The "Real" voice of Autism.

The Voice of Autism continues it's PR war against better and more useful perceptions of Autistic Spectrum folks.

The Autism Society of America (ASA) is “the voice of autism.” Their motto is both clever and edifying, because in many cases autistic children cannot speak for themselves. For reasons that remain unclear, autism is the country’s fastest growing developmental disability. If your son or daughter is autistic (including the autism spectrum disorders Aspergers Syndrome and Pervasive Developmental Disorder), you must be the voice of your child.

autistics.org

has changed it's slogan in response to "the REAL voice of autism."

About our new slogan

The Autism Society of America, an organization composed almost entirely of non-autistic people and controlled entirely by non-autistic people, which performs few if any useful functions for autistic people, and which on numerous occasions has advocated against the best interests of autistic people, has started to call itself "The Voice of Autism".

In our judgment, such hubris demands a response. So we've changed our tagline to "The Real Voice of Autism"

When we call ourselves "The Real Voice of Autism", we mean by that that we autistics are the real voice of autism, not that we in particular at Autistics.org are. Every autistic, whether he or she contributes to this site, doesn't know this site exists, or hates what we do here, is also "The Real Voice of Autism". If you are autistic, feel free to join us in proclaiming yourself "The Real Voice of Autism"

(P.S.: Preposterous as the Autism Society's claim is, there are plenty of precedents.)

(P.P.S.: Link of the Day about the credibility of the ASA. Enjoy.) Sept 20, 2005

It seems disturbingly ironic that a reporter for a prominant newspaper that serves the Black community accepts the voice of a non-autistic group without at least checking to see if it's not been investigated by another news source.

This is like accepting the Indian Affairs folks word from Washinton that "they are the voice of Native Americans." Or, well, I'm sure you can think of even more apt examples.

There is another aspect of this story that you should cover, Autism manifests differently within the black population. Here's one wild-ass theory for that, included today in the results: I include it as it's purely facinating, and the site also contains a very interesting article on the bioethics of labeling Asperger's children as "defective."

...let's look at one of the key symptoms: high intelligence. Asperger's children are supposed to have lucid speech before four years of age and to have IQs above normal. These traits are pathologized somewhat by calling the speech sometimes repetitive, flat and revolving around the self. The high intelligence is pathologized by calling it obsessive (again, physicians beware, since so many physicians are obsessive), and by finding forms of dyslexia present (whoops! Edward O. Wilson and my entire family have a form of dyslexia that does not interfere with reading ability but does allow one to assume any perspective in perceiving something). These bright children are supposed to lack common sense, which may only mean that they see things more clearly than even their teachers or neurologists do. What would be said about one of my grandson's answers to a kindergarten teacher's question about what was a big thing? He told her, the whole universe was a big thing. Was that lack of common sense? Or perhaps concrete thinking?
Although our cultures are willing to agree that some people exhibit superior physical abilities, they are reluctant to do that for intelligence. Asperger's syndrome may be just a fancy way of calling the class genius a geek or freak.

The Neanderthal theory of autism, Asperger and ADHD There are no active web-sites in black Africa on AS or ADHD and only a few about Autism. The black population in America has a considerably lower prevalence ...
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