Monday, May 26, 2008

Alleged Autism Rights Movement and Severe Autism: Autistic Boy Goes Missing, Struck and Killed by Train



The Alleged Autism Rights Movement isn't much help for the severely autistic, the truly severely autistic, not the former students of colleges for gifted youths, but those, like my son Conor who wondered across a busy main street oblivious to the dangers of traffic; or those like the 10 year old severely autistic boy in North Carolina who was struck by a train and killed Saturday half an hour after police received a report he was missing from his home.

Severely autistic people like that poor North Carolina boy, like my son Conor, like the 50 year old autistic woman who could not communicate to tell the world she was being abused by staff in the residential care facility in which she lives in Long Island, are not likely to be posing for fashion photos in New York Magazine any time soon. The severely autistic people and the conditions they suffer with are not to be mentioned in polite company for fear that a realistic description of THEIR autism might offend those who pose in the New York Magazine, the internet divas and the former elf realm dwellers of the Alleged Autism Rights Movement.

To the Alleged Autism Rights leaders if you want to pretend to speak on behalf of all persons with autism then start speaking about those with actual Autistic Disorder who do not share all your gifts and good fortunes. And stop trying to suppress and obscure candid discussion of THEIR autism, not YOUR's, which is so different.

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for saying this. I am a firm believer in helping every person have the best life possible and that treating whatever symptoms and difficulties that we can does not take away from the individual's personality or essence - it just gives them more choices!

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  2. wtb, you expressed it very succinctly.

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