AUTism
December 26, 2006 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Are you posAUTive or do you think is autism is AUTful?
(Another, rather punning, way I thought of to describe the “accepting autism” or “curebie” debate.)
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13 Responses to “AUTism”Speak Your Mind
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Can you be truly ‘poAUTive’ without acknowledging that autism can be ‘AUTful’ for many children and adults?
Wondering too if there is a way to be both together—
You have to accept both the positive and the negative about it. There’s really no other way.
Got to be the combo I’m afraid, squared of course – but that’s handy because if I’m lucky one is up and buzzing and the other is horizontal. cheers
One might as well say the same about being alive — being a person — in the first place. Existing means the potential for both joy and dismay. If nobody existed there wouldn’t be any suffering, but there wouldn’t be anything good, either. I’d rather take existence over nonexistence despite the ways in which aspects of existence can be troubling.
Autism is a disorder. It is classified as such because of the varying combinations of emotional, communication and intellectual deficits that characterize persons with the disorder. For those with vary severe autism, those who do not lobby politicians, advocate before courts, and spend hours at keyboards it the negative characteristics of autism that have to be addressed and dealt with by parents and other caregivers.
As the father of a profoundly autistic boy I love him with every drop of my being. He is a very fun and happy boy. HE brings ME tremendous joy and strength. But I do not gloss over his deficits and challenges and I would not be doing him a favour if I did.
That’s the thing about being alive, isn’t it? Our experiences teach us many things, & the negative teaches us as well as the positive. When Brendan is having a really tough time with the OCD I feel badly for him, but also can reflect on the positives my own bad times have given me over the years. What we try to give him in return are the emotional resources to cope with the bad times- a positive self-image, our confidence in his strength, & soft, loving arms to land in when the going gets tough. Giving these thing to your child is basic parenting, in my opinion, although with a kid with autism it feels like parenting exponential, but it’s still do-able & necessary.
Harold:
Nobody is glossing anything over. And regardless of whether autism is or is not a disorder, you can’t use the fact that something is *classified* as a disorder to prove that it is. I repear: It doesn’t matter whether autism is or is not a “disorder” for the sake of this discussion. Being able to (or not being able to do) something isn’t the be-all-end-all of what the definition of a disorder is. I’m sure as far as fish are concerned, humans have a “breathing underwater disorder” as well as a congenital genetic lack of functional gill slits.
I have never in my life encountered an autistic person/advocate/what-have-you claiming that their life is perfect and easy all the time or that they never have trouble with anything, or that autistic people should not be helped with the things that cause difficulty. Or that children shouldn’t be parented. Or that people shouldn’t be provided with means of communication when the standard ones aren’t working.
It’s odd to me that autistics are supposed to be the ones exhibiting “black and white thinking” but more often than not, it’s the nonautistic people in the discussion who come along and insist that we have to either call autism a good thing OR a bad thing, or that you either have to help a child with their difficulties OR let them run wild and do whatever strikes their whim. Real life is a lot more complicated than that, and there’s practically nothing about autism, or autistic people, that can be reduced to a “sound bite”.
Harold, thanks for reading and commenting here—-there’s a blog by a father, Ian Parker, entitled “A Shade of Grey” and I like the connotations and nuance of such a title. The more I read and write and learn about autism—the more days I pass with my son (who is very fun and happy too)—the more I see his challenges and the more his particular strengths shine through.
posAUTive.
And I’m not a shiny Aspie with a degree by any means. Speech preserved Rett, autistic/epileptic combo phenotype.
Thing is, we ALL have gifts, and people are so quick to write off what we CAN do as savant skills (though given how crappy my fine motor skills are my 3D packing tetris skills may actually count…), rather than seeing us as skilled individuals who have disabilities in other areas. Huge difference.
I’m on a gymnastics team. All the little girls know I have this mysterious ‘autism’ thing, which as far as they can tell means Im sound sensitive and my eyes get really huge when I’m nervous and I really really hate when they mix things up. Yeah, all true. A lot of the parents are in the air force. One was talking to me today, his wife took me to the ER when I had a big little mishap off the uneven bars so the whole family knows…he does weather so geekdom isn’t a bad thing for his kids to be exposed to. He was telling me about how the best code breakers he ever knew were autistic, and how the gov’t employs us regularly to do code breaking, when it;s not a climate where we all hate the gov’t. So he’s SEEN the strengths up close and personal.
Or my little buddy, who had maybe 100 words, who could clean a car like youd not believe. He liked wiping windows, so we taught him how to clean cars. So its a ’silly’ gift, but he made a KILLING that summer in the neighborhood with people asking for carwashes and paying like $10. He even got money lessons, COOL. He was VERY GOOD at washing cars. He didint miss a SPECK.
And I’ve known talented dancers, gymnasts. internet researchers….all with trouble functioning, maybe, all definately autistic, but who have those one or 2 things that they just do better than ANYONE else.
And dont even get me started on the culture of neurotypicals because frankly, i think they should cyrogenically freeze most kids from ages 11-17 to avoid the ‘torture the freak’ games…
PosAUTIVE…
Regardless of how one feels about ASD, I’d suggest that from a parental perspective the goals are to maximize our children’s strengths, enjoyment and quality of life, while reducing, compensating for, overcoming, or seeking ways around the things that are problematic. I’m not sure that the goals would be any different if my daughter were NT, although I’m sure the methods of achieving them would be.
Thanks for the plug, Kristina.
Any time, in any shade of white, gray or black……
May I suggest, “not negAUTive”?
Personally, I see Autism as being an innate part of who I am, but not the entirety of myself. A blind person cannot see, but blindness is not the entirety of their self. Even a person with Down’s Sydrome is not entirely defined by Down’s. There are certain associated symptoms that create challenges or impairments for me.
Since Aut=Self, I have some reservations about the title, which originated during a time of darkness within mental health circles, when we were seen as so self centered. I believe that our presence here indicates that we wish to reach out beyond ourselves, and that the title is not entirely accurate. I have to view Autism as a title that has evolved in definition in order to accept it entirely.
I see Autism as a part of myself that has both posAUTives and negAUTives. But I also feel that it is through gaining understanding of the negAUTives that I gain strength over the negAUTives. From my perspective there is some value in all aspects.
If people view us as trapped within ourselves, then it is easy to see how they may view Autism as something to defeat, cure, combat, recover us from, etc, and therefore negAUTive. If they can begin to see that there is more to Autism that is of benefit to society and to the individual, then perhaps they can see the PosAUTive aspects.
In severe cases where the symptoms associated with Autism completely locks the child or adult within their own world, then there should be interventions to help free the child or adult from the grasp of those symptoms, and to help them be as functional as possible. In truth, interventions should be provided for any child that is challenged by symptoms associated with Autism.
I see it as a mistake to assume that when a child is greatly improved and seeming to be “normal” in many ways that they no longer have Autism. In every such case I have seen, the core characteristics are still there, and it is a part of their self. They still need to be accepted for who they are and provided with the correct supports, rather than trying to survive within a parent’s fantasy world of recovery or cure. When negAUTive symptoms are disappearing, it is time to celebrate and cultivate the posAUTives so that the individual will be better prepared to live and cope with the hidden negAUTives.
I hope I have not rambled too extensively.
Derrick