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Autism Science to Watch Out For

Shannon Des Roches Rosa www.squidalicious.com Photo © Jeffrey Beall | Flickr / Creative Commons [image: Photo of metal letters spelling “Science” affixed to a brick wall.] At a recent workshop on How to Find Autism Information That Will Help You, I noted that a key factor for evaluating an autism resource is: Who does the approach primarily benefit? Autistic people themselves, or people affiliated with autistic people, such as families or teachers? It’s important to identify this aim, because approaches that support autistic people in living lives of maximized happiness and potential can be very different from the parent-centered approaches—which too often portray autistic people as problems to be managed and controlled. We at Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism support the helping approach, and routinely criticize the problem/control approach—an ongoing effort as the latter remains pervasive both in popular culture, and in research. The problem/control approach is also a theme…

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Electroconvulsive Therapy and Autism: Caution Advised

Shannon Des Roches Rosa  Photo © Skyseeker, on Flickr. Creative Commons license. [image: lightning striking a cityscape, at night.] Spectrum News recently published How ‘Shock Therapy’ is Saving Some Children with Autism. The article was also published in The Atlantic. Like many of you, my initial reaction was “WTF.” Which, to be fair, was in part primed by the the misinformation spread by existing autism and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) proponents. But I am always worried about articles about “treatments” for autistic people who self-injure, because of the focus on treatments rather than sourcing out causes. So here’s what I think you should know about reading articles like this, and about ECT and autism in general. Spectrum is dedicated to covering developing autism science, and articles of interest to the autism science and research communities. Ideally, those readers already understand that there is very little research into autism and ECT, that…