Autism rights movement: Encyclopedia II - Autism rights movement - Activist methods and activities

Autism rights movement - Activist methods and activities

Autism rights movement - Activist campaigns

In the early 2000s, activist campaigns started, mostly over the Internet.

• In April 2000, Autistics.org hosted an online counter-rally called "Hear Our Voices" to protest an autism rally in Washington, D.C. called "Hear Their Silence" that they disagreed with. [31] [32]
• In 2004, a Autistic Adults Picture Project was started in response to similar projects started by parents that only include pictures of children.
• In September 2004, the "Our Names are Autism Too" is a campaign that protested an article titled "My Name is Autism" that presented a view autistic activists found insulting.
• In October 2004, the Signatures of Intolerance campaign was started over controversy surrounding ABA in Canada.
• In 2004, the Petition to Defend the Dignity of Autistic Citizens was started to protest the use of insults to describe autism (such as "mad child disease").
• In 2004 Aspies for Freedom started a campaign against the use of electric shock devices on autistic children at the Judge Rotenberg Center in Massachusetts, USA. This is an ongoing campaign by Aspies For Freedom and will continue until the use of such devices is stopped. The campaigns involves raising public awareness of this activity at the Center, an e-mail campaign, and protests are planned.
• Aspergian Pride's Cure for Ignorance Campaign maintains and distributes an extensive directory of advocacy and resource links for the purpose of raising public awareness of the autism rights movement.
• In January 2005 Kathleen Seidel published Lenny Schafer's Inquisition in protest of Lenny Schafer's assertions that people capable of communication can't be considered autistic, and that the autism spectrum should be redefined to exclude Asperger's Syndrome.
• In February 2005 autistics.org started the "Autistics speak" campaign to protest NBC's website Autism Speaks because autistics.org believes NBC's "Autism speaks" is mostly non-autistic people claiming to speak on behalf of autistic people.
• In January 2006 A.S.W.CThe A.S.W.C formed a democratic advocacy movement for parents and individuals with any form of autism. Based upon free speech it provides a forum to debase issues without censorship of points of views that are disagreed upon. Its principle owner is Nathan Young from Fortuna California and is constructed to be accepting of all view points respectfully.

Autism rights movement - Speculation of autism in famous people

Main articles: People speculated to have been autistic and List of autistic people

There has been speculation that well-known contemporary and historical people may have been autistic in some form [33] and the autism rights movement has participated in this speculation. Those who are most commonly discussed are Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, Isaac Newton, and Thomas Jefferson. In addition, there are rumors that Steven Spielberg is diagnosed. Although this is brought up in the autistic rights movement, it is controversial outside the autistic rights movement as well. Some people considered autism professionals and/or psychologists (such as Simon Baron-Cohen and Christopher Gillberg) have contributed to this speculation.

This speculation may simply be an attempt to create role models for autistics and to show people that autistics can do constructive things and contribute to society. This issue is discussed by autistic rights activists often to convince people that it would be a loss to society if autism were cured. Others in the autistic rights movement, however, dislike this argument, because they feel autistics should be able to value their uniqueness without the desire for a cure even regardless of whether or not people like Einstein were not autistic.

Some autistics value their "being" regardless of what others think, or of how unique it is. They prefer to redress the current diversion from the original clinical meaning. Pointing out the immense contributions of scientists and inventors who might have been autistic may be an attempt of anti-cure advocates to change the viewpoints of pro-cure advocates.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Activist methods and activities", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki