INTRODUCTION
As this is an Autism themed post and we are still in the month of April my text will all be in #RedInstead. Links will be in bold and underlined.
AUTISM ACCEPTANCE
Autism acceptance is about people accepting us for who we are, focussing on the positives and on our abilities, not on our limitations (both perceived and actual, though the former are both much greater and much more important in terms of the effect on us). The Art of Autism recently put up and excellent post about this titled “THIS BEAUTY QUEEN’S MESSAGE IS AUTISM ACCEPTANCE“. I offer this screenshot as a tempter:
ABA THERAPY = CHILD ABUSE
ABA stands for Applied Behaviour Analysis, and is still recommended in certain circles. Those who were subjected to this as children and have subsequently written about it are unanimous in condemning it. It would appear based on this sample that the most frequent outcome of ABA therapy is that an autistic person ends up an autistic person with Post Traumatic Sress Disorder. I link to two very substantial pieces by a former practitioner of ABA who has learned the error of her former ways, with thanks to Rachel Rainey who put me on to these two pieces today. The pieces posted by madasbirdsblog are:
- The original mea culpa piece titled “I ABUSED CHILDREN FOR A LIVING”
- A follow up piece provoked by a response defending ABA, titled “I ABUSED CHILDREN AND SO DO YOU: A RESPONSE TO AN ABA APOLOGIST“. This piece is very long (over 9,000 words) but I recommend you read it in full. My screenshot comes from just after the start of the post, and I hope muy reasons for this choice will be obvious:
A NEW FIND WITH A
GREAT “WHAT IF?” PIECE
- This next piece was originally published in May 2016 but is still absolutely relevant. From a blog called autnot and titled “If the world was built for me” it does precisely what you might expect from the title. The screenshot below is from the end of it:
ERIN HUMAN’S ABLEISM SERIES
Regular visitors to this site will know that I have been greatly impressed by Erin Human’s series of posts focussing on ableism. I am delighted to share with you two new posts in this series:
- A piece titled “Is there a cure for ableism?” which tackles ways in which this scourge can be dealt with.
- Under the title “Ableism Therapies” a post which lists some important links:
‘AWARENESS’ IS NOT ENOUGH
Some of you may have noticed that unusually for a post of this nature I have yet to mention thesilentwaveblog. Fear not, I conclude the business part of this post with a link to a post titled “Awareness’ is not enough ~ Part 3: Talk is cheap. Please take action“.
PHOTOGRAPHS
aspiblog 