Autism Acceptance Day 2013: Asking the question - How does it make you feel?

[nightengalesknd]

Unsurprisingly, our local free parenting magazine is featuring autism this month. I haven’t read the articles, but the cover art consists of paper-doll style people holding hands. They are all different colors, and cut out of the head of each one is a hole the shape of a jigsaw puzzle piece

Comments

[kittenmommy]

How does continued emphasis on how autism makes neurotypical people feel make autistic people feel?

I can only imagine how that makes autistic people feel.

Puzzle pieces missing from their heads? Really? That tells you a lot about how those parents view their kids right there, doesn't it?

[nightengalesknd]

I have no idea if the cover art inspiration came from a parent or some random local artist or if it was ever run by any parents of kids with autism before going to press. There's a lot of puzzle piece = autism imagry out there, so for all I know they got it from somewhere national. I tried and failed to find an online link of the graphic.

I'm just reasonably sure that the prevailing thought was "how do WE feel about kids with autism" rather than "how does this picture make kids with autism feel?"

[kittenmommy]

People with autism are robots, and therefore can't feel. Didn't you see Rainman?

[nightengalesknd]

I did, several times in fact, since autism was already an autistic special interst of mine when the movie came out. But since I'm autistic, I can't draw inferences from a film like that.

[teacup_werewolf]

NGL I usually spend this month drinking. I fucking hate April. I hate the rhetoric, I hate the trag-comic posts about growing up autistic, I hate arguments and counter arguments. I hate the whole damn month.

It doesn't matter if I say I hate it when I am reduced to a symbol to make NT people feel bad, or I hate not having my voice heard, because in the end my voice would continue to be drown out buy people with bigger wallets and more social power. Call me cynical but I am just so jaded.

Fuck.April.

[nightengalesknd]

There's a lot to hate. I'm wading in hoping I can make things better for my patients, about half of whom are on the spetrum. Things aren't going to change soon, but maybe by the time they're my age?

[teacup_werewolf]

That is kind of what I am hoping, hence why I am still fighting. Albeit with a bottle of scotch....

[queenlyzard]

[glynhogen]

So...Minbari cause autism? I guess that's a step up from the vaccine thing.

[ext_1732497]

Well. This is a new one. Now we are not puzzle pieces but we have part of our heads missing. Wow. Talk about alarmist!!! I was not thrilled with the puzzle piece deal, as it states to me that ' If you are not just like us, at the same "functioning level" in all areas, and a cookie cutter duplicate of whatever is the popular thing at this moment, you are less than human, because the washing machine settings don't understand that' But to say we have additional holes in our heads? How RUDE. (Oops, though, politeness is no longer the popular thing of the moment so my even saying that shows my defectiveness...and I Don't Give a Rat's Posterior.)

Just looks like more alarmist dreck to me. Same old, same old. And why I am" toning it down taupe" this year.

[nightengalesknd]

Yes I now have a Taupe ribbon (with googly eyes) on my office door at work. About 40% of our patients are kids on the autism spectrum so I'm making a statement about prioritizing their actual needs and desires, not the care/cure rhetoric.

[kittenmommy]

What's the googly-eyed taupe ribbon symbolize?

[nightengalesknd]

Neurodivergent K explains it best here but the short answer is, Tone It Down Taupe is the response to Light It Up Blue! Taupe to represent toning down the alarmism and googly eyes to represent the insistance on eye contact.

[queenlyzard]