I speak of autism
April 18, 2006 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Who speaks for autism?
Just around the time that Autism Vox was launched, Shaun at Along the Spectrum posted about The Voices. The Autism Society of America designating itself as “The Voice of Autism.” prompted this response:
I wasn’t aware the autism had just one voice. I rather enjoy listening to many of autism’s voices. I could make a flowery metaphor here about the voices of autism being a chorus, but that would imply that we are all singing on the same key. We know that’s not true! The many voices of autism sometimes create interesting harmonies but other times build into noisy cacophonies.I’m disappointed in this ’slogan’ but I’m not going to write off the ASA because of it. ………My cynical side also noticed that the ASA chose to use some improper punctuation and put a period at the end of the phrase, which is clearly not a sentence. The Voice of Autism period……..
I’d like to suggest a more appropriate slogan: “A Voice of Autism”, without the period at the end.
More than a few autism organizations incorporate something about talking and speech into their names from Autism Speaks to Talk Autism.
Yes, the vox in Autism Vox is Latin for “voice.” I am a professor of Latin and Greek and
I chose the word vox ….. because vox and the -voc- in advocate share the same Latin root word, voco, “I call.” While “Autism Vox” literally means “Autism Voice,” by no means is this blog meant to be the “voice of autism.” There are many blogs by autistic authors that are all about autism from the inside out. As the mother of Charlie, my son who has autism, I am called everyday to translate his sometimes garbled speech and his needs. I am called to action and to advocate, and I believe that blogging on Autism Vox will help to spread the word.
I speak of autism, I try to speak for autism, and I listen.
Audio autismi voces.
Not even the ancient Greek and Roman epic poets claimed to “speak for” or be “the voice” of what they wrote about. They implored the Muses to speak to them. Perhaps they thought of themselves as “keepers” of their stories, but those stories were bigger than they were.
And, of course, there’s the theory that “Homer” is actually an amalgamation of many poets’ versions of the same stories.
“Autism vox” doesn’t imply–to me–that it is *the* voice. It is “an autism voice,” and the world needs more of those.(Gotta love Latin’s absence of articles).
Autismum cano.
Autismum puerumque autisticum cano.
It is accepted among Classics scholars that there was no “one” Homer but a long tradition of oral poets passing on the epics we know as the Iliad and Odyssey.
Canamus!