I am not going to say too much about William Stillman's view of autism except to say that it is nonsense.
As the father of a 13 year old boy diagnosed with Autistic Disorder, a boy who is profoundly developmentally delayed I have experienced the realities of severe autism first hand. I have seen self aggression by the boy that I love. I have experience the fear of his wandering off into busy streets. I have seen children his age grow in their understanding of the world, leaving him far, far behind. I have struggled to communicate with him and to teach him to communicate. As an autism advocate I have visited institutional facilities and seen the realities of life for the adult autistic persons living therein. I would never dream of mouthing the type of nonsense that I find in the words of William Stillman in his article Everyone Has Autism : "The curious thing is we all have autism to one degree or another"
If you connect on the above link you will see many instances where Mr. Stillman finds instances of what he calls autism in common everyday experiences. I am sure that if you take Mr. Stillman's logic and applied it to any disorder you could say that we are all bipolar or schizophrenic, obsessive compulsive, etc. Pick your disorder and we all exhibit some trait of any disorder, and we are all therefore bipolar, schizophrenic etc. to some extent.
Mr. Stillman makes no mention in his article of the very real challenges faced by persons with actual Pervasive Developmental Disorders, particularly the challenges faced by people like my son Conor who is actually diagnosed with Autistic Disorder and assessed with profound developmental delays.
Mr. Stillman's article is nonsense. Pure babbling nonsense. Amazingly, he actually copyrights this nonsense. Even more amazing is that, apparently, he is both consultant and speaker about autism, someone who, presumably, is paid by someone to help their autistic child or to appear before audiences and present such nonsense for a fee.
Incredible.
autism
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