Represenentations of autism!

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Here is some info I found from an article

" portrayals of autism as a partial or whole loss of personhood, representations of autism as a retreat into an empty fortress, characterizations of autistic people as locked inside a shell, and presentations of autistic people as victims kidnapped and held hostage by their disability.

This unfriendly — and sometimes hostile — climate in which autistic people find themselves has made it very difficult for them to achieve a healthy self-esteem and to become comfortable participating in their local communities and social gatherings"



What does the part saying - "This unfriendly — and sometimes hostile — climate in which autistic people find themselves has made it very difficult for them to achieve a healthy self-esteem and to become comfortable participating in their local communities and social gatherings"- mean in more depth?

Maybe a link to the entire article would help this discussion.
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt228203.html

Well no one bothered answering that thread did they in the first place

This is an interesting topic. I didn't read the entire article yet, but the way I see it is that if society shifts from a deficit model of autism to a neurodiverse model, it's possible that there could be a shift in the way autism is perceived and treated. Instead of a focus on cures and training autistics to fit into society, an effort can be made to accept autism and focus on finding a place in society for autistic individuals according to their skills and abilities.

I got a headache after the first couple of paragraphs, I find these kind of articles too heavy going for me

But taking the small extract you posted, it looks to me like its saying that its not so much a case of ASD's being locked into their minds. It is more likely that the outside world is too un-accomodating for ASD people, so they are afraid to venture out into it.

Think of it as being like having a house. If that house is in a nice neighbourhood and the locals are all friendly, then you will be comfortable going out.

If on the other hand you live in a bad neighbourhood, say a violent, run down housing estate where muggings and rapes take place every day, then you would be afraid to go out of your front door!

for NT people, the world is perceived by them to be more like the nice neighbourhood, not perfect, but comfortable enough to be relaxed in.

For ASD people, the real world is more like permanently living in the bad neighbourhood, loud garish, full of strange people who seem to be hostile to them. So they prefer to stay in the safety of their own 'inner world'.

Most NT's are unaware of just how harsh the real world is for ASD people, because their perception is so different to ours. They don't realise that by getting annoyed at our behavioural quirks, they are making the world frightening for us. Or that noises and lights they don't even perceive are sensory overload for us.

I often tell people it is like psychological torture:

There are techniques where you can torture people by playing extra loud rock music, non stop, for 24 hours a day, every day. On top of this you add intensely bright lights to the mix, such as high powered halogen spotlights and even worse, strobing flash bulbs. Within a few days the lack of sleep and intense sensory overload sends them over the edge, and makes them more compliant in interrogations. If applied for long enough, the psychological damage can be permanently disabling to the victim.

There are human rights organisations ceaselessly campaigning to put a stop to these human rights abuses. Yet no-one seems to get that what I described above is what many ASD people have to go through every day of their lives. I'm lucky that I'm 30% deaf in both ears, so the audio overload is muted a bit. But for many, the sensory overloads are a lot more extreme. When you see the worst cases of autism, think about the psychological torture the real world puts them through, then ask yourself why they retreat into themselves like they do.

So why does society insist that people with ASD be forced to undergo such torture just to satisfy their need to make us 'normal'?

BTW this argument applies to the hard of hearing too, many deaf people won't wear hearing aids because it is too harsh for them to listen to the real world (myself included). Yet Hearing people get angry with them for not 'complying' with the real world by becoming a hearing person. This is why there is a deaf culture separate from the hearing world, just as we are slowly forming an ASD culture.

Hello Jamesy, that is very heavy going and not easy to read or absorb. I'm not surprised you have not received any replies.

Where did you find this, is it someone's thesis?

It is better to have a sense of context than attempt to decipher one or two sentences.

Also, with reference to potential copyright problems caused by copy/pasting someone else's work (republishing) - please instead provide a link to the original article and maybe quote a short, salient extract as an "appetiser".

As it is, the copy/paste method has also destroyed the original formatting which is contributing to the difficulties with reading it.