Autism Speaks doesn’t speak for me.

They recently released a new mini-infomercial/video about autism, compiled from submissions from families which include at least one autistic member. The video is available here (youtube.com/watch?v=HDdcDlQVYtM) but I’d prefer not to link to hate speech, so you’ll have to copy it into your browser yourself.

The biggest and most obvious issue with this is the personification of autism as some creepy dude who comes and steals your children. Autism is a description of a person’s strengths and weaknesses, of their very personality. It is a broad word and covers a whole spectrum of people from the intellectually disabled to the very gifted, from the nonverbal to those who never shut up to those who prefer to write, to those with incredible talents in music or math or language to those who are quite ordinary. I personally feel that my autism is unable to be extracted from my personhood; it is a descriptive label for many of the things which make me unique. I am a better writer, a better artist, a better researcher because of autism, and I would not trade those skills and passions for the removal of the parts of me that are more problematic because of autism, like the inability to connect at times or sensory issues. I work with a lot of autistic kids at my day job (is “day job” even appropriate when one works third shift?), and each and every one of them has benefits alongside the defecits caused by autism.

Autism doesn’t change who a person is, at a fundamental level. Autism is that person, that child, that brother or sister, that mother or father. And autistics can speak for themselves, be it in words–spoken or written–in sign, in dance, in PECS, in music. We are all capable of communicating in our own ways. What Autism Speaks has never grasped is that these ways are valid, and deserve to be heard.

Autism Speaks doesn’t speak for me.

Further reading on this video:
The Asperger’s LJ community
Cat in a Dog’s World
Left Brain/Right Brain

Tags: ali, asperger's, autism, frustrations