Daily Beast article "They Don’t Want an Autism Cure"

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... -cure.html

A great article, but people may want to avoid the comments. I made the mistake of checking them the other day and there was some terrible ableism.

I agree on the comments. It's important to keep in mind that the concensus of online anonymous commenters rarely represents the general public.

I wish that study they mentioned was publicly available.

I like the social model and its inclusiveness.

I was about to start arguing with some of the commenters who weren't blatant trolls, but then I realized it wasn't worth creating an account to argue with those people.

I don't get what the problem is with autistic people.

Some people say that it is the highly functioning autistics that don't want the cure. But I have far far far fewer problems with lower functioning autistics than high functioning autistics. I've encountered people who I believed to be lower-functioning autistic. Very quiet, very reserved, very very non-threatening. Very honest.

I actually think it's sometimes the higher-function autistics that need the most help, because they appear so normal to everyone else.

I don't get any of this. Treat the symptoms. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

There is mass non recognition and mis or non diagnosis for more "normal" appearing autistics. That is very damaging. But the more obvious get 40-60 hours a week of Applied Behavioral Analysis to make them as "normal" as possible. While it might get the short to medium term results normal people want I can not help but believe long term damage is very bad for many.

It wouldn't let me make an account, I guess that site is not compatible with the chrome browser, but in retrospect it would have been a waste of time to make an account just to argue with some of the ignorant people there.

From the article: “We’re big supporters of speech therapy or occupational therapy, where the focus is on supporting someone to gain skills or find accommodations,” said Bascom. “ABA therapy is another story; the stated end goal of ABA is for the autistic child to become ‘indistinguishable from their peers,’ and we just don’t think that’s an ethical goal. Would we be able to justify that for any other child?”

I agree that it's unethical to change a child from autistic to "normal" using behavioral therapy and then not telling the child that he was autistic.

I agree with the above comment.

I've watched some videos on lower-functioning autistic kids with severe meltdowns and I have to admit that must be pretty taxing for the parents to deal with. I never experienced anything that severe as a child so I have sympathy.

I was watching this one video and they locked the child in the room and left to let them deal with the meltdown on their own. I interpreted this as a tad sadistic. I imagine the kid probably interpreted it that way as well.

Another video I watched, there was this dog in the area, and I kept thinking that dog must be driving the kid crazy. As a kid I absolutely hated dogs because they always wanted to lick me and chase me around and bark at me. I was afraid of them, but let's say you have a child who can't communicate this. The parents are inadvertently harming the child by thinking the dog will calm them down when it just my aggravate them further.

I'm rambling. I'm fine with speech therapists, social skills "training" etc. But I don't agree with the idea of spending countless hours every week to try to get the kid to act just like everyone else.

Also, sometimes I see parents rocking their baby, thinking it will calm them down. It's funny though because the baby just cries more... and the parent's don't realize. This applies to all babies. You have to base your behavior on how it is affecting the kid, not based on what you think will help.

I think therapy of any kind and treatments and, yes, talk of cures should be directed towards the concept of improving the quality of life of autistic kids and adults. Once the language of the topic moves towards making them more accepted as normal people, then it becomes a gigantic issue. Therapies, treatments and cures should be about getting autistic kids and adults in a position where they can function independently, learn how to relate to other people on a fundamental level and perform to the best of their abilities in school and work. And for the severe cases, it becomes critical to work on eliminating the seizures, self harm tendencies, violent outbursts and inability to communicate at all in order to improve the basic quality of life for them and the people around them.

That said, I think among the autistics who "don't want a cure". plenty of them would be totally open to the ideas of cures, therapies and treatments that would alleviate them of all the agonizing symptoms that go with autism. I think many of them have become completely alienated by waves of promised solutions with no basis behind them with the intent of trying to make them "normal" humans. The often fraudulent practices behind these proposed solutions and the malicious intent behind them, I think, has led many autistics who really do want a cure to instead shift their attention on figuring out how to embrace autism including the symptoms they wish they didn't have.

I did a poll about this in the Fall of 2013. Unscientific as it was opinion was split between "I would do anything for a cure" to "no way no how". There was a subgroup of us, me included open to "curing" one or more elements most particularly Executive Functioning deficits. That being said people who does not want a cure blames some of their difficulties in life on negative value judgments of society to traits that they feel are positive, or just a part of who they are who they are.
I have not seen any evidence of reasons you discuss conscious or subconsciously. Of course I am not a mind reader but while I am sure the motivation to embrace autism you think involves many exists I doubt it is widespread.

In my opinion the motivation for fraudulent practices besides money is desperation to make us neurotypical.

I like the social model a lot. I feel that it's much better than the medical model.

Plus, even with ABA, the kid's not going to stop being autistic. He'll just get better at hiding it. Loud noises will still make him want to scream or stim or rock; it's just that with ABA, he'll have been trained to be cut off from his natural coping mechanisms and "look normal".

on both sides of the arguement , All the same old cliches

i more or less support neurodiversity

I appreciate your use of "more or less" there. That works for me, too.