Positive autism stereotypes among teenagers!

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Today in English the teacher was talking about a pupil from another class (and a lower year) who he also teaches and who is very good at the subject, so someone called out "he must be autistic!"

I for one am happy there actually some positive views of autism among people for once!

Sweet!!

That's very positive.

Yay

Right on! I actually saw an abstract for a horrible article the other day. Some guy actually wrote about how *positive* views of autistics and our abilities are somehow *damaging* to the community. Maybe if people realize that we're human beings with valuable contributions to make, they'll stop the eugenic drive to cure us, and that would be so so f*****g sad for all the parents and caretakers out there who love their children but hate who they are.

I am a high functioning autistic who teaches autistic children. I think that after I get back from vacation it's time for me to come out of the closet. The children in our community do need more positive role models like them, and I hope to be one, just like I hope everyone else in this forum does too.

-ck

I've told this story before, but it's apropo, so forgive the redundance...

About a year and a half ago I was working in a Tattoo shop in a college town and standing behind the counter one day, stimming, rocking back and forth on my feet, while a group of girls were filling out their state required paperwork. One of them kept looking up at me and finally asked "Do you do that all the time?" to which I replied "Pretty much - I have a form of Autism." She brightened up at the word and said "Wow! You must be really smart!"

Well...I don't like to brag...

I didn't think to ask where she got that idea, maybe from Rainman's savant abilities, or maybe she'd heard of AS, though neither of us ever used the word Asperger. I don't know where it's coming from, but if that's our new stereotype, I'll take it. It sure beats ret*d.

The evidence is coming out these days that autism really is correlated with high degrees of certain types of intelligence. The problems that we face are not inherent to our genes or to our neural circuitry, but the society we live in. If autistic people were treated with dignity, offered the educational oppurtunities we deserve, and given chances to be ourselves in the company of others like ourselves, we'd see a lot more prodigious savants running around.

Or maybe the prodigious savants are already all out there, and they just don't get diagnosed. The more of these people who come out as being part of the autistic spectrum the better, if you ask me.

-ck

I can recall hearing this on a couple occasions as well in high school. It is good to know people realise that the word autism doesn't automatically mean someone is mentally ret*d. It's good to know people are learning more about autism and Aspergers. That's a really good sign.

It's certainly a better stereotype than that we are all ret*d but it is still a stereotype and ultimately false. It's better for more intelligent aspies to think to themselves "I'm really intelligent, I guess I'm lucky there" and less intelligent aspies to consider themself normal with regards to intelligence than for less intelligent ones to think that they are unlucky aberrations from an intelligent norm (sorry for the terribly unwieldy sentence there).

Among NTs though, it would lead to less discrimination which is a good thing. Although in an ideal society, we wouldn't discriminate based on intelligence at all.

It beats the stereotype of "Oh, you're a ret*d then?"

I've noticed that while naturally somewhat more intelligent than many others, the reason I have most of this intelligence is simply because I spend so much time reading and studying instead of chatting to friends.

i've noticed that as well. no one at my school knows i have AS because there are a lot of smart kids here, many of whom have some aspie traits (it's a college town and a lot of professor's kids go here) but there are a couple of autistic kids in my gym class who are very obvious about it. some other girls were talking to one of them and suddenly (after most of a semester, sigh) noticed that he had a lot of sports statistics and such memorized. so they called him a genius and compared him to rainman. it honestly kind of bugged me. i talked to his brother and he didn't see why i was irritated, but i just don't like stereotypes at all. everyone is different, i don't see why people who are even more different from the "norm" would be the same as each other. that's just stupid.