If you follow the CBC's irresponsible promotion of the joy of autism ideology (Rethinking Autism, Positively Autistic) you wouldn't know that autism disorders are actually mental disorders that mean very difficult lives for those with low functioning autistic disorder. In Australia an all too common example of autism reality is reported by Michelle Hoctor in Autism sufferer dealt a double blow.
Ms Hoctor describes the autism reality of Kate Southern, 35, who lost her mother and primary carer to brain cancer earlier this week. Now she is due to be relocated to a group home in a location some distance from her remaining family members. After visiting and viewing the group home Ms Southern has begun tearing her hair out in clumps.
The challenges faced by Kate Southern are not uncommon to severely autistic persons. They occur here in New Brunswick Canada where an inadequate residential care system for autistic adults results in adults living on hospital wards, shipped out of the country or living in group homes with untrained staff, one of which recently closed on 24 hours notice.
The realities of autism aren't discussed much by the Toronto art gallery crowd at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that like to promote the autism is beautiful ideology of a few persons with Aspergers and High Functioning Autism.
Maybe someday the CBC "journalists" will Stumble Upon stories of lower functioning autistic persons like Kate Southern in Australia or Tiffany Pinckney in Toronto.
Maybe they will get away from their desks and examine all aspects of the autism spectrum of mental disorders.
Maybe the CBC "journalists" will discover the autistic persons who don't appear several times a year in media interviews because they live in residential and institutional care and can't communicate or understand the ideology that says that Autistic Disorder is not really a disorder after all.
Maybe, but I won't hold my breath waiting.
I will thank Michelle Hoctor and IllawarraMercury.com for some real autism reporting.
Ms Hoctor describes the autism reality of Kate Southern, 35, who lost her mother and primary carer to brain cancer earlier this week. Now she is due to be relocated to a group home in a location some distance from her remaining family members. After visiting and viewing the group home Ms Southern has begun tearing her hair out in clumps.
The challenges faced by Kate Southern are not uncommon to severely autistic persons. They occur here in New Brunswick Canada where an inadequate residential care system for autistic adults results in adults living on hospital wards, shipped out of the country or living in group homes with untrained staff, one of which recently closed on 24 hours notice.
The realities of autism aren't discussed much by the Toronto art gallery crowd at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that like to promote the autism is beautiful ideology of a few persons with Aspergers and High Functioning Autism.
Maybe someday the CBC "journalists" will Stumble Upon stories of lower functioning autistic persons like Kate Southern in Australia or Tiffany Pinckney in Toronto.
Maybe they will get away from their desks and examine all aspects of the autism spectrum of mental disorders.
Maybe the CBC "journalists" will discover the autistic persons who don't appear several times a year in media interviews because they live in residential and institutional care and can't communicate or understand the ideology that says that Autistic Disorder is not really a disorder after all.
Maybe, but I won't hold my breath waiting.
I will thank Michelle Hoctor and IllawarraMercury.com for some real autism reporting.
autism
You said it to the t. I couldn of said it better myself.
ReplyDeleteTemple Grandin, a real autistic, says:
ReplyDelete"The problem is, you talk to parents with a low-functioning kid, who've got a teenager who still goes to the bathroom in his pants and who's biting himself all the time. This guy destroys the house, and he's not typing, no matter what keyboards you make available. His life is miserable."
Why isn't the CBC reporting on those who desperately need the attention, instead of the frauds who are now laughing their heads off?
Maybe you should actually take the time to look at those with HFA and with AS who, while verbal, are still very much in need of assistance rather than slam an someone who is not LFA.
ReplyDeleteBeing verbal does not mean that everything is rosey in the world of that verbal autistic.
Compassion goes a long way to making this world a more inclusive world for ALL individuals on the spectrum.
Raven
ReplyDeleteThank you for slamming me but I have never said that being verbal means everything is rosy. I have provided free legal services to some HFA and AS youths so your assumptions about me lacking familiarity with some of their issues is a mistake.
You talk about compassion but you ignore the challenges faced by the more severely autistic, low functioning, non-verbal autistic persons. As do the high functioning autistic and Aspergers persons inteviewed by the CBC, and by CNN and by The New Yorker etc etc etc who claim that "autistics" do not want to be cured.
They do not share the same challenges as my son and other more severely autistic persons and should not presume to speak on their behalf.