This is probably not a big deal but I am sick of the use of oversimplified negative characteristics to identify Autism.
Today on BBC national News 10th March 2014 1455hrs there was a segment on a company making robots for use as educational aids. The angle of the piece was that children with impairments like Autism were benefiting greatly from this interaction with a glorified toy.
They described what autism is for the benefit of the Audience, they explained that Autistic Children are extremely frustrated because they cannot even tell the difference between when a person is happy or angry and this makes it difficult and unpleasant for them to interact with others.
I wont deny that it is common for us to have some social difficulties, but I think this massively simplifies the issue, and is plain wrong as often as it is correct.
The next part is worse though. They said that the children adore the robots because they have extremely simple repetitive behaviour.
Personally, I found this part extremely offensive. Its just as bad as picking a racial/ethnic group and picking some of the worst negative false stereotypes and speaking of them like clinical facts.
Well I am going to complain, and if a few others due maybe we can coax an apology out of them and make them reconsider using negative stereotypes for Autistic people in the future.
10 Mar 2014, 10:02 pm
