Autism Posters In School

Post Reply New Topic

Coming in to school today I was already in a bad mood. I was still recovering from a cold and had missed a day of school.

I walked in the door of the school and saw a green poster with a puzzle piece background that read "1 in 68 has autism". At that moment I knew this day was going south quickly. As I walked through the school to 1st hour I saw more.

Other things they said were:
-"1 in 128 of girls"
-1 in 43 boys"
-"no medical diagnosis or cure"
One inaccurate poster said:
-"2 in 68 has autism"
But the worst and most offensive said:
-"Autism costs a family 60,000 a year"

In 2nd hour I made sure to put up a big stink about the posters, I had the teacher email my social worker. In 3rd hour I had been called down to talk to her and while waiting in the office to be called in I overheard her mutter "Someone was bound to complain" I explained my reasoning and she said that the cheerleaders were organizing a fund raiser. She said that she would try to get them taken down and that If I could speak to the cheerleaders. I replied with "I will think about it".

What do you make of this?
Have you had an experience like this?

I wouldn't have any problem with posters that informed the public that "1 in 68 has autism" or -"1 in 128 of girls"
-1 in 43 boys" - If those figures are correct . I think information about Autism could be a good thing.

However this business about-"no medical diagnosis or cure" and -"Autism costs a family 60,000 a year" - Those sound quite offensive and marginalizing almost as if they are meant to scare people.

I'd be fuming. I hate the autism awareness commercials I see all over the TV, so I really doubt that I'd find this less irritating.

Last edited by calstar2 on 20 Sep 2014, 1:58 am, edited 1 time in total.

Precisely, to me it is just the cost to family one. I believe that I wasn't the only one offended but was the only one to complain.

Well, obviously it's up to the cheerleaders. So maybe you can try to persuade them into donating the money to ASAN or something? At least then it'll be going to a good cause. People rarely like to be told they're wrong.

So, what's so offensive about it? Yes, it's probably inaccurate in many cases, but a child with LFA DOES cost a family a considerable amount. We're all on the same spectrum but we're NOT all equal.

1) never pass up the chance to talk with cheerleaders
2) let them know there are better sources of information than Autism Speaks.
3) definitely let them know the $60,000 one is BS.
4) never pass up the chance to talk with cheerleaders

Then something is wrong with the administration.

About Autism Speaks, I don't know if that is the charity that their donating to, my social worker didn't know.

The irony is that the cheerleading coach is a special education(resource room) teacher.

I think it's great that you actually did something about the posters.

If anything like this happened at my school, I don't know what I would do.

Depending on how open you are about your autism, I'd say talk to the cheerleaders. If they really care about autism, they'll listen to autistic people who say their posters are hurtful.

Never pass up a chance to talk to a cheerleader.

Point them to ASAN or another group and maybe this can all work out. They defaulted to Autism Speaks because it's so famous.

I wondered where the 60,000$ figure came from. Apparently it came from somebody's presentation to congress. Most websites and groups (including Autism Speaks) just uncritically repeat it. But one guy decided to analyze it.

http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2012/11/
The figure came from Bob Wright, the co-founder of Autism Speaks. He got it by breaking down the lifetime cost of autism per autistic individual which according to a study is 3.2 million. The leftbrainrightbrain website author doesn't entirely dispute the figure because mostly it comes from autistic adults being under or unemployed. Other websites didn't analyze the figure at all and simply assumed it was for expensive therapies. It isn't. It's because of lost productivity of adult autistic people. Who bears the cost depends on the specific situation. A combination of government and family seems common. Anybody who is supported by their parents or gets disability or lives in supported housing counts towards that figure. I have no idea how it would be calculated but people working part time or minimum wage when theoretically they could be doing a more skilled (and higher paid) job counts too.

Since such a giant chunk of the figure is because it reflects un/underemployed adults, it can be spun around as not pointing to a need for cure but rather to a need for job supports- some way to get more autistic people into the workforce.

He says this:


All of that probably wouldn't be meaningful for highschoolers. It isn't truly a BS figure but why it isn't a BS figure is something it's probably best not to get into with the cheerleaders. Perhaps point them to ASAN and find some alternative posters for them to put up. They want something to put up on the wall. ASAN might have posters of its own.

I can't say which organization they are donating to. They haven't told me, for some reason I don't think it is Autism Speaks.

Either way I don't think that there will be much funds generated anyway, I won't donate myself, because I donate to an autistic every day, I buy myself a Faygo Cola!

If we're to tackle Autism Speaks negative campaign. Then how are we going to deal with the negative image of all the LFA people out there. You know that Autism Speaks uses LFA people as fuel for there campaign fire. Which leaves us HFA folks in a muted state.

This was in a high school or a university?

Universities post tons of inaccurate BS all the time. And teach inaccurate BS.

If this was in a high school, I'd be weirded out.

I've heard some pretty horrible things said about HFA people.
The usual about lack of sociability, slowing down of companies, disagreeableness among employees.
Recently I overheard someone tell another that HFA people are ruining universities. Some BS about how once you are a CEO or company innovator, what matters is how you work with people. Who cares about skill?

Other than Autism Speaks, I've never really heard anything directed towards the LFA people.