One of my major complaints about the Neurodiversity movement is the tendency of some high profile autistic media personalities to speak on behalf of all autistic persons, including my son who has limited understanding of language, and limited ability to communicate. The "ND" autistic media stars tend to be anti-cure, anti-treatment with respect to autism. They do not like people discussing any of the negative realities of autism, and don't like autism to be associated in any way with intellectual disability. But not all autistic persons share the ND views. Jonathan Mitchell is an autistic blogger whose views differ from the ND club and encourages others to say NO to Neurodiversity in NEURODIVERSITY: JUST SAY NO on his blog site Jonathan Mitchell. I have extracted some of Mr. Mitchell's comments but I encourage people to visit his site and read it in its entirety:
A number of high functioning autistics claim that there is a consensus among all autistic persons that finding a cure for autism would be a horrible thing. Autism is a part of who they are and to take away the autism is to take away the person. They go further to claim that autism is not really a disorder but just a different form of brain wiring--some call this philosophy "neurodiversity".
Some of them do acknowledge that autism is a disability. However, there is a distinction between a medical model of disability-wherein the person has a disease state and the social model of disability--the disabled person would not be at a disadvantage if society made accommdoations for them.
I am a diagnosed autistic, nonverbal, feces smearing at age 3, 8 year veteran of special education yet I do not share this view. I long for a cure for autism though a cure at age 52 is not the same as at age 3, even in the unlikely event of a cure being found in my lifetime. Somehow I got missed when they took the census. So they are incorrect about all autistics.
Is this a viable philosophy that will help autistics and their families? Is there a consensus for this philosophy among most autistic persons? Are the people who espouse this philosophy typical of autistic people in general? I would like to address these questions in this journal entry.
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I hope that if any person touched by autism happens to read this and someone from the neurodiverse crowd gives them a homily trying to convince them of their way of thinking that they will, in the words of Nancy Reagan, just say no.
autism
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