Left Brain Right Brain

I can’t recall the amount of times over the last 10 years or so that people have accused me, or other writers on this blog of saying that autism is ‘merely’ a difference. Its a lot of times however, and every time they say it, its still wrong. Both in fact and idea. I’ve never said autism is merely a difference or just a difference. I think it is also a disability.

However, even that is not the truth in my opinion. The truth is that autism is a spectrum. I think however, that a lot of people perceive a spectrum as a ‘straight-line’ type idea with a definite start and a definite end. Thats not how I see it. I see it more as something like light refracted through a prism creating a rainbow of colours. With these colours one can make a near infinite range of hues and shades.

And that is also how I see the autistic spectrum. It doesn’t begin with severe autism and end with very high functioning autism or vice versa. It is comprised of individuals that each are their own hue and shade, made up of differing components of the spectrum. Something that doesn’t have a beginning or an end but an ever shifting array of possibilities.

So an autistic person may have very severe autism but not have an intellectual disability. A different autistic person may function very well socially but not very well with eye contact. Yet another individual may have epilepsy and Aspergers. I don’t see how, in such a scenario one can say autism is ‘just’ or ‘merely’ anything. For a lot of autistic people, their autism is a disabling condition and also a difference they may cherish. For others, they may hate the way their autism affects them.

What I advocate for is the preservation of an autistic individuals personal right to be who they are. If they want to advocate for their autism and fellow autistic peers, who are we non-autistics to judge? It doesn’t matter to me if that person is someone who loves or hates their autism. As an autistic individual they have every right to speak for themselves and for others who are like-minded.

My own belief is that with self-confidence and the support of family, friends and professionals, an autistic person can have a world of options open to them. Those options _may_ be limited by the spectrum of difference autism has abled/disabled them with and they may also be limited by the society in which they live but I believe there is always options, always choice and always hope.

Before I started blogging here, I had started a website. The site is now being promoted as my secret life as a curbie. I’ve tried to find the archive of the site and the backup of the blog. Then it struck me, you can see snapshots of how the site looked with the wayback machine. At some point after I started blogging here at LeftBrain/RightBrain, I added a blog to my website. Sort of a spin-off that didn’t really take. You can find that on the archive as well.

The main website gathered a lot of criticism from people I respect so I took it down with the intent or rewriting it at some point. As you can see, that never happened. I invite you to go look for yourself.

Past criticism included:

1) promotion of ABA in general
2) lack of a good description of the fact that early autism diagnoses may not be stable, so studies claiming benefit based on changes in diagnosis are suspect
3) since many studies use changes in diagnoses, they promote a “cure is better” model
4) There isn’t a strong enough statement against using ABA (and like therapies) for trying to extinguish autistic traits and “normalize” autistics
4) links to other sites that are considered offensive to some (e.g. FEAT, ASAT)

There was more. Let me know your criticism.

If your criticism is, “but you are so anti treatment now!”, take a moment first. That is such a strawman. There is a big difference between being (a) treatments which are untested for efficacy or safety (or have known serious side effects) and (b) treatments which have some sound basis for how they work, have some efficacy data and have safety data.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of the former and very few of the latter.

This isn’t new, nor something hidden. I’ve written here on LeftBrain/RightBrain about clinical trials, for example. Our family has even participated in a clinical trial. We were able to look at the proposed mechanism (which wasn’t particularly strong, I admit), and the previous studies and, most importantly, the safety data. And it was a study–our participation would be used to gather data which could help out the greater community by stating whether the treatment was beneficial or not. We weren’t trying to gather anecdotes for advertisements.

One problem with keeping to a pseudonym and keeping private is that it allows for strawmen to be built. There is a big strawman that I (and others) are against any and all forms of treatment. I doubt the strawmen will go away anytime soon. They are so much easier to fight than facts.