I know what you're thinking. Well, maybe not because I'm not Sookie Stackhouse, but, if you're like me, you're tired of hearing people talk about curing autism. I am just not on board that ship. I wanted to gouge out my ear drums with a blunt pencil in the OT waiting room yesterday listening to all the DAN! moms and biomed moms talk about stuff that makes no sense to me.
I've always been a firm believer in the awesomeness of The Boy. Teaching him the ways of our wacky neurotypical world and how to live in it has been the main focus in all our therapies, as opposed to trying to "fix" him. And now there's an article that's gone mainstream about how people with autism have advantages over us (mostly) neurotypical types.
Read it here.
Share it. Part of me wants to to send it to his teachers and therapists at school. I want them to read it and understand why I don't give a shit about standardized tests. I want the moms in the OT room to see my point of view. I want them to see why I don't go to their meetings and give The Boy eighty gazillion supplements.
He's doing just fine. After all, he's got an advantage now.
3 comments:
Good points and good article. I do wonder, though, if some of the moms with a low functioning autistic kid are the ones who think a cure would be good. I say that because I know someone whose son is low functioning, and seen how hard she and her son's therapists have worked to get him to the point he's at now, where at 8 he's finally saying a few words and is finally potty trained.
Yes, you bring up a great point that I've considered frequently. It's true, The Boy is extremely functional and that certainly affects my stance on this issue. But I guess what scares me about 'curing' autism is that it's a spectrum. How do we decide who's to be cured? What's the threshold? And do the parents of severely affected kids want a cure for their kids or for themselves? I know how hard it is to be a parent and it must be so hard to parent a kid who doesn't talk to you, isn't potty trained, and only eats blue foods.
I'm fine with therapy. I'm a big fan of it. I see therapy as a tool, though, not a cure.
Thanks for the link--it's an interesting article. I have a daughter who was diagnosed late in her teens with ADHD, but she also has definite Aspie flavoring, though it's hard to tell exactly how much since so much overlaps with the ADHD. Her dad most definitely has AS, though he too hasn't been formally diagnosed, and we only figured it out a couple of years ago. So we're still learning things. I just ran across your blog today, and I'm looking forward to following it.
Btw, you've now been Liebstered! http://www.gingerdoodles.com/2011/11/liebster-clause.html
Post a Comment