{"id":1507,"date":"2005-10-26T20:10:00","date_gmt":"2005-10-26T20:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog2\/2005\/10\/the-autism-divide\/"},"modified":"2005-10-26T20:10:00","modified_gmt":"2005-10-26T20:10:00","slug":"the-autism-divide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/2005\/10\/the-autism-divide\/","title":{"rendered":"The Autism Divide"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have become fascinated with the division in the autism community between those who believe there is a cure<\/a>, and those who believe there is not.<\/a> I feel sympathy for both viewpoints; I know people in both camps. Those who believe there is a cure tend also to believe to some degree that autism is the result of an injury, one that can be corrected. The injury can be “mercury poisoning,” or other toxins in the environment (vaccines in general, food additives). With the belief of the mercury injury comes the belief that if you treat the body and its now compromised immune system with a diet that detoxifies, (gluten-free, casein-free diet<\/a>) and with other chemicals that draw poisonous metals out (chelation<\/a>), you can either reduce successfully the symptoms of autism or reverse it entirely. There are some who believe autism can be reversed or reduced through other, more traditional autism approaches, such as Applied Behavioral Analysis,<\/a> Floortime<\/a>, and Son-Rise<\/a>. What these people all have in common is the belief that autism is something to reduce, change, stamp out, or cure.<\/p>\n

Those who do not believe that autism is something to cure usually see autism only as a kind of atypical neurological wiring. They see autism as genetic and neurologically based, something you live with, something that adds variety to the world. Something that gave us brains like Einstein. They believe that autism is a way of being, the symptoms of which should be ameliorated if possible (using various approaches that have existed for autism for some time, such as speech\/language therapy, Applied Behavioral Analysis, or ABA,<\/a> and Floortime, or DIR<\/a>, for example). But this camp believes that ameliorating the symptoms of autism should be done strictly for the comfort of the person with autism, for allowing him to express himself better, to increase his ability to be happy. They feel that it is society who must change, who must become more tolerant of autistic behaviors and challenges that arise from being neurologically atypical. They see autism as another political minority, “neurodiversity,”<\/a> that must be accommodated the same way modern society accommodates other disabilities and strives to include and give equal access to any other minority.<\/p>\n

Many in these two camps feel that one group is a threat to the other. They feel that if you want to cure autism, if you see it as something that must be treated and cured, then you must not be able to accept the person with autism. They feel insulted by the “curebies” whom they say believe you can stamp autism out and should subject autistic people to all sorts of treatments, some of which may not be scientifically proven. They ask, “How can you give your child this message, that he is something fundamentally diseased, and must be changed?”<\/p>\n

Those who believe in the cure see this faction as irresponsible; they ask, “How can you not try to help your child in any way you can? Why would you want him to be autistic?”<\/p>\n

I am very frustrated with the two groups’ inability to see any good in the other. I understand so well on one hand why a parent would want to reduce their child’s autism, and it is NOT just because they are selfish and cannot see how wonderful the child is, autism and all. Behaviors that come with autism (as well as other conditions people seek to ameliorate), such as bolting, inexplicable tantrums, unpredictable aggression can wreak havoc in a family and be very hard on the child himself. As parents we must always try to give our children the tools to succeed in this very difficult world. We must, as a reality, take care of our other children and ourselves.<\/p>\n

On the other hand I also understand how important it is to educate others in tolerance, accommodation, acceptance. We must consider the damage done to a child when he is constantly being “treated” for nearly every natural response he has to the world around him. To be able to accept our own and others’ limitations and still be happy is truly something to strive for. Both groups have something of value to say, whether you believe in mercury poisoning or not.<\/p>\n

Bottom line is, both viewpoints spring from love of someone autistic. Both are trying to help autistic people live better lives, albeit from extremely different positions. One seeks to change what is inside the autistic person; the other seeks to change how the world treats the autistic person. Why not take the elements that are useful from one group’s beliefs and discard the rest?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have become fascinated with the division in the autism community between those who believe there is a cure, and those who believe there is not. I feel sympathy for both viewpoints; I know people in both camps. Those who believe there is a cure tend also to believe to some degree that autism is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-oj","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}