Photo © Shannon Des Roches Rosa [image: Photo of a teen wearing a jacket and baseball cap, seen from behind, far ahead on an oaken hillside trail.] Shannon Des Roches Rosa @shannonrosa When I was in physical therapy to rehabilitate a busted knee, the kind, competent therapists tended to make small talk—which invariably meant fielding tentative, well-meaning questions about my autistic son. That gave me the opportunity to model the way I’d like other people to talk and think about him. Here’s how those conversations usually go: PT: “Autism. Um. That must be hard.” Me: “Well, my son is a very awesome person. And he’s actually more easygoing than his siblings. He’s like a lot of autistic people—it’s hard for him to be in places that aren’t autism-friendly, and it can be hard for him to communicate. But he’s a wonderful person.” PT: “That’s really interesting.” (Processes what I’ve said,…
Month: January 2020
Photo © Lluís Ribes Mateu | Flickr / Creative Commons [Painting of the Ancient Greek demigod Hercules and the giant Antaeus, c. 1570, Oil on canvas. from the collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.] Emily Paige Ballou chavisory.wordpress.com This is the reaction I wrote in response to the article The Kids Who Beat Autism, originally published in the New York Times Magazine in 2014. While I have no doubt that the parents and therapists profiled believe they have these kids’ best interests at heart, I was—and am—angry and frustrated at the celebration at their “recovery” on the part of people who are not the ones who are actually going to bear the consequences for the rest of their lives. I’m sad for the kids who are. The parents, teachers, and therapists and researchers without a clue who celebrate “recovery” because they still wrongfully define autism as a fixed set…