The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism has posted a transcription of John Elder Robison’s talk at the recent IMFAR conference. The article is: John Robison at IMFAR: On Autism Rights, Ethics, & Priorities. Mr. Robison spoke in the Social, Legal and Ethical Research Special Interest Group.
Here is the TPGA introduction:
John Elder Robison was a discussant for the Autism Social, Legal, and Ethical Research Special Interest Group at the 2014 International Meeting for Autism Research (IMFAR). He ended up taking the group to task, stating that the autism science community is headed for disaster if it does not change course on several factors – and noting for context the larger size of the US autistic community in proportion to other minority groups such as Jewish or Native American communities. Mr. Robison asserted that autistic people need to be the ones providing oversight and governance for autism research. He condemned the use of words like “cure.” He pointed out that researchers’ explicit or implicit efforts to eradicate autistic people is a formula for disaster and needs to stop. And he affirmed that memoirs and narratives written by autistic people are more trustworthy than writing about autism by nonautistics.
Many thanks to IMFAR participant and community member Todd Melnick for transcribing this talk.
The full transcription can be read at John Robison at IMFAR: On Autism Rights, Ethics, & Priorities
Thanks for posting this.