Autism Is A Neurological Disorder Not A Culture or Shared Communication Style

When Neurodiversity blogger Dora Raymaker at the Neurodiversity (Autism) page of Change.org says "we autistics" and pretends to speak on behalf of severely disabled autistic persons she doesn't know, and has little in common with, she is misrepresenting her authority to speak on their behalf. Autism is a spectrum of neurological disorders distinguished by very substantial variations in intellectual and communication abilities.

Dora Raymaker in Deaf Culture, Autistic Culture, and Language refers to what she calls "autistic communication styles" and "autistic culture":

While autistic people don't have a formal language like ASL, we do have some shared communication styles, shared ways we use language or other types of communication, and some shared preferences for communication styles that are different from other groups of people. In terms of community-building, someone once said to me "the Internet is to autistic people what sign language is to deaf people."

Some severely autistic persons, unlike Ms Raymaker, have very limited communication skills and very limited understanding of language and abstract concepts. She has no legitimate basis on which to speak for them or to claim that they all share a common communication style or are part of an "autistic culture".

Dora Raymaker is misrepresenting autism disorders to the general public. My son has a serious neurological disorder, Autistic Disorder with profound developmental delays. He requires 24 hour adult care. He is severely autistic. He is not part of Dora Raymaker's "autistic culture" or "shared communication style". And Dora Raymaker does not speak for him.

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