There is a very real and serious Autism crisis
Yes we do have and Autism crisis and it seems t be an invasive epidemic world wide! But it's not what you think!
The crisis isn't about "the rise in autism rates," something that is largely do to more awareness and understanding about Autism
No the crisis is invasive, frightening and dangerous
The Autism crisis is....
Am invasive lack of presumption of competence especially when we do not have or use verbal communication or when our verbal communication is deemed poor
It's the assumption that those who do use verbal speech need few or even no supports at all, and the reality their needs are often over looked, ignored and rarely accommodated
autistic communication rights are ignored, before we can have access to a full comprehensive AAC system we are often told to "prove it low tech first," when we don't use AAC 100 percent perfect right off that bay we are said to be in interested, many alternative communication methods are viewed as "con traversal and even when we are clearly typing on our own either the authenticity of out words or that of our diagnosis are called into question
The communication support needs of autistics with decent to excellent verbal skills is overlooked and ignored entirely
The fact that communication and verbal skills are seen as binary concepts
The fact that access to communication AIDS and a variety of methods of non speech based communication methods isn't seen as a basic human right for us,
The fact that people assume we don't communicate if we can't use or don't use verbal speech or an AAC
The fact we have to remind people behavior is communication
That children are expected to spend 40 plus hours a week in therapies designed to try to make us indistinguishable from our peers or as normal as possible while also getting other therapies and being expected to also go to school, childhoods stolen in hopes of making us seem normal
A growing number of dangerous and experimental treatments and abusiveAnd therapies in hopes of curing us, many of which would be considered child abuse with a non autistic child, prominent example is mms (mini ale mineral solution aka bleach fed to children and administered though enimmas
The fact that autistic friendly therapies are not seen as a priority and learning to pass as normal is even at the detriment of the autistic individual
The fact RPM isn't more widely available and I'm not sure if insurance will even cover it
The fact that stim suppression is considered a training goal even though stimming is critical for many of us
The fact that essentially dog training techniques are used as therapies on us to train us to act normal.
The fact there are therapy goals at teaching us to play "the right way" (aka the non Autstic way)
The fact it's seen as acceptable to talk about us like we aren't Ben there when we are next to you!
The. Fact that proper clump comorbidy in with being part of autism and don't look at them separately as additional things we have to deal with,
The fact that organizations that claim to represent while ignoring us when we say something is harmful and they will try to silence us and claim to speak for us while shutting us out, spreading fear and stigma.
It's the attitudes that murdering us is some how mercy, while our killers often parents and care givers are painted as victims and us the undo burden who they had to endure, our support needs and challenges are used to justify our murders, that when we are murdered the reports aren't about how it is an unspeakable act of cold blooded murder but rather about the struggles of our killers,
The fact society seems to send them message we and our loved ones are better off if we were never born or if we are dead
The fact that we have to fight for our basic human rights and those are often ignored.
The fact that parents showing videos of us at our worst to "educate" by posting about how hard and horrible autism makes their lives is seen as acceptable and our dignity and privacy not being valued especially in the face of parents talking about their suffering
The fact parents suffering matters more then the Barrie's that we face due to ableism and a societies attitudes about us
The pervasive use of functioning labels that paint an inaccurate picture about an autistic individual and our needs, capabilities and assets,
The using of functioning labels to silence and function shame autistics
The fact that being able to type is used against us to invalidate out voices especially if we type well (spoiler how well we type tells you nothing about what challenges, daily struggle S or impairments we have)
The fact that any small success or having certain life skills even if they are not as important as ones we struggle with is s used against us to silence us
The fact that functioning shaming is a thing
The voices of Parents " professionals and organizations being valued over those of actually Autistic people
The mere fact an autistic person can disagree with something or say "wow that's harmful," or "how would you feel if that was up you," to things like meltdowns p or personal care things being put out on the Internet for the world to see and 100 parents will jump in and attack or harass the autistic person, really all an autistic person needs do is disagree with the something posted by a parent, org or a non autistic and they get attacked.
The fact that there are amazing parents and family members out there who work to lift up Autistic voice, support neurodiversity fight for presumtion of comptenence fight agaisnst all the issues on this list to better the lives of their children and loved ones only to also be dismissed and told they have it easy and clearly don't know what "real autism is,'
this whole "this is real autism," thing often used by people who feel autism isn't being portrayed right often used as an attack on what they see as ?to happy a depiction" and ignoring the fact that autism is complex.
Autstic adults and children are constantly exposed to hearing terms like "burden," "crisis" "Broken," "lost," damaged and "trapped" in reference to us and being autistic and this is seen as ok while "valued," "competent," "life worth living," "being seen as a whole person," and any discussion of acceptance and understanding is seen as"glorifying autism," controversial and radical
The fact that people take offense to the Neurodiversity movement that basically say different neurology and disability is part of human experience, disabled people and people with different neurologist have a right to our basic rights, understanding supports we need and acceptance for who we are and it's ok to have different neurological make up and to have disabilities what ever they may be it doesn't take away from our value as a person
The insistence one use of mental age
The idea IQ test accurately determine anything really.
The fact that most of the funding for autism goes into studies about causes, prevention and prenatal testing instead of into studies on what services and community supports are most beneficial to autistics, to adult services and community support or to services for adults
The fact that April is often a traumatic time for Autistics as we are looded with harmful awareness adds that stigmatize us, stories of our peers treating us as humans and being praised for it and inspiration porn, and of coarse lets not forget the light it up blue which is a giant add for autism speaks that the autistic community has addressed as harmful and is the center of a massive boycott,
The fact that the autistic run and founded events in April for acceptance and understanding such red instead, the blog challenge, and a variety of alternatives to light it up blue are generally ignored drowned out by the things lifted above
The fact that services and supports for autistic adults especially in community supports are rare and hard to find
The fact most services cut off at 22
The fact most organizations providing service dogs for Autistics will not train them for adults and many are either scam or well intentioned but promoting and using practices/tasks such as tethering that are highly dangerous to both dog and he autistic individual. Even though there are a variety of tasks that guide and hearing dogs perform that can really help mitigate and manage sensory processing issues.
The fact that poor families, families of color and minorities and females are less likely to receive an autism diagnosis and the gender and cultural biases in the diagnostics and the autism field
The fact most people think of autism they depict a white male child often sad looking
The fact that even though every other disability community has pretty much realized negative awareness techniques and using pitty to get funds was wrong and damaging so they did away with it like in the 60s or 70s (it's 2 am I don't have the exact date more the spoons to look it up) up yet this is the main way fundraising is done in the autism community
The fact that electro shock is seen as a reasonable way to treat autism and is just reaching the fear in hopes of having it banned as I humane in the year 2016! Please FDA ban aversive shock therapy!
The fact sensory issues are rarely taken seriously
The fact that non autistics are praised for treating us like people
The fact we have to fight to be seen as humans
The fact that passing means our diagnosis is devalued and not means we are denied out autonomy
The fact that our sexuality is ignored
the fact that we spend hours in compliance training
the fact that having emotions such as anger, frustration and being upset while normal for everyone else is seen as being defiant and uncooperative,
The fact that autistic is used as an insult now by some
The fact that use of autistic is ignored and even painted are therapy
The fact that when autistic choose to use identity first non autistic people correct us and tell us how to talk about ourselves and insist we use person first.
The fact we are often given little to no autonomy
The rampant infantalization of autistics
The fact doctors still tell parents if we don't do X by age 5 we never will
The fact that the entire focus is to make us normal and not to accommodate us and help us grow with our strengths
The fact you can be denied an organ transplant because you are Autistic
the practice of forcing eye contact
The fact that the world tells us it's better we pass and burn ourselves out completely then we seem even a bit Autistic
The fact that our accommodations and needs aren't taken seriously and are often treated as not real or a burden
The fact that we are seen as tragedies not people
The fact it's 2-3:30 am and I can rattle these off the top of my head despite being half awake!
I know I am missing so many more!
This is the real Autism crisis
The real Autism crisis is how society treats us the Autism crisis is Ableism!
this is a crisis we must address and needs to be dealt with!
this is the Autism crisis Autistics face everydaay!
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