Friday, February 7, 2014

You Are On the Right Planet


Focusing on Strengths Instead of Weaknesses

Something is bothering me about how people view autism. I see far too much emphasis on what we do wrong and ways to correct that (stimming, eye contact, verbal communication, etc.) rather than focusing on what we can do.

Image if we insisted to a blind person that they must look us in the eye when speaking? Imagine if we tried speaking louder to a deaf person to get them to listen? Imagine telling a lame person they need to make an effort to stand and walk on their own because they need to learn how to blend in. With nearly every other disability it's understood that you give the person the crutch they need to support their weakness and then focus on growing their strengths.

Why isn't it the same for autism? 

You Are On The Right Planet: A Message To All Aspies
by
Mark Hutten

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Person-first vs Identity-first Language

There is some discussion about which is shows more respect, person first, or identity first language.
Person first language would be, "I am a woman with autism." Identity first language would be, "I am autistic."

The person first language came about with the intention of drilling into people's minds that a person with a disability is a person first and not the disability.

I understand what they are saying. But I think they are wrong. I use both methods of speech, depending on the conversation. The only way I choose between one or the other is very naturally: one or the other flows more smoothly with the conversation.

Forcing people to refer to me as a person with autism doesn't force any understanding in their brains. It doesn't change their level of empathy or compassion. It doesn't teach them anything. Now getting to know me, seeing me as a person, that will change their thinking.

The same thing happened with the word 'retard'. When I was little people who had mental retardation were called 'slow' or 'retarded'. The words were used by doctors to describe the condition. The word itself wasn't bad and wasn't used to hurt. And then people started using it as a slur. They would call others 'slow' or 'retard' as a way to insult them.

Well that was a problem because now if doctors or news reporters used the word retarded they sounded like a school yard bully. Then it was determined that we need to change it to, "Johnny has retardation." Somehow they thought that would neutralize the word. Johnny is no longer retarded, he just has retardation.

When that didn't work to change people's thinking they changed the phrasing to 'intellectually disabled.' It's just as easy to insult someone by saying they are intellectually disabled as it is to say they are retarded. Granted it takes a few more syllables to get there, but let's be honest.  It's not any harder.

It is very annoying because unless you are active in that community you are hard pressed to know what the latest version you're supposed to be using. For example, I am surprised to read that deaf people find the phrase 'hearing impaired' to be offensive. I just don't understand why that is. I can't see how that would be offensive.

Likewise, I don't think it's fair to expect anyone outside the Autistic community to know whether they must use person first or language first phrasing. I think it's far more important to consider what they are saying rather than how they are saying it. A person can use perfectly PC language and still be outrageously offensive.

And really, I don't think a community that is known for it's communication deficits ought to be policing other people's method of communication. 

Constantly forcing a new PC version of the language doesn't teach the general public anything. If you want to show the world autistic people are human you do that be telling their story. You stop focusing on what they can't do and start telling the story of what they can do.