Here’s a letter from Estee Klar-Wolfond of The Autism Acceptance Project.

We are facing a confusing era. On the one hand we value diversity and for the first time ever we are seeing more disabled individuals in our communities and in our schools. Yet it might also be the worst time to be disabled.

The autistic community, like the community of people with Down syndrome, is confronted with continued bias and discrimination that is condoned by society. As with autism, people in the Down syndrome community have had to listen to scientists advancing research that promises to bring about the “prevention” of their very lives.

In addition, the autistic community faces questionable methods of “recovery,” with the goal of making the autistic person as close to “normal” as possible. It seems clear that society does not understand disability, and therefore does not fully value the autistic person. Similarly, despite the record of success of individuals with Down syndrome in the workplace and in our communities, over eighty percent of fetuses are aborted in Canada when Down syndrome is diagnosed prenatally.

The public has very little idea of the reported joys and gifts of raising children with special needs, despite the challenges. Medical schools do not have programs on understanding disability, so it’s no wonder that society views disability as a medical “problem” as opposed to a social one, and treats the disabled accordingly.

Our goal is to understand autism so that we can better accommodate children and adults. There are challenges autistic people face and we need to know how to assist while keeping in mind equality, dignity and respect. We must do so also by including autistic people in all aspects and at the forefront of this dialogue while non-autistic people stand beside them, as a matter of fairness and valuing human difference. I encourage everyone to seek out and support research that focuses on improving the lives of people with autism, not preventing them.

I hope we can all engage in a discussion and consider how we can support work and research to determine what kinds of help autistic people need in order to contribute to society as autistic people.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 18th, 2007 at 12:46 pm and is filed under Down syndrome, autism, medicine, public attitudes, research news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Email This Post