Comments on: A Conference in NYC and an Article in Newsweek

By: Daisy

Daisy — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 00:52:25 +0000

If I looked at my son merely as one who will “never see me” because of his visual impairment, I would miss so much of his wonderful world. Never is a strong word and an emotional word — and a minimizer, too.

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 04:23:49 +0000

The graphic for the article has a huge shot with a long needle to the left of a child who is kind of looking over his shoulder slantwise—if the size of that shot is any kind of barometer for how much the vaccine issue has gotten the public’s attention, it’s not good.

By: Autismville

Autismville — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 03:53:38 +0000

I thought the article was a good summary of the different perspectives in our crazy autism universe.

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 03:29:43 +0000

I thought the article was able to synthesize the recent debates about Hannah Poling’s case and the notion of neurodiversity well. Reading it, I was struck by how the notion of a spectrum is useful and a bit misleading, perhaps, as far as my son’s ability.

By: Cliff

Cliff — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 02:03:40 +0000

I thought the article could have been far and away worse than it was. Perhaps I’m just a cynic, but I’ll be happy with something where the general complexities are clearer than generally presented (it certainly isn’t a full-on “parents vs. government” piece that is usually seen). And I suppose I’m not as offended by “You wonder what he thinks”, since A. it doesn’t explicitly imply that he might not think (that happens enough already) and B. it doesn’t chalk up a metaphor, which usually are dehumanizing in autistic representation. I understand why you see that distinction, but for me it’s not a big detail.

I will say that the article didn’t really move smoothly from the introduction to the main body, and I will say that I got similarly hung up, like Regan, on “The boy who doesn’t respond to his name and will never say “I love you.”, since that creates such a definite cap where there is none.

On the whole, though, I thought it was way better than mainstream in terms of representation.

Cliff

By: dkmnow

dkmnow — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 01:45:05 +0000

I was annoyed by Kalb’s very first sentence: “You wonder what he thinks.”

Reflexively pandering to reflexive pretense, from the very first line. When most “normal” people in this society encounter someone who “fits” the crude stereotypes that follow that sentence, it rarely occurs to them at all to wonder IF he thinks, much less what. Why should it? After all, he’s clearly not one of “US.”

For the average person, an object is only human to the extent that they see themselves reflected in the other’s behavior. And our failure to honestly recognize that simple evolutionary fact about ourselves leaves us powerless to do anything meaningful about it.

But we civilized, enlightened, humanitarian citizens of the modern world dare not be caught dead admitting to such shortsighted egocentricity, however innate. That would be unfashionable.

By: Regan

Regan — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:00:56 +0000

Enjoy the conference!

Right away I was offended by this statement, in Claudia Kalb’s article,
“The boy who doesn’t respond to his name and will never say “I love you.”

“Never” is a long time, especially when prognosticating. Eleanor didn’t respond to her name for a long time but does now, and every day for quite a long time now she has said, “I love you”…now in words, but before in her own way which was pretty darned obvious once we had earned it–which makes sense in the context of “love”. I love her too.

I think it bugged me because that’s the cultural stereotype that people often bring up to me. Own little world, never loving anyone, etc., etc. Struck a nerve.