Asperger's / Autism Toolbox
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See the Connections
A Post by Monkey Plierson December 7, 2012
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Asperger's / Autism ToolboxH EO M See the ConnectionsA Post by Monkey Plierson December 7, 2012 View Blog Listings |
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I've been hearing a lot lately about the debates, law, and court cases dealing with "reparative therapy". Having been out of the closet since I was 15, I've known about this sort of thing for years, but it's become a really hot topic these days. The controversy, for those thus far uninformed, relates to whether or not it's effective in its claimed ability to convert gay people to heterosexuality, whether it does good (if it works) or harm (regardless of whether or not the attempted conversion takes place), and whether such "treatment" should be given to children at the behest of their parents, regardless of how the kids feel about it. Much of the uproar is over whether or not it's so damaging as to be too unethical a practice to legally allow it to go on at all. At the same time as all this is going on, I'm also following discussion of therapeutic practices regarding autistic children. I've heard a lot, so far, from adults who were, when they were kids, subjected to practices that were, at best, questionable. An excellent contribution has recently been made by a parent, Brenda Rothman, illuminating her concern over one element of treatment in particular. Her December 6, 2012 blog post, "Use Your Words: Non-Verbal, Speech, and AAC", poignantly describes her distress over observing a little girl being prevented from using any means other than speech to communicate her thoughts, feelings, and needs, in spite of her inability to comply and her frustration and withdrawal under pressure to do so. My response to this included the following: "Not everyone is aware, it seems, of a similar issue in Deaf history. To make Deaf kids learn speech and lip reading, some schools forbade signing. They restrained and punished them to force them to behave as hearing people would, instead of letting them have full access to language through sign. Whenever they could, kids at those schools had to teach each other sign in secret."Increasingly, I'm seeing connections between what's happening in the autism community and things that are going on elsewhere. At this point, this isn't a surprise to me. I already knew, in a general sense, that commonalities existed in the attitudes, behavior, and institutionalized response exhibited towards different minorities. But I'm finding the "treatment" aspect particularly striking right now. Also on my mind, especially because of the intermingling of my Asperger's with my other health issues, is the way different minority experiences intersect. John Elder Robison, in his article, "The Myth of the Black Aspergian Pt 2 - Accommodation or Jail?", notes that, after wondering for some time why he knew of so few African Americans on the spectrum, people began to point out to him that many members of the autism community who are black are, perhaps, sitting in prison cells. Why? Well, check the article and the comments that follow. To summarize, what do you think happens if, when you're a kid, your issues are dismissed as either nothing or as simply being behavioral problems, and then, when you get older, the police single you out for special attention because of the color of your skin, become all the more suspicious of you when you have difficulty making eye contact or behave in other ways they find odd, bark orders at you that you have difficulty obeying because of your processing delays, get rough with you for noncompliance, and then arrest you when you respond by having a meltdown that you now can't help but that could easily have been avoided, were it not for racism slamming directly into ignorance of ASD generally and yours in particular? There's lots more to consider regarding this matter, and I highly recommend you read through what's been said there by so many thoughtful posters. The more you get into these areas, the more you'll find stuff that'll make ya go, "Whoa!" But it's important to understand. There's a larger picture here. I'm just pulling out a few details. That's my special advantage. When I miss the forest for the trees, sometimes I can still get a sense of the forest by observing the recurrence and features of various types of trees. If we're going to make the world a better place, that's a type of observation I think we need. So, pay attention to the spectrumites around you - whether what we're telling you is expressed by speech, sign, writing, or the assistance of another person or an electronic device. See the connections, whether they're between the outward expression and the person inside or our experience and that of other people out in the world.
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