Some organizations say they want to focus on people with intellectual disabilities, but they ignore the self advocacy movement and autistic people with ID like me. We don’t want institutions! We don’t want segregation, we want freedom and autonomy and support in the community! They just need to see what the ID community has been asking for!
It’s not okay to dismiss one autistic person’s lived experience as having nothing to do with “real” autism simply because you don’t understand what autism is like for them.
Hans Asperger was, most likely, a complicated and conflicted man who recognized the potential of “autistic intelligence” long before anyone else did, but who was willing to go along with his Nazi bosses even when Jewish storefronts were burning in front of his eyes.
From its inception, not only did the neurodiversity movement’s values include the most significantly disabled, but those individuals themselves were among our earliest pioneers.
This is a mini-guide for parents to think about autistic matters and perspectives they may not know about, and which may help them and their kids live the Best Lives Possible.
As an autistic, the impression I was left with after reading Steve Silberman’s book NeuroTribes was one of enormous relief. The book not only avoids the usual pitfalls of fear-mongering and stigmatizing language that surround the topic of autism, but actually explains the origins of those pitfalls
Why did Amy Lutz publicly attack disabled people for the crime of appearing less disabled than her own child? Especially the very advocates who are fighting to ensure a better future for all autistic people—including her son?
