> I have serious doubts that an autistic advocate with low support needs, as opposed to 'neurotypicals' or impacted parents, are meaningfully more qualified to represent the needs of autistics with high support needs
You think a parent without any autism is more qualified to speak than someone who has autism but a different cluster of symptoms? Because being a parent makes you an expert on what exactly?
The is a video of the spokesperson of autism speaks. Her autistic child is in the room and can hear everything. She talks about how bad it is for her to have an autistic child. How she wanted to kill herself by driving down a cliff. Again, while her autistic child is in the room. She is acting like her child is not even a person.
Autism Speaks is a hate group of abusive parents.
Those advocates with low support needs are the ones that are actually making an attempt to give those high support needs a voice. Not by speaking for them but by taking down barriers so that they can advocate for themselves. Because guess what? High Support needs autistic people are still people.
Just because someone is non-verbal does not mean they can not communicate in other forms. They can advocate for themselves if given the tools.
Support needs are multi dimensional, one person might have sensory issues, another no sensory issues at all but more social issues. Who has more support needs? They are different. And they can change. You can learn better coping skills, you can need more or less support as you age.
The parents you talk about just seem like assholes.
> Those advocates with low support needs are the ones that are actually making an attempt to give those high support needs a voice.
Having low-support-needs autism is neither necessary nor sufficient for being a good voice for others. In fact, it can be a very bad thing, if they imply that the problems they face are similar to problems faced by high-support-needs folks. The focus in the media on low-support-needs individuals gives people the wrong impression of the autism spectrum's individual experience and broader societal impact.
I think a better form of advocacy is the YouTube channel "Special Books by Special Kids," which doesn't make a point of the channel's author having a disability (no clue whether he does), but rather just introduces viewers to a broad variety of people.
1. I am not claiming that low support-need autists cannot advocate for hight support need autists. I am saying that I have encountered little evidence to support the idea that low support-needs autists have more insight into the needs and interests of someone who is nonverbal, intellectually disabled, and has severe self-injurious behaviors than others, including those who know and support those individuals daily.
2. Sometime being non-verbal is about trouble with expressive communication. But for others, it is an all encompassing impairment and communication, if much at all, has huge subjective/interpretative component by the observer. fMRI in these indivuals show near absence of activation differences for contrasts between passively listened to language and random noise. They absolutely cannot advocate for themselves, and to not understand this, which occurs in 10-20% of autism, suggests a blindness to the full spectrum, because those people are not seen, they are not on Twitter, they are at home with their loving and hardworking caregivers who should have a seat at the table.
I'm pretty sure, that parents, that have autistic kids have not only autistic genes, but also some autistic behaviour. My mother is not diagnosed and she is quite unhinged female and sometimes also very logical. And she also have been talking about me crap with other people, so it perfectly describes autistic parent.
Unfortunately, but the main issue is that people, that are trying to take control of talking space are acting like humans do and in autistic circles they are most efficient at taking over... also, the obsession levels in activity is quite high, as that is topic that they are interested in.
> Autism Speaks is a hate group of abusive parents.
It's an indicator of the current state of affairs in the social media autism space that the only organization focusing on reducing the suffering of individuals with higher levels of dysfunction (i.e. requires lifelong support for basic needs) is demonized to this degree. Though it also makes sense as the most disabled autistic individuals do not post online.
It’s understandable that people with a milder form of autism would find it reprehensible that people want to “fix” them rather than simply accept a different type of person exists, but this really just ignores people at the harshest end of the spectrum who might be able to live an independent life if a cure were developed.
That’s kinda the whole argument behind more subgroups. Mild autists don’t need a cure. A subgrouping would help explain this.
There are plenty of conditions which are just “part of who you are” that still probably should be cured if possible, if for no other reason than to improve their quality of life.
This is a complete lie. Autistic advocacy group care a lot about people with higher needs.
Meanwhile autism speaks spends money for anti-scientific research to find out whether vaccines cause autism and how to find a "cure" for autism. Such a cure can not exist. Autism is something you are born with and that is part of you.
If you knew anything about autism then you would know that we speak about levels of care needs, not "low/high functioning". So either you are ignorant or did choose to use hurtful language.
> Such a cure can not exist. Autism is something you are born with and that is part of you.
Signs of autism generally show up in early childhood, but it has not been proven that it is something a person is born with. Vaccines have been studied enough to rule them out, but there are still a zillion other things that babies today are exposed to that could be a factor, from antibiotics to endocrine disrupting chemicals to microplastics to viruses or even something we're not even considering medically today.
Also, tons of birth defects and inborn diseases can be cured. We cure cleft palates and spina bifida routinely. We manage diabetes and Phenylketonuria effectively enough that patients can live regular lives. Here's a paper published in the prestigious Cell journal covering 700 different genetic disorders which can be treated today: https://www.cell.com/ajhg/fulltext/S0002-9297(25)00110-7
It's possible that in the future autism will have a cure, a preventative measure or a highly effective treatment.
You think a parent without any autism is more qualified to speak than someone who has autism but a different cluster of symptoms? Because being a parent makes you an expert on what exactly?
The is a video of the spokesperson of autism speaks. Her autistic child is in the room and can hear everything. She talks about how bad it is for her to have an autistic child. How she wanted to kill herself by driving down a cliff. Again, while her autistic child is in the room. She is acting like her child is not even a person.
Autism Speaks is a hate group of abusive parents.
Those advocates with low support needs are the ones that are actually making an attempt to give those high support needs a voice. Not by speaking for them but by taking down barriers so that they can advocate for themselves. Because guess what? High Support needs autistic people are still people.
Just because someone is non-verbal does not mean they can not communicate in other forms. They can advocate for themselves if given the tools.
Support needs are multi dimensional, one person might have sensory issues, another no sensory issues at all but more social issues. Who has more support needs? They are different. And they can change. You can learn better coping skills, you can need more or less support as you age.