Why does autism have such a stigma to it?

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Down Syndrome seems to have less of a stigma as austim does even though it usualy goes hand in hand with mental retardation, heart defects and a low life span. Autism dosen't usualy have any physical conditions with it and oftentimes those "afflicted" are on genius level if given the chance. But autism has more of a negetive stigma assoaicated with it. You never hear about a woman killing herself because her child has Down Syndrome (or at least I haven't), there isn't a big ruckus in the media to cure Down Syndrome. Yet it is autism that has the stigma. I've always figured it might have something to do with how sweet and friendly people with Down Syndrome are and how aloof and standoffish an autistic people usualy is but then NT's have a weird way of looking at the world.

Yep, you guessed right... it is the social skills thing.


I wouldn't trade my mildly autistic bf for anyone else tho. People with autism can be very, naturally sweet too.

I think the stories in the newspapers don't help at all, things like autistic man murders girl or those kinds of things.

Nearly everything you see in the news about autistic people is about something bad, though occasionally you get something more positive like autistic artist paints landscape from memory, though this again has the implication that somehow we are unusual as in freak.

Well, just thinking on it, people (90+% of NTs) do see things as black and white. If there is nothing wrong, you must be normal. If you've got a mental problem, you must be a ret*d . . . yet here are the autists, we're not ret*d, yet our brains are structured differently. That or society has this thing against, you know, people thinking outside their box . . . there's such a stigma about us because we dont follow any one trend that they can understand. Their logic is emotional, ours is quantitative; they look to metaphors for answers, we seek fact. They seem to suffer escapism, yet we cant understand why they wont face the problems they have/make. Its more of a culture clash between two genetically similar, yet neurally, different people . . . wait, this pattern has been seen in history before . . . >.>

This may be a horrible thing to point out, but the majority of foetuses screened with Down's are terminated (in the UK at any rate).

It's because people think we're all monsters who can't talk and can't be of any benefit to them... Then they'll log into their Windows computer. Funny.

I think it's mostly because people fear what they don't understand, so they act out to make themselves feel better. It's just awful though when my own family doesn't want to understand or accept me for who I am; they always want me to change and I'm 32 years old.

It's because people are uncomfortable with people who deviate from any of the norms that they like to force on everybody. They want to turn us into clones who are indistinguishable from our same-aged peers.

I agree witheveryone and I also want to add

Alot of the negitive stimga we have Autism speaks to thank for it.
In the past they have done things that have caused this. However I will admit I am impressed that latly they HAVE been making changes for the better even if it is very small ones

the child on thier page is now smiling he isn't upset looking
and most pleasing they now offer family services and help provide for treatments. - I am not sure if the services are free though I need to take a better look but it seems they are tryiong

thier comercails are starting to improve too I think the reaction everyone had to I AM Autism opened the figurative eyes of autism speaks and then they realized they needed to make changes and fast because support was RUNNING away from them

I think one reason could be that too many influential people and groups have stigmatized, and therefore stereotyped, autistic people so much and so often through the years that unfortunately much of society believes that autistic individuals not only are bad news and in need of a cure but also are a burden and an egg-on-the-face to the families they live with.

Perhaps because we're (Or most of us are) too close to normal. People would look on you as a horrible person if you spoke ill of a downs kid. But since autistics can be functioning in society and school, the kids will yell "ret*d!" from across the playground.

Also, Autism Speaks wants to kill us all. To Hell with them.

They're not listening to us; they're worried about their image. Their goals remain the same.