From the article: Top Autism News Stories of 2010
Who should speak for the autism community? Should highly articulate adults with Asperger syndrome and high functioning autism represent autism to the wider world? Or should parents, practitioners, or adults with more severe forms of autism speak for autism? Do you feel your concerns are being appropriately represented to policy makers and funders?
Materialist Analysis of Dietary Suppleme
- The following update contains the most complete explanation of the cause and effect of childhood vaccinations MMR and autism in children and the Big Lie hatchet job being carried out against Dr. Andrew J. Wakefield: Materialist Analysis of Dietary Supplements The Obama Regime Uses the Pretext of Health Care “Reform” to Escalate Economic War Against the American People by Taxing the Working Class and Turning ALL Healthcare Over to the Insurance Companies And HMOs Rather than Instituting a Veterans Administration-Type or Medicare–Type Socialized Medicine and Escalates the Campaign to Ban Dietary Supplements! Obama Proposed a Bush-Privatization of the Veterans Administration within 2 Months of Taking Office! Dietary supplements are part healthcare and must be considered in context of what the capitalist dictatorship of millionaires and billionaires is doing to healthcare and why. The starting point of this analysis is the capitalists’ escalated attack against the masses under the Ob
- —WilliamDepperman
Speaking for the Community
- This is not as straightforward a topic as one might think. There are so many level on the spectrum that each individual needs to be represented. Whether it is the totally nonverbal cognitively impaired individual to the high functioning genius, each has their own needs, concerns and worries. If they can represent themselves, the individual should be the person deciding what and where the community should go however, for those that are not capable they need to have a voice as well and need to be represented. Everyone is a valid representative and everyone has a right to be heard.
- —Guest Elise aka aspergers2mom
spectrum view for spectrum disorder
- Most spokespeople represent a particular view. The problem is that the ASD community does not have just one view. The challenge for anyone wanting to represent an ASD community is to present the diverse views effectively. ASD is hard to represent because governments, the media and the wider community do not want to deal with options and diverse messages.
- —Guest Bob Buckley
Individual Choice?
- Representative organizations in North American society can really only claim to represent their own membership. They also have a duty to fairly represent the needs of their membership. While having a diagnosis or the severity of that diagnosis is not a voluntary matter, selecting membership in any number of different representative organizations still is (at least in North America). So, unless I belong to that specific organization, I haven't given them any rights to say they "speak" for me, have I?
- —Guest Malia
Who Speaks for the Autism Community.
- I believe that the parents of children with autism should have a role in speaking for their children. However when those of us on the spectrum speak for ourselves they should not discount us. It is true we may not have the developmental problems their children have and many of us have had and have developmental problems. It is equally true that they don't know what it is like to experience sensory overload or to be thrown into meltdown by an overload of stimuli. It ill behoves anyone to complain about the communication problems of autistic people and then refuse to listen to us when we do speak, we have a right to express our opinions, we have a right to be heard, we have a right to have our opinions taken into account. I do not know what it is to be the parent of a child with autism (although it appears my daughter may also be an aspie - explains a lot!) and I would not presume to speak for them equally they cannot speak for me. Together, we can speak for many accross the spectrum.
- —Guest Springingtiger
Why does it have to be one or the other?
- It's called a spectrum for a reason: the word "autistic" describes people with a huge range of abilities, disabilities, political views, interests, needs, and opinions. Those who can speak for themselves should do so. Those who care for people who cannot speak for themselves have valuable perspectives to contribute also. There simply cannot be one official "voice" for the autism community, because there are too many different perspectives to represent. The most honest and productive way to find a unified voice is to invite participation from all parts of the spectrum, from everybody who considers themselves part of this community. The way you posed this question reduces this to a polarizing debate. Why not use this as an opportunity to find common ground?
- —Guest Sarah Schneider [Kitaiska Sandwich]
Diversity of opinion is a good thing
- because no one knows all that much about autism anyway. We can all learn from one another if we keep open minds. There are many areas of common interest that our community can work on together. Speaking to policy makers and legislators with one voice on issues like housing, employment, safety, and funding is critical. Personally, I have little patience for groups (Ne'eman and ASAN's beef with Autism Speaks comes to mind) or individuals who are single issue oriented or refuse to work together in issues those folks with whom they disagree on some things.
- —Guest Dadvocate
Who should speak for autism community
- The community is varied and therefore many voices will need to be used to give a fair representation. Parents whould speak for their children who cannot. Those who can speak for themselves, should. There will never be "agreement" one singular message. That is impossible given the diversity.
- —Guest kandrews321@hotmail.com
Autism Society
- What a great topic and one highly in need of discussion in the field. Just a thought, though, about the options. You mention Autism Speaks which certainly has the most PR, but don't forget the Autism Society (formerly ASA). They have been around for many years prior to most autism organizations and work very hard to incorporate the voices of individuals on the spectrum, parents and families of individuals across the spectrum, and professionals. They are uniquely suited to blend the many voices in this field and have a long history of doing so. As for who should speak for autism, I think it's going to need to be a team effort blending the different voices together in some way. Autism is highly diverse and the voice(s) that speak will need to be as well. Thanks for putting this out there.
- —Guest Christine Reeve
