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Bloodheart
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16 May 2011, 6:53 pm

Can anyone point me in the direction of a site/page that explains in very basic terms why [some] autistic people are against Autism Speaks?


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TheBicyclingGuitarist
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16 May 2011, 7:12 pm

I did a quick search of the WP forums, and in one of the threads I found
notautismspeaks.tk.

In a nutshell, from what I've gathered, some of the main objections to Autism Speaks are that they demonize autism, don't have anyone on their board of directors who actually has autism, spend their money on salaries for their bosses and on genetic research instead of on trying to help people who already have autism, and generally seem to be trying to eliminate autism instead of recognizing that there can be some benefits to society from autistic individuals.

Autism Speaks makes autism seem worse than cancer or AIDS, and they imply that parents of autistic children would kill themselves if they didn't have non-autistic children to take care of.

As others have pointed out though, there has been some softening of Autism Speaks the past couple years. Perhaps they ARE listening to the voices of the autistic community more than they used to, and if so, then it might be best to work with them instead of trying to destroy them. I am not an expert on this subject. I have seen some of the videos of Autism Speaks, and it seems to me they do go way too far in demonizing Autism.


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aspie48
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