Aspergers awareness documentry research/advice

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Hi

I'm producing a documentry about AS for a college media project and I'd like to get your views/knowledge on a couple of issues:

1. What are the common misconceptions around Aspergers Syndrome, especialy regarding how you "catch it". For expample, the whole Autism Speaks 'mercury injection' type theories.

2. Do you find it confusing and prehaps even annoying how many people with AS are so different from eachother; yet at the same time you don't want to be stereotyped or labelled?

The first question is the most important, since I'm going to be making a section that covers the misconceptions/fears around AS, and how it is/isn't caused.

Thanks very much for any help.

If there are any other things you'd like to see in a documentry about AS, you're welcome to say.

Be sure to read Tony Attwood's book, The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome - that should set you straight on the facts.

1. You "catch" AS through your parents' genes. I think the fact that the characteristics don't usually show up until early childhood confuses a lot of parents & they start looking for "reasons."

2. I don't understand your second question - why would anyone want to be stereotyped/labeled? Why would it be annoying/confusing to people on the spectrum that we are different from one another (it is a spectrum, after all)? Just because I don't share every characteristic of AS with everyone else on the spectrum doesn't mean that I don't share a lot of the same experiences.

Personally, I think the whole idea of the mercury/vaccine link to AS is boring - there doesn't seem to be any scientific support for it. There is, however, lot's of scientific support for the genetic basis of autistic spectrum disorders.

I would much rather see a documentary about how adults & teens on the spectrum are fighting for acceptance/understanding - on the job, in the educational system & within society.

Thanks, and yea the 'awareness' documentary is trying to get more acceptance by trying to bust the myths around it. My college is a national pioneer of being supportive whilst respectfull to students with AS despite it not being a 'normal' educational establishment. Just that where people do know, it's great and students with AS have been doing public talks on the issue for a while now.

As for question#2, that was more of a personal one which I think I'll make a seperate thread about.

I had a journalist ask me a couple of questions that reflected how other people perceive autism. One question made me feel like a poster child invited to a pity-party, and the other one was about "what are the myths", and yet I think his intentions were good. I chose to write a piece for him but instead of talking about the things he suggested I wrote about accessibility: the "ramps" we need to participate equally in society. I think it was a take on autism he hadn't even thought of.

My impression is that how other people talk about autism is different from how we talk about it, and that in itself may be interesting to cover. After all, once we get past the initial "what the heck is this" phase, we then have to get on with our lives, and there can be practical obstacles as well as social misunderstandings that interfere with that.

I would actually be more interested in seeing more about what we're like when we're not being poster children. Who do we want to be when we grow up and what gets in the way?

Anenome, I'm curious about what sort of "ramps" you're thinking of.

If somebody with a lot of influence was genuinely committed to making my life better, I'm not sure what I could think of to suggest, other than changing human nature, which I don't think is an option.

Not saying there isn't anything that could be done. I'm just not sure what.

For question 2: It doesn't annoy me that everyone's so different. At first it was confusing. So far I haven't been stereotyped much; most people don't even know the stereotypes!

As for "ramps", the NAS has some useful guidelines; for example:

http://www.nas.org.uk/content/1/c4/39/26/takeresp.pdf

Where I live, a lot of essential services (government offices, police) are available over the phone and sometimes in person, but not by email. This means that a lot of time it's too hard for me to ask for help in the first place, since I find talking on the phone too hard most of the time. So if email were equally available that would help. That's one e.g.

That definitely would help. I find that when I'm talking on the phone to people, I get the same response I get in person, not too good, guess it's my voice tones not being right or something.

But when I'm typing text, people can't tell what a doorknob I am. Well, a lot of people can't tell at least.