About lovable autistics
About.com has a section called About:Autism Spectrum Disorders, which is sort of like a website about ASDs and sort of like a blog. Lisa Jo Rudy is the editor/expert/guide.
On Saturday, December 2, Ms. Rudy posted a short article called: Please Share: What Do You Love Best About the Autistic Person in Your Life? At the end of the article she invites readers to post their answers.
There are more than 80 answers there now in the comments section. Her are some highlights, but please go read all of the comments in full:
The comments are not made by people looking at autism through rose-colored glasses, but thankfully it's not the usual toxicity and ruination rhetoric.
The world would be a lesser place without autistic people. Cure bigotry and bias, don't cure autism now.
Autism Diva
a contrario
On Saturday, December 2, Ms. Rudy posted a short article called: Please Share: What Do You Love Best About the Autistic Person in Your Life? At the end of the article she invites readers to post their answers.
There are more than 80 answers there now in the comments section. Her are some highlights, but please go read all of the comments in full:
My son, 9, is so charming! We bought him a t-shirt that says, “Chicks Dig Me”
Everyone loves Jalen’s smile. It is so beautiful, and it can make you temporarily forget all that’s wrong in the world!
He has taught me something I never knew before I had him and that’s “patience”. For that and many other reasons I love him unconditionally and feel so blessed to have him…
My son is 8 and has higher functioning Autism and ADHD. He too melts my heart - he is the most hilarious person I have ever had the pleasure of having in my life and has given my life a purpose.
I have a 21 year old son, Andrew who is seriously challenged by his Autism in so many ways, but he is the light of my life.
I love that even after all he has been through, he still loves people so much. I love that he loves his friends and teachers and cares very deeply about them.
I love his absolutely beautiful smile and the way he’ll slide up to me, batt his eye lashes and say “hi Mom.”
He has brought so much joy and laughter to our whole family, with his precocious smile and infectious giggle. Although he lacks the vocabulary to tell us, he shows us in so many little ways that he loves us as much as we love him.
Its not always been an easy road, but non the less I would walk this road all over again knowing what I know about Noelle today I think families that do not have an Autisic child are not as blessed as the ones that do we should all consider ourselves blessed!!!
…he’s happy the way he is and I wouldn’t want him to be cured either as he’s my little guy as a package. Of course its often, as I said, a painful journey and its natural to want them to be ok… but who’s not to say they are the normal ones and its all us who aren’t
When he comes home, the first thing that comes to his mind is ‘Meagan, where are you??’ and that makes me feel like he will never forget his big sister.
He is the joys of my life and I would not trade him in for the world without him life would be meaningless.
As a teacher of 22 students with autism, I have to say I dearly love them all, and all the specialness that goes along with that. In raising my own 11&9 year old typical boys, I include them in summer class and parties. The other day I was on the CAN [Cure Autism Now] website, and my youngest come in and looks at the screen. He worriedly asked me if people are trying to cure autism. I explain to him about research and funding. He looks at me with tears in his eyes and says “but mommy if your kids are cured they will be like everyone else and they will be ruined. I love them just the way they are.” He is wise beyond his peers.
Our family never has to assess a person’s character. The rule is, quality of character always turns out to correlate with how nice someone is to our 10-year-old son and brother with autism, Shai.
My son, David, is four years old and is a nonverbal autistic. What I love most about him is his capacity for affection, and the way his face lights up when he looks at someone he loves (even the cat!) I also love his laughter, which is not only infectious, but seems to bubble up from absolutely nowhere.
One of the things I love most about Jeffrey is his way of surprising us with “bursts” of developments. Last year, he signed himself up for the school track team! What could I do, but support his desire to participate with his peers.
One of the things I love best about him is his passionate commitment to justice. He has so much to offer the world, including the realization that opening our hearts to those who seem “different” can enlarge and expand all of us.
My son, Christopher, 15 with autism is a very caring and concerned son.
He has the greatest integrity of any man I’ve ever met. I know I can trust him to speak truth to me. He didn’t profess his love for me until he was absolutely certain of it, so when he tells me he loves me now, it’s not just empty words because I know it’s from his heart. ... Every day I wonder, after all the disappointing relationships I’ve had with neurotypicals, what on earth did I do to deserve this wonderful man who has become the love of my life?
I am blessed to be his father.
Everyday is different with him, I am better for having known him and blessed to be given the chance to help him, but sometimes I wonder who is helping who?
My son Joe is 41 and still as fun and light hearted as he was when he was a child. Only then we focused too much on what was wrong with him and now we finally see what it right! He has many endearing qualities but the very best is his ability to charm almost everyone who works with him because he is so reliable and determined.
The comments are not made by people looking at autism through rose-colored glasses, but thankfully it's not the usual toxicity and ruination rhetoric.
The world would be a lesser place without autistic people. Cure bigotry and bias, don't cure autism now.
Autism Diva
a contrario
Labels: acceptance, parenting, positivity
posted by Autism Diva at 2:18 PM
7 Comments:
Sorry, this is offtopic...
I have a question for the Diva, but didn't see any contact info. My wife's a teacher who works with varying exceptionalities, including ASD kids. She seems to have a great relationship with them, probably because she doesn't patronize them or treat them like they're not aware of their surroundings.
But I was wondering if you knew of any good references for educators or parents? Stuff that isn't too normocentric and doesn't undervalue the child's unique identity? BTW, is there any sort of behavioral modification that you approve of, for serious misconduct?
Hi,
There are next to no good websites with factual information about autistics. Most have some good and some heinous information, some are almost all bad.
The OASIS website, which focuses on Asperger's and so called, "high functioning " autism has been pretty good in the past. Autism-watch.org has some pretty good stuff, but doesn't give warnings about ABA quackery.
TAAProject.com is good, but doesn't have a vast amount of information.
If people have specific questions, one of the best things they can do is ask Michelle Dawson on the "autismcrisis.blogspot.com" blog, or ask Amanda on the ballastexistenz blog. They have a vast amount of knowledge about real world autism questions and can usually answer specific questions.
The autism-hub.co.uk blogs (where you will find Amanda's and Michelle's blogs) are all good sources of info. autismpodcast.org has some good stuff and some bad stuff, but mostly good.
There's a website called, "ask an aspie" that looked good the last time Autism Diva checked it.
As for "serious misconduct" life is about rewards and punishements to a great degree, but not totally. Behaviorism seems to work really hard at circumventing the capacity to reason. The best reaction to serious misconduct is teaching the person why it was wrong, through the brain, cognition, understanding, the heart... not through brainless stimulus/response, "now you're gonna get it!"
But besides that warning, consequences are real in the real world. Everyone faces consequences. If a kid is setting fires in his neighbors houses, you got a big problem.
If he's hitting his sister, that's still a big problem, especially if you are the sister.
Sometimes autistics do some things that are almost beyond their control, or very very hard to control... maybe beyond their control... and of course they shouldn't be punished for something they couldn't control. That's very deep, but it's important to keep in mind.
Autism Diva wouldn't call anything "behavior modification" unless she was insulting it. Parents discipline their children, sometimes with a little slap on the hand or a time-out or "no candy for you for 2 days!" that's parenting. That's teaching, that's not behavior mod. The court system punishes criminals, that's punishment, not behavior mod. Parenting, disciplining and punishment should not be owned by behaviorism (tm).
You can also ask off topic questions here any time, Autism Diva can usual direct you to someone who can give a good answer if she can't do it herself.
:-)
Autism Diva forgot to add that the reward systems that are sometimes developed as part of "behavior modification" are frequently kind of creepy, they feel very manipulative, and they are different from the kinds of rewards that happen in the real world.
A parent saying, "Good job!" is differnt than a paid therapist saying "Good sitting!!!!" in a saccharine voice for the 93rd time in a row, ala Lovaas. (blech)
Let's all just assume that autistic kids need to learn communication (and we need to learn their method of communication), before they learn "behaviors" and that for the most part, their minds are working and they can be reasoned with in a way that is unavailable to dog and dolphin trainers.
I printed out the comments to read later. How wonderful were some, but others were so sad. So many people determined on a cure. It is easier for me as my son is "high-functioning" and "gifted" (gifted was officially tested and all that).
I love the way his brain works. Of course, it works a lot like mine, which makes it easier to relate to him. It can make homework an interesting challenge, though.
Thanks, Diva. Those links look very helpful. I'm sure I'll continue to be in touch, your blog's a good read.
I appreciate your comments, that's pretty much my wife's philosophy as well. One student occasionally acts out violently in some of his mainstream settings, though. My wife thinks he's just being overwhelmed by his emotions. She tries to teach the other people who work with him to watch and anticipate when he's getting stressed, but it's tough. I was hoping to find some resources, but, as I suspected, there are no easy answers.
I particularly relate to Shai's family. I am an appalling judge of character, but they're right, you only need to see how people treat your autistic children to know whether that person has worth, or not. Best wishes
its really too bad their forum is full of such curebie wankers.
I had them just today say that my opinion on AutismWeeps' awful video doesnt count because Im not a mom. No, I just survived having an entitled mom.
Pointing people there may be counterproductive. Just FYI. Anything about autismweeps gets showers of praise, the Jorie video got all of 2 responses, and Im the only autistic stubborn enough to stay there.
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