Whenever I go over to autism blogs to comment on pro-cure parents’ posts, it is only a matter of time before someone tells me I’m wrongly comparing myself to their child, because I (presumably) don’t have [insert whatever problems the child has]. I was almost drawn into actually comparing myself to someone’s child yesterday, but I pulled back, since that wasn’t the point I wanted to make. However, so that everyone is clear on this: I never said I am like your child. First of all, your child is a child, while I am an adult. Second, I have no problem admitting that your child’s measurable IQ and communicative abilities are probably at a lower level than mine ever have been. In that sense, I cannot speak for your child because I am not like your child – but then again, neither are you, and we only accept it that you speak on behalf of your child because so does every parent until their child is a certain age.
However, if you wanted to make a logical distinction between “high-functioning” and “low-functioning”, between “classic” and Asperger’s, or whatever terminology you’d like to use, you need to do more than to pick out someone you disagree with and tell them that they aren’t part of your group. You must have solid reasons for calling one person “low-functioning” and another person “high-functioning”. Furthermore, if you don’t want whatever you decided are the distinguishing features between the category your child fits in and the category autistic advocates fit in, to backfire on you, you must make sure that every autistic advocate falls into the “high-functioning” category, but every child whose parents visit your blog, falls in the “low-functioning”, “real autism” category. Otherwise, you would open up a can of worms of parents of HFA/AS children who say you are denying their child services, and you’d open up another can of worms of autistic self-advocates who say that, since they meet your criteria for “real autism”, they can no longer be discredited. This is difficult enough if you don’t want to end up with “the ability to disagree with me in a way that I can understand”.
Now once you have established where you would draw the line between “high-functioning” autistic advocates and your “low-functioning” or “truly autistic” child, imagine your child acquires just enough skills to cross the border to the “high-functioning” side, but he only barely crossed the line. What would you do if your child indicated he wished no longer to be cured? Would you accept his remaining autism and stop the treatments, or would you proceed to get rid of all his autistic behaviors? What if he were at that point over 18?
Now imagine your child reached whatever milestone for you marks the border between high and low, not through your preferred treatment method, but through, for example, advances in technology, a more autistic-friendly environment, or interaction with autistic adults who are farther along the path than he is? Would you still contend that your child was “cured”? Would you discredit your own child’s opinion based on his current level of communication or other skills, like you discredit many autistic adults based on their current level of communication (and other presumed skills) now? Or would you acknowledge that there are actually other pathways, besides your treatment of choice, to functioning as an autistic person in the NT world? And even if your child did learn his skills through your preferred treatment method, how can you assert that he is “cured”, when he has only barely crossed the line between “low-functioning”/”classic”/whatever and “high-functioning”, and is still pretty obviously autistic?
Now of course you may’ve decided to continue your child’s treatment despite his wishes, especially if he is under 18 or you are his legal guardian. To what point would you continue with the curative treatment? And what would you do if, along the path, you came across autistic advocates who are now actually like your child? Would you tell them to their face: “Okay, you are like my child, but I am not your guardian. If I were, I’d have you cured, too.” And if that were what you’d do, why don’t you do it now? I actually used to appreciate the writer of the Hating Autism blog (which is actually a total load of crap), for once telling me straight to my face that I ought to look to some biomedical intervention that could cure me, and that otherwise I was choosing to be a weirdo and a burden on the people around me. It ain’t nice, but at least he couldn’t be accused of speaking with a forked tongue – at least not on that occasion. Or would you keep on looking for things that make said autistic “not like my child”, even if you end up with total nonsense?
Of course I failed to address the situation where your child actually does want to be cured. I acknowledge that this is a real possibility, and not just for children who’ve been taught that autism is bad all along. I know quite a few autistics, diagnosed in adulthood, who never received any “curative” intervention but still can’t wait for the day one comes onto the market. I have no problem with these people – I disagree with them on many issues, but I can’t decide for them what medical interventions they should or shouldn’t try. Likewise, I wouldn’t have a problem if your child, once he is an adult, goes on to access whatever treatments are available then. What I have a problem with, is your divisive arguing: every person who doesn’t want a cure, is “not like my child”, regardless of actual abilities. Do you think that the adults who do want a cure – and some of them are actually quite highly-intelligent, verbal Asperger’s people, who would’ve been discredited if they disagreed with you -, do fall within the category with your child? Many years ago, Autistics.org already exposed your inability to come up with logical, sensible reasons why all self-advocates are not like your child. Why don’t you finally stop trying to fight with the same broken weapons, and just tell it like it is: “Since you can disagree with me, you are not like my child.”
