Lovely little essay on neurotypical privilege

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I just wanted to give my 2 cents on the whole discussion that's been going on.

First, it's pretty clear that this blog that has been discovered is quite political in agenda if anything; I've sort of written and thought of similar things before, that autism and so are not necessarily "disabilities" but at the same time legitimate traits to a person. I mean, I understand there are people who have severe autism, but what about the others that don't? What about those who struggle in social circles in school, but excel in academics, much more than their neurotypical counterparts? My dad sort of thinks the same way and more and more since I've been opening up about my personal experiences with school and ABA.

But there was always that "uncomfortable" feeling I always got when I was in, say, a speech room (which was VERY small, and with 3-4 other people in there as well as the teacher). And I think I'll repeat what everyone has said: most psychiatrists, etc aren't really trained in neurodiversity. Rather, they are (rather explicitly) taught to think of patients, students, etc whatever they may be as actually having something wrong with them. Again, I'm not saying there aren't people who legitimately struggle with such, but the fact that positive traits of such people's pathology are downplayed should be noted.

Regardless though, I'll say that I was unfortunately subjected to a LOT of ABA, in the hopes of "making me normal". I was sent to a special school for 5th grade (though to be honest this was partially on my request), but in middle school it got awful, with bullying, etc.

A lot of ABA, believe it or not, was at home. My family constantly tried me to be more extroverted when I didn't feel comfortable with it. For example, it was simple things like eating at the family table that they stressed but I never really liked, cause that's my thing, yo. My family would ALWAYS encourage me to somehow "socialize" and my sister considers it a bad thing that a majority of my friends are online. Because I was constantly put into really uncomfortable social situations, it damaged my social skills. I mean in elementary school although I definitely wasn't an extrovert, I did have a lot of stable friendships. By middle school that was completely gone, and it was because of the problem they were ironically trying to correct.

But a lot of the ABA I was receiving was in speech class, and looking back, it was incredibly dark. The teacher practically treated me like I was some kind of robot, or only 5 years old. In order to control mood, I was constantly subjected to these cards about "color zones". I mean, it was ridiculous that I thought I needed to be pandered to on such a low level. It didn't help that the teacher made a lot of generalizations, as well. I mean, it almost seemed as if the entire rationale was "autistic people are barely conscious and functional; therefore, pander to them on almost anything". It was ridiculous.

So, I think a good question, is autism more political than it seems? It's a daring and big question, but one that should be more confronted.

Anything that systematically invalidates someone's natural self because it is not typical of the majority, or does not match the values of the status quo, is inherently political. Invalidation is the biggest issue - so far as I can see - that every member has faced.

In terms of where this thread started, I think at this point another interesting and relevant concept to look at is the phenomenon of medicalization of non-medical conditions as social control. The medical profession has a considerable financial interest in autism as a particular and growing source amongst its various income channels - the Retts example of being dropped from the DSM 5 though autism was retained, which I cited earlier in this thread, magnifies the medical profession's wish to retain (and expand) its autism-sourced income stream, though on very flimsy ideological grounds.

This article may lead you to ponder a bit on two questions which seem to me very pertinent to developing a neurodiverse approach to ourselves and our current situation as a sector of the general public: 1) are you happy with the extent to which ASD conditions are medicalised? 2) What do you think the overall impact of medicalization as social control on the ASD community means for us?

Here's the article:
http://people.uncw.edu/ricej/deviance/M ... neider.pdf

I agree with everything B19 and Hansgrohe said about ABA. I found that ABA has limitations when the child is cognizant that you are trying to achieve but finds the repetitious exercises annoying making it counterproductive.

God I hate the "privilege" talk, no matter what the subject (white male, Vorlon, black female, racoon, and whatnot).

Just a bunch of moaning.

pharmaceutical social engineering;
..and the big money that goes with bigpharma, having it's lobbying tentacles in every (heath-)organization
http://www.offthegridnews.com/2011/12/30/big-pharma-and-the-drugging-of-the-world-following-the-trail-of-the-many-tentacled-octopus/
.......In the end, it is all about money, not truth – by the year 2014, the global market for pharmaceuticals is expected to reach $1.1 trillion. Drugs mean big money, and big money is the most powerful special interest of them all.

No matter if neurotypical people are "privileged" (some of them are not!)--there still needs to be a Socratic dialogue, rather than talk of separatism, rather than anger at neurotypicals for being born that way. We have to focus the anger upon the behavior of individual neurotypicals and individual autistics, rather than the groups themselves.

Many paradigms need to be changed. We have to do this together--neurotypical and autistic.

I don't see a way in which autistic separatism would work. Progress will not be made. People will be irritated.

I do understand the need for autistic people to be able to be autistic without judgement from neurotypicals.

Without the ability to make use of the "autistic viewpoint," many inventions wouldn't have happened, many philosophical concepts would not have been promulgated. The "autistic viewpoint" must not be denied by anybody.

Then again....some rough rhetoric could be useful. Martin Luther King made use of rough rhetoric at times--but his inclination was towards working with the dominant racial group, rather than separate from them (despite rather tempestuous events, he still stuck to his guns).

Autistic Separatism == Ghettos, Reservations, and Poverty

They'll never be able to find that "one" autistic gene.

Would you say that the 27 genes cause a "predisposition" towards autism, rather than a situation where autism is inevitable?

We don't know at this point. We don't even know if we've discovered any "autism genes" - we've just found some that are associated with autism. There could be any number of reasons for that.