Tag Archives: Autistic person

When Awareness Harms

Let’s talk about needing green minds, eager thinking, waiting for butter to spread onto toast.  Let’s talk about excitable pink ideas, ah-ha moments of lovely surprise filling the cavernous space of other understanding.  Now we can behave differently.

None of wisdom’s stars ached for commonly held beliefs without questioning them all.

Have you asked yourself whether the awareness campaigns are helping?

What exactly have they made you aware of?

Does your newly found awareness help you understand an Autistic person?

How so?

What about Autistic neurology?

Do you believe you understand what the brightest minds in the world admit they are baffled by?

How about treating Autistic people the way you would hope to be treated?

I vote for love and laughter.

Laughing in Red

Laughing in Red

Emma’s Ten Research Questions

* A note from Ariane:  What follows was the result of a discussion about people who say one thing, but actually do something else.  Emma then wrote a list of questions she would like to ask such people to make sure they were genuine.

Emma wrote that she’d like to do some research on “who is faking their love of autistic people.”  She proposed that there be a list of questions.  This is the list she wrote.

1.  Where did you get information about autism?

2. What was your initial reaction after reading (the information)?

3.  How many people did you see?
a) Less than ten
b) Less than fifteen
c) Fifteen to thirty
d) More than thirty

4. What will you do if you see a five-year old Autistic person?
a) ask curious questions
b) Advise parents
c) Ignore them as if they are invisible
d) Talk to the child by saying, “Hello”

5. If an Autistic teenager holds (touches) your clothes, what will you do? (No choices)

6. What do you expect to see in an autism classroom?

7. Will you let an Autistic teenager spend the weekend with your family?

8. What present will you buy for an Autistic person?

9. Will you accept if autism is not cured?

10. Did you enjoy the questions?

From Ariane:  What struck me as Emma created this list was how so many organizations, therapy centers, schools, treatment facilities and people who have chosen the field of autism as a career and yet do not treat Autistic people with the respect and care one would show others one supposedly “loves.”  Any who suggest the conversation that continues to take place regarding autism and our autistic kids is not affecting them, is sadly mistaken.

Emma writes her list of questions

Emma writes her list of questions