate biology?
So, I can’t afford to buy into the “disabled” label. I refuse to accept that being different from the norm, and unaccommodated by your neighbors, is being “disabled.” And accepting the label condemns me, and my ilk, to expectations of mediocrity and insignificance.

I’m tired of having to wait for an aspie to invent something spectacular in order to gain a little pride in myself.

Theres time I do see it as a disability, and then theres times I see it as another way of thinking. It can be both to tell you the truth. I dont really care how it stops from doing this or that, all i try to focus on is how it makes up who i am, and yes autism has its pros!

Come on ! you are smarter than that.

AS is a developmental disability not a learning disability

Dyslexia is a learning difficulty not a learning disability

howzat: In America, learning disability means things like dyslexia, dyscalculia, etc. It doesn't mean intellectual disability here, so there's no difference here between "learning difficulties" and "learning disabilities". If that's the usage you're objecting to, it's a cross-Atlantic difference, not a misuse.

AS isn't so much technically a disability as a different way of thinking/acting, but it definitely impairs people in many ways - however, it also helps them in certain areas. If you removed necessities put in by society, it still is a disability in many ways - aversions to certain things can definitely be a disability - and an obsessive need to do things a certain way can also not work in the world regardless of socialization. I call it a disability, but one that also has positives, and I wouldn't say it's a marked deficiency like other disabilities - it's a different way of looking at things.

EVERYONE is disabled in some way. Left Handed people ARE disabled in a way! They CAN'T easily play sports with "regular"(aka NORMAL) equipment! HECK, they even have trouble with pencils and scissors! There brains are supposedly wired differently! My appologies to lefties, but they ARE true! GRANTED, it is just a DIFFERENCE, and there ARE things made for lefties. HECK, right handed people are probably at a disadvantage with hebrew, arabic, etc...

BTW That wasn't yelling, but emphasizing. You made a LOT of good points, and are RIGHT! AS CAN cause problems, but it also has benefits.

Yes, as I have written on WP before, a lot of people say that they do not want to be "cured" of their Asperger's autism, and that Asperger's is not a disability. The second statement misses the context of the anti-cure movement.

The entire concept of not wanting to be cured comes from the involvement of many aspies with the disability rights community. More particularly, it is related to the social model of disability, which is intimately connected with the liberation movements in various disabled communities, including autistics, the deaf, the intersexed, and former psychiatric patients.

Asserting that one does not want to be cured is one of the main positions of the social model of disability. However, when some of those same aspies then say they are not disabled, it appears to reflect a lack of knowledge of the history of the autism rights movement.

See this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_model_of_disability

No condition (at least none that I know of) is formally called a disability. The concept of disability used by many in the autism rights movement, including the quotation you provided from Attwood, is rooted in the social model of disability.

But thinking and acting are voluntary, and AS is not. Yes, people with AS can learn to handle their social troubles, but it is something they were born with and have no control over possessing. AS is not a choice, therefore it's not a "way" of thinking or being.

I personally believe all types of autism, AS included, are disabilities. Socializing with others is one of the most important, if not the most important, ability on a planet with billions of people. Every day you will come in contact with another human being in some way or another, and if you cannot or do not want to deal with them, you are disabled.

I think it's important to note that when people say Aspies/autistics are disabled, they do not mean in every possible way - just in a few. Just because someone is disabled in one way doesn't necessarily make them disabled in another.

I agree that it's a disability in practice, but I feel like the nature of it is not necessarily a disability - forced to live in nature by ourselves, an aspie or dyslexic would probably do around the same as any other person - someone who was blind, paralyzed, or mentally ret*d person would not. But in the society we've built, people with AS are both greatly disabled and at times greatly gifted. As for thinking being voluntary - what I meant was, regular people are born with a method of thinking in which they enjoy people, have less obsessions, more intuition for how society works, probably less emphasis on logic, etc....this can be modified, but this is how most people's brains work. AS people are built with brains that are bothered and delighted by different things, and tend to emphasize logic over socialization (I'm generalizing here) - neither set of traits is a choice, but both can be modified. That's why I argue that an autistic person is not so much a 'defective' person so much as a person who has opposite strengths, weaknesses, likes, and dislikes, versus a limiting and only harmful physical problem or mental problem that is simply defective.

aspergers is a disability to some,am have been through an ld institution and several residential homes all with aspies in them,
the social impairment being the least of anyones issues there.

There are ASDers who are not disabled as they have been hf enough to be able to adapt to NT like standards.
Am think the problem is when some 'difference and not disability' believers try forcing it on everyone else on the spectrum.
they demand AS [and even more ignorantly,autism/PDDNOS] be removed from the diagnostic manuals because it's 'only a difference', not everyone has the lucky version of AS or autism and are significantly impaired enough/disabled,for those whos' autism or aspergers requires support,the fact they are classed as disabilities is what gets the support,without them,those who need help will suffer,and some would die.