• Replies 37 replies
  • Subscribers 88 subscribers
  • Views 10250 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

Should autistic people campaign for recognition as a distinct part of humanity rather than be labelled as disabled?

NAS71674

I have stories previously of other groups of people such as Irish gypsies successfully campaigning to be recognised as a distinct subgroup of humanity. Irish gypsies do have a distinct culture (they are wonderful people if you knew them) but they are quite a bit closer to most other people than autistic people are. So rather than be classified as a disability (excluding comorbidity like learning disability, depression etc) should autistic people, who generally have a unique way of approaching life (that is common across most autistic people) campaign for the same thing? In my opinion I don't consider us to have a disability, I think we are really just a very different type of human being with a common identity among all of us who share the so called disability. What are your thoughts?

Parents

  • No, I think that it should be classed as life long disability but saying that i also believe that more needs to be done to separate both mental health services and neurodevelopmental services into two completely separate services on the basis that current mental health services in the UK doesn't accommodate mental health intervention or treatment for individuals with neurodevelopmental disorder such as autism and ADHD.Autism is disabling because the majority of humanity have created society, infrastructure, employment model design specifically for neurotypical people.

    From a logical standpoint dividing and separating individuals in to a sub groups is not an ideal solution to this problems and promotes segregation of individuals with autism and promotes non inclusion in a variety of things that the majority of people like myself would like to have equal opportunities to pursue and access.

    From an autistic individuals standpoint the term "it a different way of thinking" doesn't help the majority of us and enables non autistics to not take any disabling situations from autistic individuals non serious manner that leads to mental and physical health issues with autistic individuals.   

    The world's population is majority filled with neurotypicals, Individuals with autism is very few and among the individual with autism less than a 1/3 of them have autism with no comorbidities and there is a very small proportion of those who are able to successful integrate in to society with very little to no help and support. Among those individuals who have autism and are able to successfully integrated and succeed into society less than one in hundred understands and recognise that compounding factors including access to opportunities and among other environmental and economic avantages.  

    it benefits everyone with neurodevelopmental disorder such as Autism, ADHD and other learning disabilities to band under one banner because more people means power to promote change the majority of the neurodiverse population needs to succeed in neurotypical world.      

Reply

  • No, I think that it should be classed as life long disability but saying that i also believe that more needs to be done to separate both mental health services and neurodevelopmental services into two completely separate services on the basis that current mental health services in the UK doesn't accommodate mental health intervention or treatment for individuals with neurodevelopmental disorder such as autism and ADHD.Autism is disabling because the majority of humanity have created society, infrastructure, employment model design specifically for neurotypical people.

    From a logical standpoint dividing and separating individuals in to a sub groups is not an ideal solution to this problems and promotes segregation of individuals with autism and promotes non inclusion in a variety of things that the majority of people like myself would like to have equal opportunities to pursue and access.

    From an autistic individuals standpoint the term "it a different way of thinking" doesn't help the majority of us and enables non autistics to not take any disabling situations from autistic individuals non serious manner that leads to mental and physical health issues with autistic individuals.   

    The world's population is majority filled with neurotypicals, Individuals with autism is very few and among the individual with autism less than a 1/3 of them have autism with no comorbidities and there is a very small proportion of those who are able to successful integrate in to society with very little to no help and support. Among those individuals who have autism and are able to successfully integrated and succeed into society less than one in hundred understands and recognise that compounding factors including access to opportunities and among other environmental and economic avantages.  

    it benefits everyone with neurodevelopmental disorder such as Autism, ADHD and other learning disabilities to band under one banner because more people means power to promote change the majority of the neurodiverse population needs to succeed in neurotypical world.      

Children
  • in reply to Blue
    Blue said:
    From a logical standpoint dividing and separating individuals in to a sub groups is not an ideal solution to this problems and promotes segregation of individuals with autism and promotes non inclusion in a variety of things that the majority of people like myself would like to have equal opportunities to pursue and access.

    I don't think it segregates autistic people (like myself) I think it would actually make life on planet earth much more inclusive and accommodating to different types of human beings and would show that everyone has a place here. Denying that recognition and labelling us as disabled is just mild oppression in my opinion and is actually the toxic route to take. Recognition that we are a distinct part of the human family and not just a dsyfunctional version of an NT is the superior route to take. 

  • in reply to Blue

    I guess your actually not autistic from your comments so I guess your just validating my point that NT people are potentially labelling us as disabled because we don't live life like you. The NT: If someone lives life differently to me they are disabled. Thats the issue. Again I am obviously excluding autistics with comorbidities such as learning disability.

  • in reply to Blue

    I have to disagree with you. If autistic people live life in a way that suits them there are no issues. The issues come from trying to fit a triangle into a circle. The world is designed for NT people not for autistic people. If you took someone from a tribe in south american jungles never seen a thing from the outside world then force them to live in London say would you say they are disabled? I don't think so. 

  • in reply to Blue
    Blue said:
    Individuals with autism is very few

    I disagree - the older I'm getting, the more aspies I'm meeting.    

    Basically, it seems that anywhere where someone has a skill or can provide a niche service or has to be technical or engineering or computing or architecture, you'll find all the aspies - mostly undiagnosed because of their age and they are in their comfort zone so they don't have all the problems of dealing with NTs.       Conversely, wherever you find inefficiency, incompetence, sloppiness and failure, that's where all the NTs hang out.    The control the world not necessarily through numbers but by status and manipulation.      We tend to be poor at fighting our corner and also we have better and more interesting things to be doing than playing BS games all the time - we just get on with our specialist skills.    We 'don't exist' as statistics.     The only ASDs who are on the radar are the ones needing more help because they are in the wrong place - their life or job or environment isn't conducive to personal success.

    Just my observations......