Every living thing is a genius; however, if a fish was
judged by its ability to climb a tree, it would spend its entire life believing
it is stupid.
-Albert
Einstein
A
little over a year ago, when I was looking on a page from the Autism Support
Network called Top 10 Terrific Traits About Autistic People, I came
across a comment by a mother asking if they could say any good things about
level five autism (which her son had), which requires twenty-four hour
supervision. At the time I thought, he
already cannot live on his own; what’s the point? Today I realized that was wrong and was very
cynical and fatalist.
Over
the years, I’ve gotten to know people with very diverse abilities with
incredible personalities, talents, and who have shaped the way I see the
world. I happened to know of a
non-verbal girl with autism who could not speak, but who also sang beautifully
and made beautiful pottery. I know a man
with Down syndrome won second place in a pottery contest in high school. I can barely get my hands the right way on
the wheel.
What
I was fortunate to learn in my first year of university life was that there are
many different types of intelligence, besides the predominant one of logical/mathematical intelligence, by which our society judges intelligence. The other types of intelligence include
natural, musical, existential, interpersonal, bodily-kinesthetic, linguistic,
intrapersonal, and spatial intelligence. But in our culture it seems that a person’s level of
logical/mathematical intelligence is used to judge the person’s intelligence in
every other area. Unfortunately, the prevailing
medical model of autism goes by the traditional model of judging intelligence. Autistics and other disabled people who
cannot live on their own are simply deadweight, burdens on the rest of
society. Of this idea, non-verbal and
lower-functioning people with autism are the biggest victims. However, I happened to have met many non-verbal
autistics and learned they can communicate and often times live independent or
semi-independent lives. Among the
non-verbal community is autistic activist, blogger, writer, and poet Amy Sequinza. I’ve been in touch with
Sequinza through Facebook and happen to know she is a better wordsmith than
many verbal neurotypical people I know. Yet for many parents of non-verbal children with autism, they are
feeling, “I wish my son/daughter would say ‘I love you’ or ‘thank you’ for all
the work I do for them,” when in fact they are, through the stimming (flapping
arms, rocking) that parents like them raise millions of dollars to cure. The definition of stereotyping or
caricaturing is to define a group of people by a single or limited number of
traits while ignoring individual differences among them. When Suzanne Wright, cofounder of the largest
medical model think tank on autism, Autism Speaks, spoke at George Washington University, she said that autistic people are people who cannot dress
themselves, brush their teeth, or take a shower. That is what I believe Mrs. Wright was doing,
describing certain people with autism yet ignoring differences in their
personalities, temperaments, and opinions. For people with that mindset they are assuming that they could never
connect to an autistic of this type, but they do not know because they’ve never
communicated with them in a way they can both understand. They judge them by how their abilities are in
one area (independence), and mistakenly believe that it is an indicator of
their abilities and potential in every other possible endeavor. The reality of the idea of autism as a
spectrum of abilities is that it is a spectrum of the ability to live
independently, not the ability to thrive in any pursuit. The terms “high-functioning” and “low-functioning”
deal mostly with an autistic person’s ability to live independently, not the
ability to live fully and dignified. Autism is different for everyone, but the desire and right for and to respect
and access to reach one’s full potential is not. While independence and self-reliance are
gifts that ought to be treasured, we also should value every autistic for what
it is they can contribute and realize they have their own gifts to share with
the world.
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