Comments on: Normal Has Many Different Flavors

By: Leanne

Leanne — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 13:37:50 +0000

I’ve never been normal (although my neurology is typical I guess). I enjoy being different from others and I hope my children do too.

You know, I’ve never considered Patrick’s epilepsy as being related to autism. Perhaps because it was diagnosed first. But to me he’s Patrick, he’s autistic and he is also epileptic. So I’m guessing, for us, any physical malady would be addressed by us with our pediatrician…not sure autism would even be present in that conversation.

By: Florence

Florence — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 23:57:02 +0000

I think our children are redefining what “normal” is. It seems to be a relative term and highly overrated. Once we start looking at people just as they are, I think we will find that normal (like you said) has many different flavors. Vive la difference!

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 19:09:47 +0000

Phil Schwarz posted some comments about neurodiversity and addressing co-morbid conditions such as GI concerns, and on acceptance vs. cure --- in distinction from (as you know!) other attempts to "redefine" and "recategorize" autism as exclusively biomedical. Sometimes I wonder if it's not only the academics who are getting overly concerned about making up categories and defining the object of study.

By: M'sDad

M'sDad — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 17:43:18 +0000

My own experiences — as an immigrant to the US, and now as adoptive father to a child of a different ethnicity, not to mention an over-educated and over-intellectualizing academic — have also led me to have a much more wide-ranging (and skeptical) attitude toward “normalcy” than seems to be displayed by those who are most passionate about “curing” autism, particularly its behavioral components.

Of course, at the other end of the equation are the serious medical issues (GI dysfunction, seizures, etc) that many autistic children manifest — as the parent of one such child, I also sympathize with parents who want to address those issues. Perhaps discussion of alleviating/curing those issues should be detached completely from the issue of autism?

But then, how about “sensory integration dysfunction” and related stress conditions — those seem to be part and parcel of the autistic “wiring” for a lot of autistic folks (best as I can determine from reading writing by autistic adults). Can one effectively and usefully talk about ways of alleviating the negative effects of sensory overload without stepping too far into the “cure” discourse?

In other words: postulating that the need to “cure” autistic children is a misconception, how can parents’ concern over their children’s physical and sensory distress be otherwise addressed? I think that if there is a middle ground to be found to defuse the “cure” frenzy and bring broader support for acceptance of neurodiversity (and I’d be all in favor of that), there has to be a way to value parents’ (legitimate, I would hope) protective instinct as a response to their children’s physical distress (as opposed to their “inappropriate behavior”, which I agree is a bogus category).