The New Autism

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The New Autism

http://www.wired.com/services/press/2008/march

The New Autism

Traditional science holds that people with severe autism are prisoners in their own minds, severely disabled, and probably mentally ret*d. Don't tell that to Amanda Baggs, an autistic woman who achieved viral fame with her YouTube video "In My Language," which has so far received more than 350,000 hits. Wired contributor David Wolman gets inside the life that Baggs has created for herself, which includes blogging, hanging out in Second Life, corresponding with her friends, and a "constant conversation" with the world around her. Wolman's conclusion: Much of past research about autism and intelligence is catastrophically flawed:
http://www.wired.com/images/press/pdf/autism.pdf

That is a really awesome article.

Thanks for sharing this revealing article.

"Much of past research about autism and intelligence is catastrophically flawed"

How do we get that message out there?

Yes, thank you.

Very, very good article.

“We label them as ret*d because they can’t express what they know.”

Precisely!

With, of course, the corollary that maybe they are indeed expressing what they know, but their language of that articulate expression isn't yet known by others. When early explorers traveled to foreign countries and discovered the people they met spoke a strange language, they didn't assume, "Well, they're stupid." That would make the explorers stupid!

I just wish more of these "leading autism experts" would take a moment to have a revelation, and realize how stupid they are acting regarding their subject of study.

The "If he can't express it, he's not thinking it" idea is the same logic as "If a tree falls in the forest, and no one's around to hear it, it can't make a sound." Hardly scientific reasoning.

“There’s such a variety of human behavior. Why is my kind wrong?” she asks.

That's how I think about AS. How many emotionally-based bizarre NT social behaviors are accepted in society as totally normal, while logic-based AS behaviors are looked down upon? I'm an Aspie, but NTs I see in public often act ret*d to me. The behaviors I'm referring to are so common that they're clichés -- but that doesn't make them any less ret*d.

To visualize what I mean, imagine a society of all Aspies. Then imagine an NT suddenly showing up, and trying to mingle with them. Who would stick out to the crowd as being awkward and acting quite strange indeed? The Aspies would probably think the NT was brain-damaged. There were some Twilight Zones that seemed to be about this, even though Serling couldn't have possibly known of "Asperger's" by name. He wrote stories about wonderful misfits, living in societies of boorish 'normal' people who pressured the misfits to conform as if it was a matter of life or death.

Wonderful article. I actually read through the whole thing.

The public fears what they don't know, so they label the ASDs as terrible diseases which must be cured. This serves to comfort them by creating a boundary between them and people diagnosed with ASDs, essentially forming an outgroup out of those with autism.

Those people can't be allowed to stay in their "protective" shells, looking from the inside out, making assumptions w/o knowing the facts, and not letting the outside leak in. What Amanda Baggs is doing is forcing them to see in a vivid way what being autistic is like; her videos may make them uncomfortable, but that's exactly what it's going to take for the general public to see that autism isn't something that must be feared.

More power to her!

I was about to post it --the article, but you beat me to it!
GRRRR!


they should have talked to someone with AS though

Excellent. I'll be printing it out.