I have been thinking

Post Reply New Topic

There is Autism Speaks and CAN and doctors are trying to find a cure to it but how do we know they mean all autism, not just the full blown part? You know some autistics who are so trapped in their minds they are not like us, we are more high functioning than them and stuff and they aren't.

I have been thinking maybe they want to get rid of the worse autism, not aspies or people on the spectrum who are living normal lives and can communicate with people. Doesn't matter if they have to use a machine to type to talk or use sign language etc. Look at Temple, would they cure her, I doubt it. She is doing fine and she is very independant and successful and she can talk and she acts normal.


I think lot of non autistics see aspies and autism both different disabilities because AS is a lot milder than autism even though they know it's a form of it and on the spectrum. So when they say autism, they mean full blown autism? not AS.

If they see someome with autism who can talk and communicate, would they want to cure that person too? Maybe not.

Have we ever asked on those forums what do they mean by cure autism? All of it or just the worst of it? Do they mean they want to cure AS too? I am now thinking I should register over there and start asking and see what people say. Maybe start sending messages to the curbies and ask them to define cure autism and see if they mean the worst part or the spectrum.

When they say autism, yes they are generally referring to LFA. I don't really think that excuses them. There are several LFA's (such as Amanda Baggs) that have protested against the idea of a cure. Forcibly changing anyone who isn't a genuine threat to society is wrong, from my viewpoint.

There's a lot of Aspie arrogance towards our "lower-functioning" cousins on this site. (which is to be expected, this is primarily an AS forum) I think we tend to look on LFA without considering the same objections we raise to NT perceptions of ourselves.

So why are the HFA's taking it so personal and aspies too if they aren't even talking about them?

Because we often assume that they are talking about us. I identify as "autistic." If someone disparages autistic people in general, I will take offense, even if I know they are referring to LFA.

My comment about Aspie condescension toward LFA was more directed to your claim that, while Aspies are fine how we are and should be accepted with our quirks, LFAs need to be fixed.

In addition to what Orwell said, it seems to me that these charities want to have it both ways. They're happy to incorporate all spectrum diagnoses into their scare statistics (1 in 150 children...), but then they insist they're only talking about "full-blown" autism, which is clearly a subjective category, like all others. If you're defining "full-blown autism" as nonverbal, then most autistics aren't in this category. If you're defining it as "unable to communicate in manner understood by others," then you're definitely not talking about most autistics. That's not what many pro-cure people think, though. There are parents of verbal and/or "AS" kids who want a cure, perhaps quite badly. "AS" kids sometimes get put on dangerous chelation nonsense. There are people with so-called "LFA" who don't, and parents with "LFA" kids who are not really cure-focused. The fact that this theoretical cure would presumably be imposed on minors (and people thought to be incompetent) without consent is very salient.

I've questioned the 1 in 150 number in the past... I have however read from a curebie site (don't remember where now) that the 1 in 150 was only "severe" or LFA, not AS or HFA or PDD-NOS. Somehow I doubt that, as I've never seen ANY good studies on the prevalence of autism, but just random numbers thrown around... Really, because of irregularities in awareness and diagnosis, it is currently impossible to have any reasonable estimate of how common autism, of any form, really is. There was one fairly well-done study I read of, in Sweden I think, but that's Scandinavia and it's impossible to extrapolate from there to the rest of the world because of Scandinavia's genetic history.

one way or another they will have to use force to cure me

Honestly I think aspies are just more trying to help out the more severely affected ones, as some don't want a cure.
Sometimes i have trouble empathizing, but i do it fine with other autistics.

I think a lot of the parents may accept and understand that aspies and autistics like amanda baggs do not want to be cured. I think their views are articulated particularly clearly in the 2nd comment here:

http://www.topix.net/forum/source/chica ... 9KDT792MHF

let's hope so... because I don't want to be cured either. I just hope they don't try something stupid like amdatory administration of the "cure". If they try to cure me by force, it will be over my dead body, along with the corpses of anyone that gets in the way.