What's wrong with a cure?

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What is so bad about a cure? I mean people with low functioning Autism really could benefit from a cure. I know this guy with classic autism who does not access to language meaning he can only say basic words and phrases. He is more intelligent than people often give him credit for. And his mom probably dreams of one days having a full conversation with her son. This isn't going to happen if there is no cure. What about people who have severe problems?

You know why I think people with HFA don't want a cure? Because they think a cure insults who they are. They think that a cure is like telling someone they're worthless and you must change. Listen you can complain about not needing help but you do. Everybody needs help in some degree. If you sit on your ass all day on the computer or playing video games and not doing anything with your life because you refuse to receive any help or any kind of assistance to do something better with your life, you're wasting your life away. For some of you, this is reality. Well i'm here to tell you that in life you need ambition to get things done. If you don't have a job, then go apply for some. Don't drive, then get a license. You arne't going to get no where in life if you don't do these things because someday, mommy and daddy won't be around telling you what to do and if something happens to them, you're totally screwed.

Listen Aspergers does make you unique. It makes you a special person and gives you a unique perspective but how can you reach your potential if you're 25 and can't even live independently and without a job? I know this. Look at the umemployment rate for people with Autism. It's pathetic because I know you all can do better than that. If your parents arne't encouraging you to do something better with your life, first off they're bad parents, and second of all, it needs to be you to tell yourself that you need to set goals to better yourself in life.

People with Aspergers don't need a cure. But they do need help. We all do. We all need someone to guide us to be successful in this world. So don't be afraid to receive autism assistance or help. Simply going to a cooking class is good enough.


alright im done with epic speech.

Not every perspective that you disagree with is trolling.

I'm new here, but i'l try to answer from my point of view. (This might be long)

Autism is such a wide spectrum, it includes a wide range of people all with their specific perks, problems & personalities.
While i agree in this current world autism is generaly seen as a problem, even a disability in some cases.
It's much more than just that, it's a way of thinking. A different perspective on a world, that arguably often disagrees with the norm. But still it's part of what defines people, who they are and what they stand for.

This means that the idea of 'curing autism' can be offensive to people, it's basicaly saying an important part of their identiy is wrong and should be fixed.
Instead of this treat each person as an individual, with their own problems regardless if they are linked to autism or not.
Get to the root of their specific problems, and treat those instead.
Either with treatment, or the right encouragement.


I'd also like to adress this second point :

People have the right to choose their path in life, and it's condescending to tell them they need to do this or that just because it's what people 'should' do.
Of course i'l agree certain things in life are hard to do without, and it is a shame whenever people do not reach their potential.
Now i'm sure you mean well, but saying they should just get over their problems and do something is not helpfull.
People are already on here to find people that better understand their problems, they already took the first step to find help.
A better way would be to offer guidance and support from our own experience when people ask for help towards a specific goal.

At this point AS has become such a large part of my life that I wouldn't want a cure even if one was offered.

Autism is woven into the very structure of our brains. You can't remove autism without removing the person and replacing them with a different, NT person. Treatment is great, and I hope we get better at treating severe symptoms of autism like being nonverbal. But a cure cannot exist except by effectively killing and replacing us with different people.

What i'm trying to say is that if you feel like you're not doing anything with your life, then it is up to you to do something about it. If you're 25 and live with your parents, have no job, don't have a license and you're high functioning, you need to do something with your life. I know that sounds harsh but sometimes we need to know the cold-hard truth. Because I know that you need to have ambition to get anywhere in this world and I know that getting things done makes you feel better about yourself. Go apply for jobs on your own, go get a license etc...

Yes you are a unique person who has ways to contribute to the world but I also know that for many of you, executive functioning is hard. You don't need a cure to help with this. It just takes some ambition and help from other people. That's why you shoudn't be afraid or ashamed to receive help because we all need it. But you also have to step up, and do things on your own as well or else someday when mom and dad aren't around, you're going to be screwed.

You will eventually feel depressed and have low self-esteem if you just sit in your room all day playing video games and not taking the effort to improve yourself.

Your post reminds me of this image showing what it would be like if physical illness were treated like mental illness. I think it is something you may want to consider.

I am supposedly HFA and I cannot say those are nessiarily my reasons for being uncomfortable with the idea of a 'cure'. Anyways, can the person in your example type? I have heard a lot of low functioning autistic's can communicate more fluently that way, I think there are even a couple on this site. Also how do they feel about a cure?

Also how would they come up with a cure that is not very dangerous...since it is a complex difference in neurology, the only fathomable fixes I can think of would be very dangerous. They'd either have to figure out a way to surgically re-wire the neurology, or chemically(but there are a number of things that could go wrong with that). Just does not seem a full on cure that makes autistic people neurotypical is realistic....Seems like finding ways to accomodate/help people with autism and medications/treatments for specific problems related to it to help them function better.

Also I end up sitting on my a** a lot, though I get plenty of walking in since I don't drive and have to walk/take buses, I do not drive because my anxiety and sensory issues would make it dangerous I could cause an accident if I get overwhelmed all the chaos, or loud honking so better I avoid that...and I am in therapy and getting help...spending a fairly large amount of time on computer/video games is not an indicator that one is not getting any help. Also I don't have a job because I am disabled by my HFA as well as some other co-morbid condition...so going and getting a job is not a realistic option right now, maybe eventually.

I do live with my mom though looking into subsidized housing but 'mommy and daddy' do not tell me what to do...both parents still give advice/suggestions but I am 25 so I make my own choices. Also how do you know what anyone here's potential is....you just like to lecture obviously it is more of a lecture than an epic speech. I attempted to go to college and ended up having to drop out twice as it was too much stress, I have also tried working and failed due to the various conditions I have...So I finally did the responsible thing for my situation and got on SSI, so now I can focus on mental health and try and improve it so I can function better I may be able to come off SSI and I might not...but I don't need someone over the internet to tell me how pathetic it is for a 25 year old not to have a job or their own place yet again Just because you think people with aspergers can all hold a job....there done with rebuttal lecture.

I have felt depressed and had low self esteem since I was 10 or younger and I didn't play video/computer games as a kid expect for rare occasio

I would love to drive but my motor coordination difficulties mean I would hit things and people. The inability to drive means it takes me 2 hours to get to places that it takes others 15 minutes to. It also means even though I might be willing to commute two hours to get to a job but when you have to rely on three buses coordinating with each to be on time. That don't happen thus many locations I could not reliably get to so many jobs are just out of reach. Of course many jobs are out of reach because we don't have the social skills to the interview or to deal with the jobs. For some of the higher functioning can learn. By now you probably have me pegged as some sort of excuse making whiner.

This excuse making whiner with the exception of driving worked in the same jobs 7 , 8 years at a time despite commuting 1 1/2 hours to work. This whiner with regularly did a lot of overtime both to finish the job others did on time. This whiner did try and mask and copy but it can only go so far and had to show "attitude" to make up for the lack of social skills that masking and copying could not hide. When the jobs started to require more social skills and long periods of unemployment stated happening this lazy bum followed all the “NT” job advice, look em in the eye , call everybody he sent a resume to and got nowhere and the years went by. Finally he just reacted in a similar way a machine does when running with too high a voltage for to long he burnt out and very much resembled a lazy bum. Hard way to learn the just do it and try harder advice while might work in the short and mid term is a long term recipe for disaster.

Thing is, as I looked around for help I did not find much and what I did find was more of the be as NT as you can road that led me to me to resemble a walking zombie, existing but not living. Yeah I have accepted help called Vocational Rehab it is one size fits all be as NT as you can be. This is not some character test , I need the damm money. But I am going to pace my self even if that means being a lazy bum for a time. because not going back to full on Autistic burnout is more important then getting and keeping a job.

As far as the the LFA instead of curing him or her and making them NT why not as with the blind and deaf find a way to have them communicate with the NT world. Do this not only for the LFA but that the be it 1 or 2 people or the whole world benefits from abilities unlocked.

The problem with a "cure" is not enough is known about the human brain to enact such a thing. The "cures" that are out there are based on psuedoscience that are used to trick desperate mothers into thinking they can do something to cure autism. There is no cure for autism and in several years, there hasn't been the slightest step forward in finding one. The best we can, and should do, is use the resources available to make the lives of autistic folk better and hopefully improve sensory issues and improve one's ability to communicate.


I find a cure offensive because the ideas that organizations have come up with cures are offensive. All the progress that's made is genetic research, how in the hell is that going to help me? Prenatal testing for autism and abortions is their idea of a cure? Well, thanks, but I'm 24 and autistic, that helps me zero.

Staying at home playing video games all day isn't unique to any neurodiverse community, my brother has no diagnosis or any obvious nor suspected mental disability and he's a mall cop.. so, with that said, I think I can say from experience that lazy shaming other people has never worked, and never will work.



Wait, at the beginning of your post, you mentioned a cure could benefit the autism community..?

It kind of does make me think you're just out to bash autism, but okay. You're entitled to an opinion I suppose.

I talk about this here

http://www.savagelightstudios.com/warpedlens/?p=99

I am pretty anti-cure. The way to improve the world is not to make everyone more "normal". And the idea of aborting a child just because they are autistic is disgusting.

Where it gets more complicated is with more low-functioning people with limited verbal skills. Maybe they dream of being able to communicate their thoughts and feelings, but can't.

I think this is a better idea than a cure. What methods of communication do you think might work? Hopefully someday we will find a method that works for everybody.

I would support a so-called cure for those individuals who: 1) choose to receive such a "cure" and 2) exhibit a necessity for such a "cure" (such as when their ongoing characteristics preclude one or more major life functions; working, studying, communicating etc.). But, the idea of a "cure" is akin to angels, pinheads and such. My opinion might change somewhat if and when a cure is available.

A cure would be good... but as always technology can be applied in ways that can be considered evil. The "cure" for autism will probably have tons of people wanting to use the technology in ways I consider distasteful or evil.

All the research currently being done is genetic. They may find the genetic cause for our condition, and if they developed prenatal testing, there will be a large cultural push to have us eradicated, but they'll use nicer words. Many young mothers will be pressured by family and friends to have an autistic fetus aborted. The mother will often be given a onesided and antiautistic information in which will often result in abortion.
The world in general has a terrible mental health system. Some countries, such as America, have the ability to actually solve most of those problems, yet those programs in the system are often the first ones up on the budget chopping block.
People, in general, are distrustful, fearful, ignorant, and generally are not friendly towards differences. People choose people who are comfortable to be around and will often stay away from those who make them feel uncomfortable even if it causes an overall negative impact on the environment whether it be a job, a friendship, or an associate. I wouldn't be surprised based on the current culture that a prenatal genetic test may lead to it to be politically incorrect to claim that a mother shouldn't abort an autistic fetus on that basis alone and that the culture will likely claim that anyone who thinks that the literature on the subject is antiautistic is an ignorant crank.
This phenomena already causes many people on this forum a lot of trouble, the trouble they'll receive will likely get worse with a genetic test... not to mention a cure.
Here is how a mere genetic test will likely make things worse:
1. The genetic test will become required for any support and the test might not be cheap, nor is there any stipulated requirement of genetic testing being given to those with the diagnosis. A radical turn from a purely psychiatric diagnosis to a pure physical/medical diagnosis, would upset the status quo significantly and likely cause problems. And I doubt there will be gradual change.
2. The genetic test may be forced and may become a platform for increased discrimination from employers, medical services, and Additionally, some people with the current official diagnosis may lose their identities and their support they need over it, and may find it difficult to get the right diagnosis on account of losing credibility.
3. If someone has been genetically tested, they may find it required to be declared on legal forms or else voiding the terms of service by various groups, this would especially apply to consent form. Could the genetic test be used to void consent? Yes, it could if the legal framework isn't in place. (Or for a less likely legal problem: If someone with a bad heart goes on a roller coaster after signing a consent form and something happens, then the owner of the roller coaster can push the blame off to the signer. There could easily be things in the fine print that discriminate and this could be caused by the paradigm shift away from the psychiatric to the physical/medical.)
4. A large rise of divorce rates cause autism to be far rarer than what would be natural for a population and cause a loss of biodiversity in the human species.
5. Since one of evolution's tools is population isolation, where a certain species is divided by traits into isolated populations and then evolve into two or more similar species thus creating an evolutionary branch... and if genetic
millions of years from now, out in the stars we may miss out on a great new species made by autistic seperationists. I am not advocating the idea that autism is the next stage of evolution, that is unscientific. What I am saying is that in the far future humans will likely evolve into a variety of species based on space colonization and we may lose out on one potential variety in the post-human galaxy.

There are of course many benefits that could be reaped from a genetic test, but I don't think I need to explain that. I just don't think that it will turn out that way and the malevolent side is looming.

Then, if a cure were discovered, we'd find that the discrimination would get worse.
The cure would probably be forced in many countries... probably including France. A cure is so much more comfortable than accepting people for their differences. It is easier to change someone than to accept them for what they are... especially when you've created a world where they can't easily sustain themselves... and grudgingly push a little of the budget their way and shove them under the rug and out of sight.

In America, they'll probably enact some kind of economic sanction against anyone who doesn't get cured. In other words, they would cut off all services to anyone who doesn't get cured. And quite a few don't want to be cured and need those services.

Not only that but the cure would probably be mentally invasive, you've grown up with the mind you have and we don't know how your mind would change if cured. Who will you be? Will you be able to recognize yourself? What if you don't like the new you? Maybe you might find that being NT isn't all that great? There would be no going back to being autistic... not without a cure for Neurotypicality, and trust me there isn't going to be any budget for that. It actually wouldn't be too difficult to change back to an autistic, but it would require you to spend a whole lot of money to have your old DNA preserved and placed in a carrier virus to put you back and there wouldn't be a guarantee of success. The autistic reverse-cure would be customized cure that would cost hundreds of thousands at the very least.
The cure would be a one way street.

Additionally, for those of us who are severely autistic and just want to be better functioning, would the cure be able to make them high functioning or maybe just turn neurotypical? Maybe they would like to stay autistic, but just make it easier to function. The cure won't have dial that where you can find the right setting for you.
In genetics everything is balanced for every positive you get from your genes, you have a negative. Overall the population is balanced. Some people have more genetic positives, some have less. But even at the individual level many genes grant both a positive and a negative. A gene that greatly increases the chances of sickle cell anemia causes a significant resistance to malaria. Survival in the area of the world where the gene originates is greatly enhanced by the gene and survival has caused the gene to thrive as a beneficial trait. It's balanced. Edges come with hinderances. Additionally a wide variety of possible edges and hindrances are beneficial to a population as a whole. What if we managed to cure the sickle cell gene and then malaria mutated to be a far more resilient and efficient killer? The chances of human survival increase with diversity. Malaria already is a deadly killer in many places in the world by the way. Autism isn't quantifiable as a genetic mutation, it is spread across the length of the human genome. It is probably one of the most complicated genetic problems currently being researched and dozens of genes are known to be involved with hundreds suspected. Autism covers a large portion of human biodiversity.

Finally, the search for a cure may take decades or even centuries and may prove fruitless. It isn't currently helping anyone.

We can either spend our money trying to attempt to make society a better place for us (and others) and on creating support, on more attainable remedies for some of the physical symptoms and communication methods... and on fixing our extremely broken and breaking mental health system.
Or we can spend it on a theoretical cure for something that may actually be an integral part of the humane genome.

Either way, we've got hate groups spending money to make a "cure" and I call them hate groups because they crap out propaganda to raise money and damage the chances of the cure being used for our benefit by giving us bad light in culture.

I think the first path should be emphasized because it reaches the roots of some of society's problems. The second path is the path of leveling (in the philosophical definition of the world.)