Talk:Autism rights movement/Archive 5

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Ethical challenges

I've redirected the former ethical challenges to autism treatment main page, over to this page, in the section of the same name. The previous page wasn't about ethics, was virtually unsourced, contained considerable WP:OR, and was basically empty once these issues were addressed by removing the OR and unsourced text. I've no prejudice against re-spawning the page, but as is, the current page already has a section and it's very short.

I also removed the mention of the Auton v BC in the same section, since it's about a court case that's attempting to force the government of British Columbia to fund autism treatment. If Michelle Dawson has a challenge, that should be sourced independent of the court case. WLU (talk) 19:51, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

The canonical reference for her challenge of ABA on ethical grounds is The Misbehaviour of Behaviourists, but she has written more on this subject. --elmindreda (talk) 21:28, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

that's a self-published piece...can it be used as a source? Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 21:31, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I would say yes; she's her own wiki page, which makes her a notable source in my mind. WLU (talk) 21:42, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

ok then -- what about her blog, etc.? Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 21:48, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

She's usually very careful about providing references for her statements on The Autism Crisis, so provided references to it are made with care, I see little difference between the two, i.e. I don't see it becoming less verifiable solely due to the information being on a blog instead of a homepage. They're both self-published, heavily referenced sources by a notable person. --elmindreda (talk) 22:00, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Well -- i suppose if the statements that are being sourced by her blog are prepended with 'In Dawson's opinion,' or 'Dawson states' -- I'd be ok with that. However, if a statement is made in the article without that, I think it would be spurious. Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 22:30, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Both her blog and her sourced independent pieces could be used, but it would be better if her opinions were corroborated by other sources as well - a careful use of WP:IAR could allow judicious use of well-viewed blogs and web fora to report widely-held opinions. There would have to be consensus though. Also, constantly saying 'In Dawson's opinion' makes it look like a content fork and a violation of WP:NOT, so at least one further source for some or all of her opinions would be good. Though I think you're right in acknowledging it's sourced to a single person's opinion, I also think there's merit in not being too apologist or portraying it as 'just an opinion'. Temple Grandin might also have some things to say, and she's also notable enough to have weight behind her blog/essays. WLU (talk) 13:46, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Unsourced Bullocks....

I'm looking through this article -- and according to wikipedia standards, its rubbish!! We need to source these things, or remove them...I'm putting tags throughout to point you to where you'll need sources. After a few days, I'll start relieving you of the duty by removing the unsourced content. Please hurry -- that way we don't have to do fun reverts to put your sources in. Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 07:51, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I suspect some of the unsourced content has once been cited, but the citations have been removed. I think some of the reasons for this are that links have become broken, or URLs have changed, so people removed the citations instead of finding new links or archived links; text moved around without citations moved with it; text being reworded so it no longer fits what was stated in the citation. If you are going to remove something, I wonder if you could at least paste the deleted text to the talk page, in case someone might be able to find citations for it in the future. Q0 (talk) 10:44, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

No, please slow down. There is no deadline. You are editing at a pace where I can't keep up, thus making it very difficult for me to contribute properly. --elmindreda (talk) 11:58, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Dead links can be easily replaced, so if they can be dug up, they can probably be put back in. Q0's a good point, another solution would be for Josh to draft a version on a sub-page with a link to it on this talk page - he could edit as quickly as he wants while still allowing for feedback and vandalism reverts. Once a version on the sub page exists that is acceptable to other editors, it could be pasted wholesale onto this page. I'd also venture that a better title for this section could have been chosen... Bollocks it may be, it's still the product of many well-intentioned editors. Not that I can criticize, as in the last two weeks alone I think I've produced at least three sections entitled 'gutted the page'. WLU (talk) 13:51, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

If he's willing to go sub page, I think that sounds like a good idea, and it'd be quite useful to have a conservatively edited version available. --elmindreda (talk) 15:37, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Ball's in your court Josh. Though it means not editing the main page, it also means having a stable version here while we can all hammer out a better version on your sub-page. WLU (talk) 16:15, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I've created a /subpage...I'm going to remove EVERYTHING everythingunsourced so that you can see what the page should read. I think there is a lot of opinion (which is in opposition to SOURCED sourced statements) -- I think that is bullocks...I like to hear SOURCED sourced differences...but not someone's thoughts as to how Einstein was autistic, and we wouldn't have the theory of relativity without autism. If we follow that logic, then schizophrenia, depression, etc. is good too -- as he has been labeled as all of those. [1] Note I said I'm giving you days no deadlines...during those daysno deadlines, you should either a) find a source b) indicate that you have a source that you're getting, or c) discuss and get consensus why that unsourced piece should remain. To allow contentious, controversial unsourced content seems very unencyclopedic. Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 19:00, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I had thought sub-pages like this were only for user pages, but it seesm to be allowed per WP:SP. Cool! I've tweaked it to be in line with WP:SP - mostly to the templats and cats. WLU (talk) 19:15, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Brilliant, go for it. Looking forward to seeing the result. As for those conditions, you may want to have a look at for example Mad Pride, but that's getting off topic. Thank you for striking out the "days". I absolutely agree that unsourced controversial material needs to be dealt with. I'm not asking you to wait indefinitely, but sorting through all of these sources (and I'm still finding more) and gathering offline ones is going to take a little while. --elmindreda (talk) 23:22, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

dubious

Anytime public/government funds are used to research, develop, analyze anything, ALL people are burdended with the expense. These are taxpayer dollars. A state or federally funded university/college that does research costs the taxpayer for any research that they do. Autism research specifically is not being funded soley by private industry. It is being funded by state and federal government, burdening all of us with its expense. (E Gleason 17 July 2008) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.91.125.26 (talk) 13:26, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

The cost on society is a proven fact -- treatment of those with autism is costing tax payers X amount of dollars...this sentence seems to try to represent that in a different light...I'm not saying we shouldn't support those with autism...but I am saying that indicating that a 'typical' person also incurs these costs is a falsehood...it would need to be phrased as a person receiving governmental support or somesuch...please check this again and reword it to be accurate. Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 08:02, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the cost of autism is more an opinion than a fact. I am autistic, and in my experience, people spent money on things that were not helpful (such as when I was in school, people would be paid to "help" me by sitting in my classes and not doing anything, including classes I was doing very well in). I have seen other autistic people report difficulties with those supposed to assist them. In addition, one of the opinions cited is that people like Einstein and Newton might be autistic and contribute to society, so (according to this opinion) autism is not just costing money but is also contributing money. Q0 (talk) 10:40, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

The difference in opinion seems not to be whether money is being spent on people with autism, but on whether most of it needs to be spent at all. For someone who opposes intensive ABA or research for prenatal testing, that would be money wasted, meaning that it's not autism itself costing people money, but the reaction to autism. From that perspective, it would be the pro-cure movement that's costing tax money, not autism itself. I've seen it argued on a lot of ND blogs and web sites that increased acceptance of autism, including a more flexible education system, would allow many more autistics to enter the work force, possibly balancing out the reduced cost of educating and caring for those who can't work. 24.209.90.129 (talk) 19:50, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I've had a go at re-writing it. I'd say the reference to Newton and Einstein is unnecessary (sp) at this point, given the other, more explicit discussions of the topic. And strays towards WP:OR. As is, I cringe when hitting the save button because I think there are some near, if not blatant OR sections and sentences that I myself have contributed, but again if consensus supports the statements as acceptable, then they can remain. Though naturally I'd like to have sources linking the ideas and avoiding a synthesis if possible. WLU (talk) 16:14, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok--just because treatment wasn't helpful doesn't mean that it didn't cost tax payers. Those are facts and figures -- they're not saying that that money helps or anything -- it is just what it is costing tax payers. I would also contend that EVEN IF even if Einstein had autism -- the burden of proof would be that the autism HELPED helped him in his discoveries...just because someone has autism doesn't mean that their accomplishments are due to it -- many times that I've seen, its been in spite of the disabilities, not due to them. Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 19:03, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Edits above indicated by added to clarify meaningJosh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 19:40, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Hum. I think I see your point. I think what's objected to by the ARM is that autism is treated (and labelled) a disease rather than a different way of functioning. I don't dispute that there's more to the controversy than what is there, or that treating autism costs money, but it's verifiable that there's objections to viewing it as a disease and that's important. How about removing the last half of the last sentence? I think that's where the problem you're addressing is most contained. There was a big discussion over at Asperger syndrome over whether AS gave unique abilities, and it ended up with a 'perhaps, but there's no proof' conclusion on the talk page and nothing on the mainspace page - it's not a barrier to functioning, but there's no evidence its a help. I think the rest of the paragraph reads OK to me, but I could definitely see the one section being removed. WLU (talk) 19:11, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree that it is a fact how much a particular therapy costs, but I think it is an opinion as to whether or not it should be considered part of the "cost of autism". It is a fact how much money is being spent, but I think it is an opinion that autism is what is costing the money. I think the view of some in the autism rights movement is that some treatments are either not helpful or even harmful, and don't think it is right to consider the cost of actions that are harmful to autistic people as part of how much money autistic people are costing society. I also think that some in the movement feel that those who are supposed to help them are not helpful because they are uncooperative, so it isn't autism that is costing the money, it is the lack of cooperation that is costing the money. Q0 (talk) 19:56, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

<undent>If our tax monies are being spent on it, it is a cost of that condition. I think a better argument would be that while folks with autism may cost XX folks that have mental retardation cost XX and folks that are neurotypical but unemployed cost XX amount. I think that this argument would be more fruitful and logical. I think that the quote, however, is arguing that without support, folks with autism cost XX amount...but if we provide early intervention for XXX amount, we will save XX amount in the future...again, all speculation -- but my 2 cents. Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 20:10, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the controversy comes from a difference of perspective. There is one perspective that autism is a disorder. Let's say someone goes to the emergency room to treat a medical problem, and let's say the treatment failed. Even though the treatment failed, the hospital still had to pay the doctors to attempt to treat the patient, so it still costs money. Even though treatments sometimes fail, if we never tried the methods that end up failing, we would never be able to distinguish failed methods from successful methods, so failed methods should still be considered part of the cost. Although this might make sense to someone who supports the disorder perspective of autism, it would not make sense to someone who supports the ARM's view of autism. The ARM thinks that autism is not a disorder, and sometimes makes analogies to something homosexuality. In the view of the ARM, attempts to "cure" people of homosexuality is abusive towards people who are gay and are analogous to attempts to cure autism. I think some in the ARM consider attempts to cure autistic people as being 'abusive', and don't think it would be right to consider the cost of 'abuse' towards autistic people (at least, what is 'abuse' in their opinion) as part of the cost of autism. Q0 (talk) 20:21, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Logic usually = OR, and as Q0 says, it's more the idea of a cure than the cost of a cure that people object to. The cost of the cure would probably come from the opposite camp, those who think autism is a crippling disability that should be cured. But this is all part of the ARM and neurodiversity dicussion in general. WLU (talk) 20:24, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I think logic is OR only if the logic is not worked out from within the citation. I think if logic is worked out inside the citation, then it is not OR. Q0 (talk) 20:30, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Naw, it's just sneakier :) Though this is an example of something that could be included if there's consensus that it's as kosher as ham-style chicken. Plus it looks like a soft-sell criticism of either treatment, or autism, depending on how it's spun. You make good points that I thnk very ably demonstrate what the controversy about treatment is, but it'd be better if we had sources. If it's a common opinion, it should be easier to find. Then, rather than discussing about how far we can take the argument and where it's logical conclusion is, we can discuss how to best represent the source. WLU (talk) 20:50, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I wasn't saying we should move anything from my explanation here on the talk page to the article. I was simply trying to explain my understanding of the controversy. Of course, anything added to the article would need to be sourced. Q0 (talk) 21:00, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I think it's an excellent summary of what the controversy is, and what we should say, if it can be sourced. Josh - Q0's position is what I understand the central issues to be. Incidentally, I may have misunderstood the issue above regards logic - if a source explicitly says something, it's not logic, it's sourced. Then the issue is if the source is reliable enough to be cited. WLU (talk) 23:29, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

<undent>I'm having a really hard time finding reference to the autistic rights movement outside of Wikipedia...all that neurodiversity.com is a clearinghouse of links...these links comprise multiple views (including autism as a disorder and autism as a gift)...is there anywhere that claims to posits the autism rights movement goals? Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 02:00, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Remember that we don't have to fix everything right away. Another option is soliciting previous contributors for their input, as well as trying for postings on web fora for links or non-web resources. Pro-autism newsletters, paper publications, you could even try e-mailing Michelle Dawson, Temple Grandin or other notable people on wikipedia, if you can track down their e-mail addresses. They might also be able to snowball sample other contributors or resources. It doesn't have to be perfect right away. The page and sections can be reduced to the sourced information then gradually re-introduced, or we can add the sourced bits, then discuss on the talk page what represents the controversy according to various other's experience. WLU (talk) 02:35, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not in a hurry -- I'm just amazed at how little out there is findable about the topic...I mean, there are tons of personal opinions, but they aren't really cohesive enough to fit into what the stated goals here are...for instance, it says that the goal is to challenge the science and ethics of ABA...I haven't found anyone that says that and also fulfills the other 3-4 goals...its just weird to me...you'd think there'd be at least one website kind of dedicated to the movement Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 02:39, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I suspect that there's mission statements out there, position papers, even notable blog entries. It's just a matter of finding them. Wonder if Dawson is an editor as well as a subject... The people section of Template:Autism rights movement seems to have useful resources - try looking through their external links sections, or using their names in web searches. WLU (talk) 03:11, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I suspect part of the reason for this (putting on my self-advocate hat for a moment) is that you're not seeing one movement in the regular sense of the word; rather what you're seeing is a multitude of smaller movements with partially overlapping memberships, values and goals. It is a movement in the sense that the environmental movement is one, it's profoundly bottom-up with no official leaders (more like tribal elders) and even less official hierarchy, and with a number of organisations, forums and conferences (ANI, ASAN, TAAP, CIBRA, APANA, AFF, Autism Hub, autistics.org, auties.org, WrongPlanet.net, Autscape, Autreat, etc., etc.). Networking, debate, communication and cooperation all work somewhat differently, at least partly because we are different than non-autistics. Debate is ongoing over nearly every part of the goals except "improve the conditions for autistic people" and even for that one I can list half a dozen different interpretations of who and what is intended. I'd agree that anti-cure sentiments are shared by the vast majority of the movement, but then one needs to figure out what do to with self-advocates like Sue Rubin, who is pro-cure. For more specific shared values, you can look at some petitions signed by a lot of familiar faces. Of course, my samples may well be skewed, because I'm an insider tending towards the autistics.org view. I could go on, but I have to run. This has been your daily dose of OR, and I'm going back to being a wikipedian (here). --elmindreda (talk) 10:42, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I think this article is specifically about the anti-cure movement. I think it could be worth creating an article like Autism cure movement. There is a Template:Autism cure movement. Q0 (talk) 11:23, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

SubPage Discussion

Ok -- so I'm going to try to source somse of this myself...but am uncertain -- diversity.com seems very POV...however, the autism rights movement is a point of view -- so as long as I indicate that 'Diversity.com states, etc.etc.' and source it from there -- is that good enuff? Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 20:20, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Watch out for X person/org says, too much is a bad thing in my opinion. Multiple sources saying the same thing, or even 'some groups', if sourced to d.com, works better I think. WLU (talk) 20:25, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

What do you think of the lead on the subpage -- I found it in the Internet/Autism page -- it is pretty well sourced, and sounds much less POV/controversial, to me. Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 18:30, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the lead on the subpage is just fine. Q0 (talk) 21:25, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Is everyone ok with replacing the lead on the current mainpage with the subpage's lead then? Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 21:31, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Ick. Sorry for not weighing in sooner. I've a couple suggesetions:

The lead starts right off by saying 'what it does', but not 'what it is'. I've tried looking at other leads for a good wording, but it's not it is.

Right now it talks only about autism, what about asperger?

It's pretty specific - stimming and hand flapping? That seems like body rather than lead stuff. The use of quotes is also unusual - appropriate for the body, not the lead. WP:LEAD basically says make the lead as broad and non-specific as possible while still summarizing the salient points. Citations can be in the lead, but they should be in the body - which makes their presence in the lead redundant.

Jim Sinclair has his own wikipage, so reference to him and his website should be linked with "| authorlink = Jim Sinclair" in the template I've tried to tweak.

The autism rights movement (ARM) is a social movement encourages autistic people, their caregivers and society to adopt a position of neurodiversity, accepting autism as a variation in functioning rather than a mental disorder to be cured. The ARM advocate a greater tolerance of autistic behaviors, teaching autistic individuals skills that allow them to better cope with the non-autistic world rather than forcing them behave like their neurotypical peers, and objects to goals like extinguishing harmless stimming, forcing eye contact and breaking routines.

The ARM is controversial among those whose lives are affected by autism. Objections to the movement include an overstatement of the 'gifts' associated with autism and the movement's potential impact on the funding for autism research. Parents of children with autism state that the therapies used to 'cure' autism help in caring for children with aggressive or dangerous behaviors, and that autism exacts a toll on the entire family. These parents have also criticized the movement for representing a minority of high-functioning autistics rather than the majority of lower-functioning individuals who comprise the bulk of those diagnosed with autism and Asperger syndrome.

The use of the Internet has made it possible for autistics to present their perspective when they do not have the communication skills to do so offline. These autistics do not desire a cure, but rather to be given opportunities to use their autistic strengths to to cope with their autistic difficulties.

Sorry for coming into this so late, I've tried to keep the ideas of the lead (which look great) while removing the quotations, using a slightly more wiki-friendly wording, and leaving the references (also great, fantastic job on finding better sources!) for the body. I think it could still use some wording changes and I don't really like the wikilink to mental disorder in the first sentence. Feel free to improve my prose. My above version also puts a lot of space and emphasis on the controversy - this is somewhat appropriate because it is controversial, but I think it's also an artefact of me being able to come up with a less wordy substitute.

Again, a great job on getting what I understand are the relevant ideas onto the page, great job with references. I hope I'm not stepping on toes with my suggestions, seeing as I'm just prettifying what's already been done! WLU (talk) 20:18, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I like it -- I've put the new and improved lead in. Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 06:50, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I put a copy of this page in my user space at User:Q0/sandbox, removing unsourced material. I didn't want to use the subpage on this talk page because I didn't want to disrupt what someone might be using that page for, so I used my user space to make sure I didn't disrupt anything. Q0 (talk) 21:10, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Archive

Would anyone mind if I archived the talk page, since it is well over 32K (53K)? A lot of discussion happened a few weeks ago, and I didn't want to interrupt that, but it has been a bit of time since anything had been added to those discussions, so I wondered if now might be a good time to archive. Q0 (talk) 17:55, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

It's not a particularly long talk page; I would say to archive through 2007, leaving 2008 entries on the page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:14, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Essay removed from "Issues" section for citation

Adult issues

Adult inclusion

Some in the autistic rights movement believe the status quo of autism issues focuses too much on children and parents, and tends to exclude autistic adults. They point to various autism organizations like Autism Society of America that have a child as a logo and they feel parents have more power than autistic adults in autism organizations. Michelle Dawson believes that the Autism Society of Canada excludes autistic adults. Autistic people oppose this because they feel autistics, not non-autistic parents, should be the primary focus of autism organizations. They also believe there are more services for autistic children and their parents than for autistic adults, and some advocates of adult inclusion believe that some services and resources for autistic children are actually more for the parents.

Adult diagnosis

Autistic adults claim that the definition afforded in an autism diagnosis is designed for children and not for adults, which makes the parameters unworkable and difficult in maintaining or obtaining a proper diagnosis. Because people change as they grow to adulthood, they may no longer fit the official model of an autistic individual. In addition, autism diagnosis may be taken less seriously when it is made in for an adult rather than for a child, the idea being that if a person were really autistic, it would have been noticed in childhood. Some autistic adults respond to this by citing the relative ignorance about autism on the part of professionals and the general public, even ten years ago, compared to what is known in the present, and that autistic children were often misdiagnosed as learning-disabled, lazy, or as having a thought disorder. Even in the 1980s, professionals specializing in autism contributed to a peer-reviewed journal called the Journal of Autism and Childhood Schizophrenia.

Services and accommodation

The autism rights movement desires more services and accommodations for autistic adults. They also desire autistic adults to have equal opportunity in employment and in education.

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:03, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Clarify

The following statement has been tagged as needing to be clarified:

The owners of Autistics.org say that when their critics say that anti-cure autistics are different and higher functioning than their children, that the critics' descriptions of their children sound very similar to how they were as children, or currently are as adults.

This is a version of the following statement which used to be in the article, that I edited for length:

The owners of Autistics.org say that they receive e-mails from parents of autistic children in which parents claim their own children are different and have more difficulties than them. The people at Autistics.org argue that when the parents describe their children's difficulties, they are describing the children to have difficulties that range from very similar to their own difficulties that they had as children, to very similar to their current difficulties as adults. Autistics.org also says that their claims that they don't want a cure, see autism as a part of who they are, and don't want attempts at help that may actually be harmful are wrongly perceived by their critics as not wanting help with anything and living under entirely positive circumstances.

It is from the reference, http://www.autistics.org/library/dawson.html mostly in the paragraph that starts with, "The messages about how different various ..." Q0 (talk) 01:43, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I haven't yet figured out what it's trying to say, but I'll put the original text here (from autistics.org, which isn't really a good source, doesn't Harmon or a more reliable source have something better?) while I try to decipher it:

The messages about how different various children are from us can range from darkly amusing to frustrating for many of us. The children being described, depending on the context, range from similar to how we have been to similar to how we are now. Some parents tell us their children's lack of certain abilities means that all parts of autism need to be fixed, when we may have less of those abilities than the children being described. But they dismiss our views, and dismiss us as anomalies or liars.

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:54, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

What happens in debates about the movement is a critic says, "You are different from my child because you can do X and Y and my child cannot," and a supporter of the movement says, "Actually, I can't do X, and even though I can do Y as an adult, I could not do Y as a child." I think the statement is basically trying to describe things like that. As for finding a better source, I did look at User:Elmindreda/Autistic_rights_sources a bit and found [2] which says:

"Some parents will say 'If you can express yourself you're not autistic,'" says Ms Dawson. "They say to me: 'My child can't live independently.' I tell them I couldn't either when I was six!"

I think this is somewhat similar to the statement in the autistics.org page. Q0 (talk) 01:04, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

It would probably be best to craft something from that article instead and use it to replace what's there now: I still can't make any sense of the first one. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:05, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Removed section

I have removed the following section from the article because it is mostly unsourced. I replaced it with the section titled "autistic traits". Q0 (talk) 01:56, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Misconceptions of autistic traits

Some autistic rights activists believe some characteristics described as being autistic traits are actually misconceptions and desire to educate the population about what they believe are the real reasons these alleged misconceptions occur.

Michelle Dawson has disputed the belief that 75% of autistic people have low intelligence.

As of 2006, some people have begun to subscribe to the belief that autistic people lack a "theory of mind"; that is, they are unaware that others do not necessarily think or know the same things that they(autistics) do. Some autistics have suggested that they are only perceived to lack a theory of mind because autistic people do not necessarily communicate with others in the same ways people who are not autistic do. This would prevent others' knowing whether autistics have a theory of mind or not. Some autistics who have difficulty with sensory input might be less likely to be able to interpret other people's thoughts and knowledge through observation. Some autistics have observed that non-autistics are insensitive to their perspectives, and write parodies based on this, addressing non-autism as a mental disorder characterized by lack of "theory of other minds".

Although some people believe autistic people have no emotions and no sense of humor{{Fact}} (despite the existence of comedians with the condition),{{Fact}} some autistic people reject this and report that they do experience a range of emotions, and indeed have a tremendous sense of humour, but just one that a neurotypical cannot relate to—just as the autistic cannot relate to the neurotypical's humour.{{Fact}} This again comes down to a majority perception of 'the norm', when there may not be one. Autistics with Asperger's Syndrome may actually be more emotionally sensitive than a neurotypical, but because of different expressions of emotion, they often come across as rude, abrupt and emotionless. The perception that autistics are emotionless may come from the fact that autistics may be more likely to keep their emotions to themselves—for example, not laughing when they find something funny. Autistics may also have different emotional reactions from what people without autism may expect. Noting a different reaction than they were expecting may prompt people without autism to perceive a general lack of emotion in autistic people. Autistics may also be amused by things that non-autistics would not find funny, such as absurd, Monty Python-type humor such as eating roads or flowers growing on a telephone.

Lenny Schafer said that the autism-like lack of empathy of anti-cure activists prevent them from seeing what is in the hearts of pro-cure advocates.

Rain Man

I removed the following paragraph from the article because it is mostly unsourced and not relavent to the autism rights movement. It would fit better in the Rain Man article (if sourced). Q0 (talk) 10:28, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Some people are also irritated by the perception created by Rain Man that all autistics have savant abilities, although the reality is that the psychiatrist in the film said that Dustin Hoffman's character Raymond Babbitt was very high functioning, unlike many other autistics, who are unable to speak.{{Fact}} A countercriticism of this Rain Man defence is that the film was clearly made at a time when understanding of autism was less developed, and is not reflective of the reality.{{Fact}} Raymond Babbitt is not considered high-functioning by people in the autism rights movement,{{Fact}} who point out that Albert Einstein may have met the diagnostic criteria for high-functioning autism.

Citation needed in the intro

I noticed that someone put a "citation needed" flag in the intro. The intro used to have citations in it, but was since rewritten without citations. From looking at some of the past discussion on this talk page, it looks like it was felt that the intro does not need citations. Should the intro be cited? Q0 (talk) 01:07, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't usually cite leads unless there is something highly surprising or controversial in the lead that demands a cite. In a well written lead, everything in the lead will already be cited elsewhere in the article (that may not yet be the case for this article). Someone had placed a strange superscripted citation needed there, so I changed it; I'm indifferent if you want to delete it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:13, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I'll delete it. If the person who originally added the "citation needed" tag with the superscript instead of the template thinks something in the intro is controversial enough to require citation, I'd suggest to that person to explain why on the talk page since citations in the intro are unusual. Q0 (talk) 01:29, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Weasel tags on opposition to eliminating autism

I noticed the "opposition to eliminating autism" section was tagged as having weasel words, and that someone removed a "weasely" sentence in this edit [3]. Although I think there are some more mild weasel words still in the section, I think the tag might have mostly been referring to the removed sentence. Is the tag still needed? Also, the whole article is tagged, so unless that section is worse than the rest of the article, it seems more appropriate not to tag that section. Q0 (talk) 04:30, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree it can go. Little by little :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:31, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Unsourced statement about Michelle Dawson and ABA

I've been trying to look for a source for this statement:

Some critics of the movement believe Michelle Dawson played an important role in Auton v. British Columbia and is responsible for Canadian children not receiving applied behavioral analysis, which is considered an important therapy by the people who make this criticism.

In this source [4] I found the following statements:

Because of her frequent and detailed critiques of ABA, Dawson says she often receives hate mail. She's been accused of being a fraudulent researcher. Some ABA supporters claim she's lying about her diagnosis. Some parents claim she's trying to destroy their children.

and found the following statements from this source [5]:

This in turn led her to intervene in a landmark 2004 autism Supreme Court case. BC parents of autistic children had won an appeal to force the province to pay for applied behaviour analysis (ABA) therapy; Ms Dawson wrote to the Supreme Court arguing there was no hard evidence supporting the intensive therapy. "I tried to intervene and I succeeded," says Ms Dawson. The higher court overturned the appeal; this pretty much made her public enemy number one of many parent groups, but she stands by her interference. "The case wasn't science or ethics-based."

I have thought about rewording the statement in the article based on those two sources, but I'm not sure how to do it with some of the emotional language used in the sources. If I were to write, "Some critics consider Michelle Dawson to be their number one public enemy and think she is trying to destroy their children," but that seems a bit too loaded and I'd have WP:NPOV and WP:BLP concerns about it. I havn't found any less loaded language in the references that cites the needed sentence, but am not sure how to tone down the language while not misrepresenting the content of the sources. Q0 (talk) 05:04, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

When in doubt, quote 'em directly :-) (Which means it's late and I'm too tired to help you sort it out :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:09, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

By the way, I'm pretty sure I was the person who added the multiple issues tag, and a lot has been done since then; if you want to review and remove any of the individual items within the multiple issues, go ahead. I just wanted something to start happening with all of these uncited autism essays. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:12, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Weasel words

This article contains statements that have what might be called "weasel words" such as "some people say ...," however, a number of these are sourced. Is there a problem with wording like this when the statements are sourced? Some examples of these statements are the following:

• The article states, "Some autistic people have criticized therapy which attempts to remove autistic behaviors because they say that the behaviors that the therapy tries to remove are attempts to communicate." This is sourced at [6] from the statement, "'Behaviors are so often attempts to communicate,' said Jane Meyerding, an autistic woman who has a clerical job at the University of Washington and is a frequent contributor to the Autistic Advocacy e-mail discussion list. 'When you snuff out the behaviors you snuff out the attempts to communicate.'" Should the statement in the article be reworded? If so, should the statement be attributed to Jane Meyerding or Amy Harmon?
• The article states, "There has also been concern that autistic children will be forced into ABA programs where they will not benefit," sourced from [7] by the statement, "'What's going to happen if the government legislates that all schools do ABA?' says Estee Klar-Wolfond, a Toronto writer and founder of The Autism Acceptance Project. 'Will my son be forced into an ABA program in which he won't benefit?'" Is it a weasel word the way the statement in the article says, "there has also been concern ..." instead of attributing that concern to a particular party? If it should be attributed to a party, which party should it be attributed to (Roger Collier or Estee Klar-Wolfond)?
• The article states, "Critics of the movement argue that the autistic spectrum people opposed to a cure are high functioning autistic or have Asperger syndrome," sourced at [8], from the statement, "Parents argue that their antagonists are showing a typical autistic lack of empathy by suggesting that they should not try to help their children. It is only those whose diagnosis describes them as "high functioning" or having Asperger's syndrome, they say, who are opposed to a cure." In this case, the source does not attribute a specific party to the claim. Is it acceptable to leave the claim in the article as it is, or should it be attributed to someone? Should it be attributed to Amy Harmon? Both the source and the article follow with a specific person (Lenny Schafer) who has used a similar argument.
• The article states, "Some autistic activists say it is not easy to distinguish between high and low functioning," sourced from [9] to the assertion, "But the autistic activists say it is not so easy to distinguish between high and low functioning, and their ranks include both." Here, the source only attributes the claim to "The autistic activists." Is it then acceptable for the article to attribute it to "Some autistic activists" or should it attribute the statement to Amy Harmon or someone else?

Q0 (talk) 20:03, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

It would be better to attribute opinions to the actual individuals or groups whenever you can. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:13, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Controversy

I removed the following section because it is largely uncited and because controversy sections are discouraged in Wikipedia. When the article was tagged as having a controversy/criticism section, I moved a lot of the material to other sections, but there was still a lot of uncited material that remained. Q0 (talk) 11:30, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

The text you removed did include one cited sentence. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:19, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. I've reinserted that sentence into the article. Q0 (talk) 20:06, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Criticism

The movement has been criticized by autism professionals and parents of autistic children who believe the goals of the movement will not help autistic children. There are some critics of the movement who still support some of the movement's goals despite opposing other goals.

Responses from the movement

Further responses of the movement can be summarized as follows:

• Being able to communicate well in writing is not inconsistent with a diagnosis of autism.
• Autism does not disappear the moment a person learns to communicate. Successfully teaching to communicate is not the same as "curing" autism.
• Autism rights advocates believe parents should take into account the self-esteem of their autistic children. Activists ask: "is it better to teach these children that they have a neurological disease requiring intensive behavioral training to correct, or that they have unique and special neurology they should cherish and accept for what it is?"
• Some of the critics' own children have apparently learned to communicate already, so their position is confusing because they argue that the writing abilities of autistic activists is evidence that they are fundamentally higher functioning than the children of the critics.

Early origins and continuation of the debate

The debate is ongoing and critics have responded to the autism rights movement's responses to their original criticisms, and the autism rights movement in turn has responded to those.

The autism rights movement and its debates were collaborated online due much in part to usenet's alt.support.autism group (groups.google.com/group/alt.support.autism) which had autistics and people without autism on various sides of rights, cure and treatment issues. Due to the lack of moderation and what they perceive to be the abuse of several autistics on that forum by possible cranks, many have taken up blogging in more moderated communities. Much of the current thought has evolved over time by discussions in these communities and groups. Over time, some internet meme has also resulted because of the autism rights movement, much of which is tongue in cheek criticism of the self-diagnosis issue.

Some of the debate continues offline as well. Autistics and people without autism of all ages participating in the autism rights movement may also be expressly excluded from their local autism organizations. Many have, however formed well-connected offline chapters to address the lack of this inclusion by some cure-oriented autism communities. Some groups, however, have been making efforts to include such families, groups and individuals in the movement to increase the level of communication and create mutual understanding.

Some of the most critical pro-cure advocates are non-autistic relatives of autistics, e.g. those represented by FAAAS, Families of Adults Affected by Asperger Syndrome. Many such organizations have characterized those in the anti-cure movement as being mostly an adult with Asperger Syndrome phenomenon and object to the anti-cure message as a result of their own personal perspectives of living with autistic adults.

Disagreements within the movement

There are disagreements within the movement as well. Some autistics would prefer autism to be seen as a disability, meaning that it would have a status similar to blindness or deafness. Within this context, autism rights would fit within the broader movement of disability rights and autistic culture would be analogous to deaf culture. Those supporting this view are concerned that if autism was to be viewed as simply a way of being or as a non-disabled minority group, the needs some autistics have for aid and assistance would be overlooked.

Merge proposal for Autism Awareness Campaign UK

Setting up merge proposal to merge Autism Awareness Campaign UK to Autism rights movement SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:01, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

• Support merge; Autism Awareness Campaign UK has not been cleaned up or properly written, copyedited and cited for at least a year. It needs cleanup and only attracts poor quality and uncited edits. When written correctly, it could be summarized to one or two paragraphs here. Earlier arguments made on the talk page there against an earlier merge amount to nothing more than endorsement of a POV fork, against policy. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:09, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose merge: These are different movements and are different topics. I suggest merge to Sociological and cultural aspects of autism. Q0 (talk) 14:15, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

  If the Autism Awareness Campaign is a "different movement, different topic", then one or both of these articles needs a POV tag. If this article excludes that topic, this article is POV. It sounds like we have an intentional POV fork here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:21, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

  Autism Awareness Campaign UK is not relavent to the autism rights movement. I don't think either entity has even commented on each other. Q0 (talk) 14:27, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

  Then Autism rights movement per this article is a POV definition, inherently. No one organization owns the claim to being *the* "autism rights movement", and no one organization speaks for them. We have a serious POV situation here. The UK Campaign is about autism rights; if that doesn't have a place here, it is a POV fork, and this article is POV. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:30, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

  Is it considered POV to have articles about a movement with a POV? Wikipedia does have articles pro-choice and pro-life. Are those POV forks? Q0 (talk) 14:37, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

  I am not understanding why one of the articles is a "POV fork", even though the Autism rights movement article excludes discussion of the autism awareness campaign UK. It also excludes discussion of Vitamin C, wood, or history of the Spanish language because those topics are not relavent to the autism rights movement. This merge proposal makes no sense to me. If the autism awareness campain UK criticized the autism rights movement, then I think that criticism should be discussed in the article, though that would not mean the two articles need to be merged. However, I am not aware of any such criticism. Q0 (talk) 14:34, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

  See straw man regarding unrelated articles like wood. When a specific campaign for autism rights in the UK is excluded from a general article on autism rights on the basis of a claim (not verified to a reliable source) that it's a "different movement", then *this* article is biased towards one movement and is POV, excluding other movements/campaigns. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:39, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

  Is the problem the name of the article? If the problem is that the article is poorly named, then it can be renamed. This article is about a particular movement: one which sees autism as something not a disorder and consists mostly of autistic people. This appears to be a very separate movement from those with the desire to cure autism. I think it is better to change the title to fit the content, rather than the other way around. Q0 (talk) 14:47, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

  Also, I have found nothing on the article for Autism awareness campaign UK that indicates it considers itself to support the rights of autistic people. It seems to be about awareness of autism. Q0 (talk) 14:56, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

  More evidence of a POV problem in these articles. Take just one sample sentence from Autism Awareness Campaign UK: "The group campaigns on autism in the labour market, education, health, speech therapy, respite care, minority ethnic communities, as well as other areas where they believe there is a shortfall in public-service provision." There are many such examples; if you don't recognize them, it lends even more credence to the concern that this article is applying only one, perhaps biased definition of autism rights. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:06, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

  I didn't recognize that sentence because it does not seem to necessarily say that they advocate the rights of autistic people in education, health, etc. I had guessed that they could want to make people who work in education or health aware of autism. Q0 (talk) 15:18, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

  And how does one separate rights and awareness? How do you have rights if you're unaware of the issues? That article is about rights every bit as much as this article is. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:27, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose merge: They are different, though related topics. Fenke (talk) 15:53, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

  Can you please read the following sources to explain how the autism rights advocated in the UK are not part of autism rights overall; that is, based on what POV is that discussion not included here: — SandyGeorgia 16:01, 20 July 2008 — continues after insertion below

You're shouting POV way too often, and in your last sentence, based on what POV is that discussion not included here you have already predetermined that whatever the response would be, it would be POV and by your predetermination, not valid. If this is your take on discussion, I am not going to participate, but rather wait and simply revert whatever you do. Fenke (talk) 18:04, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Fenke, please review WP:POINT, WP:CONSENSUS, and WP:AGF. If you're reverting good-faith edits based on WP:POINT, you might also review WP:3RR (which doesn't give license to revert three times). Thanks SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:56, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

• Source:10 Downing Street
• Source:Huliq News: UK Prime Minister meets Autism Campaigners
• Source:House of Commons - EDM 1359 on Autism
• Gordon Brown Urged To Take Decisive Action On Autism, UK Source: Medical News Today
• Help Autistic Children - Call Source: Channel 4 Television

It appears more and more that this article is espousing one biased POV on autism rights. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:01, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

• Comment: If someone merges Autism awareness campaign UK into autism rights movement, I will not challenge it. I will still keep my "vote" as oppose, but I don't think it is worth this much debate, so I will accept it if someone else merges. Q0 (talk) 16:08, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
• Support merge. After looking at both articles, I see that the UK article does not have any references, and is substantially shorter than the Autism Rights Movement article, which is comprehensive and well sourced. It seems logical to merge the UK article into the general, and of course provide sources for all that will be included. Jeffpw (talk) 16:32, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
• Clarification needed: This sentence at the beginning of the UK article The group campaigns on autism in the labour market, education, health, speech therapy, respite care, minority ethnic communities, as well as other areas where they believe there is a shortfall in public-service provision. needs clarification. The term "campaigns on autism" may be inherently understood in Britain, but it's unclear to me if the campaigning is done for funds, public services, or political recognition. Because all three of those sound to me like "rights". If that is the case, then I think the articles should be merged. If the campaigning is for something else, that should be clarified. --Moni3 (talk) 16:39, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

  Part of the confusion here is that the sources *are* there on the other article: the article is just so poorly written and formatted that it's hard to realize that the sources are there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:41, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

  I cleaned up Autism Awareness Campaign UK best I could; at least now it's possible to see what the article is about. It looks like autism rights to me. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:37, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Now that I've cleaned it up, it appears notable enough that it doesn't need to be merged here, but it does need to be mentioned in this article; if some types of autism rights advocacy is left out of this article, this article is POV. It looks like we have a setup on Wiki where all autism groups are classified (by what reliable source?) as either curebies or not: {{autism rights movement}} and {{autism cure movement}}. In the absence of reliable sources, this POV needs to be cleaned up and those templates possibly deleted. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:52, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Fenke, since you removed the POV tag,[10] can you please justify the split in these two templates (and spread throughout Wiki) based on reliable sources? Every autism group on Wiki has been categorized as one or the other: based on what reliable sources has this been done? Thanks, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:18, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

You could try jusitfying the tag and what's more justify the POV tag on every article that includes the template. Perhaps you hadn't thought of that consequence of tagging the template, but it's enough reason to remove the tag, in my opinion. If it's the categorization of articles in either of the groups, that represents a POV then this should be addressed, but not by tagging half of the articles as POV. If the contents of the templates, or rather the split of listed articles on the templates itself represents a POV, then a new set of templates oriented at navigating autism related articles, rather then an ideological categorization, could be thought out. That would retain it's usefulness in navigation, at least. Fenke (talk) 19:43, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

One way or another, a fix needs to be found; it appears that I inadvertently stumbled into a POV mess because of trying to clean up one article. Consequences of tagging the template, no I don't see that, but a temporary fix until someone locates some sources upon which those two templates are built, or builds another template that doesn't have a POV split, would be to remove them both from all articles. Otherwise, every article that includes them includes an unsourced POV. Yes, the tag is justified on every article that carries a POV template. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:47, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

The articles and the templates are distinct and independent, the articles do not use the template for their contents, hence the contents and status of the template can not determine whether the articles are POV or not. Fenke (talk) 20:07, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Considering we already have {{Pervasive developmental disorders}}, it looks like the other two could be submitted for deletion based on unsourced POV. (Or just removed from the articles and orphaned.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:52, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

If everything on the templates is on there, ported to it or easily reachable from there, it would be fine with me to phase these two templates out. Fenke (talk) 20:07, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Rename

I would like to suggest that this article be renamed. I had thought about doing this in the past, but recently I believe it has become problematic. I see that the gay rights movement has also been changed to LGBT social movements. I don't know if this should be a model for how this article should be renamed. Q0 (talk) 15:22, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Rename to what (taking care that it doesn't become yet another POV fork). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:26, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm open to suggestions. Some ideas include:

• Autistic self-advocacy movement
• Anti-cure autism movement
• Cure opposing autism movement
• Autism neurodiversity movement
• Autism cure debate
• Autism social movements
• Autism cure controversy

These names, however, suggest different things from each other in terms of what the content of the article should be about. For that reason, I'd like to ask here if it is POV to have an article about a movement with a specific POV? Do the articles pro-choice and pro-life voilate Wikipedia's NPOV policy due to their name or what the articles are about? Would LGBT social movements article violate NPOV policy if it were named Gay rights movement? Q0 (talk) 15:38, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, we don't just willy-nilly make up names on Wiki; they need to be based on reliable sources. Some of your names suggest that this entire notion and article is heading in a very POV direction, and perhaps the entire thing needs to be merged into Sociological and cultural aspects of autism. As long as it was a neutral article, relying on good sources like Harmon, it could be justified. If the idea is to create a "curebie vs. non-curebie" controversy article, it will feel more and more like POV is in play. Further, we already have neurodiversity, so those arguments can be made there, to the extent there are reliable sources. I'm becoming troubled that autism rights are being named and discussed in a POV fashion, when Harmon's article quite clearly examined all sides of the issues. Pro-choice and pro-life are terms and issues well debated and discussed by many reliable sources; that is another straw man. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:46, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

This discussion has me extremely confused. It is my guess that neither of us understand each other as we intend to be understood. Q0 (talk) 15:55, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Agree this is confusing. If this article is intended to be about one aspect only of a broader issue, then 1) we must get back to arguments based on reliable sources, and 2) that debate probably belongs at Sociological and cultural aspects of autism. Issues have to be covered neutrally, not as POV forks that advocate or espouse only one side of an issue. Autism rights are autism rights for all people with autism and shouldn't take sides. I 'spose the only way forward now is for me to cleanup and re-write that mess at the UK Awareness article, so we can see what we're really dealing with there; it's never been cleaned up since it was written. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:11, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

These names point at specific idea's within the set of idea's that are associated wirh the ARM, yet none are broad enough to encompass them all. Fenke (talk) 18:21, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

If you're using gay rights movement title change to LGBT right movement as a comparison, I'm not sure it's apt. "Gay rights" was a term that came about in the 1970s to ensure basic civil rights for, well, gays, but the term LGBT suggests a broadening of causes and people affected. The main goals of the Gay rights movement was to allow gay men and women to pursue relationships between consenting adults without being arrested in their homes or in bars, for cross-dressing (which included women wearing pants), or being declared mentally ill and subjected to institutionalization. LGBT social movements has incorporated the needs of transsexuals and addresses equal treatment not only by legal entities, but insurance, employment, and state and civic government agencies. Their focus is more on family life, equal medical treatment, the right to marry and adopt, and gain custody of children, and claim insurance for a same-sex spouse. Using these examples, how would you compare the naming of these Autism-related articles? --Moni3 (talk) 18:17, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I retract my suggestion to rename the article. The discussion has gotten too confusing for me. Q0 (talk) 07:27, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Archive 1

←

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

RFC

In the article [[11]] stated is "Amanda Baggs has written for Autistics.org, an anti-cure autism website..." But the http://autistics.org website is Amanda Bagggs's personal website. As such it's not a credible source per NPOV. One of her personal sub-websites of this website, http://amanda.autistics.org, where she identifies herself. Network Solutions WHOIS information http://www.networksolutions.com/whois-search/autistics.org has her public account information listed, and the name is under Laura Tisoncik, who is her partner. This planetautism.com cached webpage (scroll down to colored/highlighted text) [[12]] has her statement about her role at autistics.org as a webmaster. I'll try to find public statements that Laura and Amanda are partners. I also believe Amanda started the website and later Laura was supposedly the webmaster.--GzRRk 4 (talk) 21:36, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

**No source is provided establishing Amanda Baggs is an "individual" of the autism rights movement. Further, CNN doesn't state this in the linked article. Further, CNN is only media and as such not a source to judge whether anyone is an official or important autism rights activist.--GzRRk 4 (talk) 21:36, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

This recent blog discusses a larger controversy about Amanda Baggs. http://amandabaggscontroversy.blogspot.com --GzRRk 4 (talk) 21:36, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

The template [[13]] for the article lists Amanda Baggs as a Persons of the autism rights movement, but as noted above, there is no NPOV sources establishing she is an official autism rights activist, or one of this importance.--GzRRk 4 (talk) 06:17, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

In the article under "Individuals" [[14]] there is no reference/citation for Dawson. (2) There are thousands of autism rights activists, and in the article there is no objective source provided that establishes that the five listed individuals are THE autism rights activists, or that they are objectively determined important activists. (3) The source for Blume is not NPOV; it's an article by him himself. (4) Same for Sinclair.--GzRRk 4 (talk) 06:47, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

In the article under "Individuals" [[15]], "The essays of some individuals in the movement, including Amanda Baggs and Jim Sinclair, have been used as reading assignments in a class at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.[20]" I don't see anything at that webpage showing this.--GzRRk 4 (talk) 06:47, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I think the Individuals section is not NPOV and should be removed.--GzRRk 4 (talk) 05:40, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I think my comments above apply to the Template [[16]] for the article as well.--GzRRk 4 (talk) 06:47, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure why an RFC was needed here? The aricle has long been in bad shape, and should be cleaned up. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:59, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Agree with SandyGeorgia that an RFC is not called for here. Just fix the article; it's not like it was actively being edited or that there was a lot of active controversy over it. I see now that SandyGeorgia has fixed the article, which should make the above points moot. Eubulides (talk) 19:55, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

There r some remaining points I made; curious of your opinions. I bold printed them above. Sorry about my unfamiliarity with wikipedia editing and procedure. Re the Individuals list, so is this a list that could grow endlessly. I know of about 20 names I could enter along with credible website sources. Also, 'autism rights activists' applies, also, to those seeking treatment, cure, etc, and include many people with autism/Aspergers and many parents of such, and, eg Autism Speaks can be considered an activist entity, seeking the rights of care and treatment for those who can't advocate for themselves (both young and old).--GzRRk 4 (talk) 07:10, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The points about individuals make sense, and I suggest editing the article accordingly. It's pretty nonstandard to consider Autism Speaks to be an autism rights / neurodiversity / anti-cure movement, though. Eubulides (talk) 07:50, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I didn't see the also-known-as's for 'autism rights movement'. Seems, then, the name 'Autism Rights Movement' is too general, as it, by the name alone, could include rights advocating from both pro-treatment and anti-treatment. The other names (neurodiversity and anti-cure movement) are more specific and maybe better. Possible name change for the article?--GzRRk 4 (talk) 07:58, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The other names you mention are actually less specific. "Anti-cure" 1) could refer to being against cures for any number of condtions and 2) excludes those that support the right of the autistic individual to choose current cures. "Neurodiversity" encompasses other neurological differences, for example, Synthesasia, Parkinson's disease, and dyspraxia.

Despite the established use of the terms, I believe confusion stems from describing one's relationship to autism rights through being "pro-treatment" vs "anti-treatment". Supporting one's civil rights supports one's choice (note, the person affected with the condition(autism), not the parents or state's choice) in refusing, or making use of, current methods to treat or "cure" the condition. --6th Happiness (talk) 09:17, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I also edited the Template by removing Wrong Planet from the Organizations list. Wrong Planet is not an organization; rather it's an Internet discussion board, and with 99.9% anonymous users. 'Organization' would seem to mean more than anonymous Internet users/"members". Re it's structure, it's owned by one person Alex Plank and run by he and a few moderators, who are anonymous on the website and no where identified.--GzRRk 4 (talk) 09:00, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Under Neurotypical Supporters the #10 reference is given twice. One example, Autistics.org claims that parents can be the movement's strongest allies. Also reference #19 is of Baggs's website: autistics.org has formed many sub-websites with prefix names attached to the main name autistics.org, another example being http://amanda.autistics.org for Amanda Baggs. Again, these references are of the website for Amanda Baggs and her partner Laura, as discussed at the top of this Talk page. As such, the references are not NPOV: Baggs is not an objective or neutral source on autism rights, and her publishing an article (the reference above) on Michelle Dawson doesn't make Dawson this either. (This strategy by Baggs et al is, seemingly, to try to get Baggs and autistic.org's names in wikipedia as objective sources, and to not indicate that the various autistics.org websites are Baggs's websites, and then to get whoever Baggs mentions and writes about listed as objective sources as well). References 20 and 21 are copied and pasted supposed email statements, and, the website aspiesforfreedom.com is a message board, with essentially all anonymous users, and with no named organizational members as seen in the About US section of the website. As such, all seem [NPOV] and not credible (not sure of the wikipedia source for credibility). For the #16 reference, I wonder if it's best to have the reference go directly to the source, and have the source available on the Internet, rather than have it apparently copied and pasted from the WA State Journal and put on another website; and no standard information for the Journal article is given such as the volume number, pages, dates, etc. --GzRRk 4 (talk) 19:21, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The same logic would apply to Jim Sinclair, then. A reivew of WP:RS is probably needed. But when deleting text, please take care not to leave named refs hanging ... scroll to the bottom of the page and check for red links. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:26, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Molly Kessler

I think Molly Kessler should be mentioned in this article. She has an interesting view: Autists do not have a 'problem', but rather their own social language, though it would be beneficial to them to 'acquire' the neurotypical social language for personal benefit. She's pretty well-known in Israel, and she's even lectured abroad a few times (in Singapore, Japan, and I believe Australia as well). Siúnrá (talk) 12:44, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Appropriate here?

section from article on Cherry Hill Public Schools:

Controversy

In April 2012, the parent of an autistic student released a video on Youtube"Teacher/Bully: How My Son Was Humiliated and Tormented by his Teacher and Aide", Stuart Chaifetz, video at YouTube, posted April 20, 2012 providing evidence that the student was the subject of emotional abuse at the hands of his teacher and aide at Horace Mann Elementary School, in the Cherry Hill school district.Horace Mann Elementary School website. The evidence was secured when the child's father, Stuart Chaifetz, wired his son before sending him to school. When Chaifetz listened to the audio recording, according to one news report, "Chaifetz says he caught his son's teachers gossiping, talking about alcohol and violently yelling at students. He took the audio to the Cherry Hill School District, where officials fired one of the teachers involved after hearing the tape. Chaifetz's son was relocated to a new school, where Chaifetz says he is doing well."NJ Father Records Teachers Bullying His Autistic Child, MyFoxPhilly.com"Verbal abuse of autistic student sparks calls for reform", Jim Walsh and Phil Dunn, Cherry Hill Courier-Post, reprinted at USA Today website, 29 April 2012 Chaifetz created a petition asking for legislation to allow the immediate firing of teachers who have bullied students. As of April 29, it had garnered over 149,000 signatures."To the New Jersey Legislature and Congress: Pass legislation so that teachers who bully children are immediately fired", petition at Change.org, access date 29 April 2012

Should this be here? maybe at the autism article? I think it may deserve its own article.(mercurywoodrose)75.61.140.126 (talk) 17:50, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Anti-autism/aspergers slurs

Is it worth including the prevalence of autisim/aspergers being used as slurs on the internet?

Because the article mentions anti-cure insults and sorta implies that they are a result of having autism and I think its worth noting that people with out autism can be just as hostile to people with it as the other way around.

Here is a reference:http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/autism — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.187.118.204 (talk) 06:40, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi 67.187.118.204! You would need a much better source than the one you mention. Please see WP:RS for learning on how to identify a reliable source. With friendly regards, Lova Falk talk 16:19, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Autism rights movement/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Shii (talk · contribs) 21:35, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

I am afraid I must fail this article on a technical matter, rather than doing a more comprehensive review. The nominator of the article is now banned from autism-related articles and, obviously, this places some skepticism on the improvements he has made to Autism rights movement, which he appears to be a member of. Future editors of this article will have two main issues to confront before re-nominating it: (1) quality of sources (a lot of advocacy websites are being used here), and (2) possible distortion of sources. Shii (tock) 21:35, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

curing Asperger would mean

it's things like this which causes gigantic leaps in science and art, the pro-cure people are idiots! are they really that thick they can't see what massive leaps these so called defective people have given us? being social can be defined as a form of mental retardation, i know of more socially capable failures than i know anti-social failures (a slightly autistic boss is much more driven than a non-autistic one, big fat examples are: Microsoft/Apple/Dell etc.) Markthemac (talk) 01:14, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Youre entitled to your opinions but please note that it's discouraged to start conversations about the topic of the article (as opposed to the article itself) on the talk page, as per WP:NOTFORUM. —Soap— 01:17, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

i just wonder what the motivation behind a cure would be, this page lacks insight Markthemac (talk) 01:20, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

If a cure that works on living people can be found, it would mean that people who are autistic today would not always have to be. If a cure that is administered before birth can be found, then it could prevent the birth of autistic babies. Of course there is a moral dilemma here, which could create opposition to administering the cure even if it worked perfectly, and that is what this debate is about. —Soap— 01:30, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

it's a form of eugenics, but it will make my day if we find a cure for severely happy people though (nudge) Markthemac (talk) 03:22, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

The concept behind "eugenics" is the improvement of the human gene pool by replacing natural selection with artificial selection.

The "cure Autism" movement wants to impoverish the human gene pool by removing genes commonly associated with genius.

—ADeviloper (talk) 16:43, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Massive quote in Autistic people have their own culture section

It seems to me that it is neither stylistically good for an encyclopaedia to include this massive quote, nor in compliance with WP policy on quotes. It doesn't have a proper citation (a link to the original quote, for instance), is far too long (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Quotations#Overusing_quotations) and is probably a potential copvio issue too. I suggest someone looks into this (I would just delete it, but I feel it's best to discuss it first. Thanks. GoddersUK (talk) 14:26, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes. Definitely a copyvio concern, and in addition a long essay-like quote like that, which essentially consists of the personal musings of one non-notable individual in a discussion forum, are all kinds of unencyclopedicc. --bonadea contributions talk 07:58, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

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Jonathan Mitchell, and the Autistic Dark Web

While I agree that counterpoints and criticisms should be presented in all matters, Jonathan Mitchell has been known to personally attack and harass members of the Autism Rights Movement / Neurodiversity movement, and bringing attention to him only helps him grow in terms of people he can use to further his own personal agenda. On his new website; http://autismgadfly.blogspot.com/ ; he gives unauthorized medical advice to readers, a violation of law, along with other people in his group of people on Twitter using the #AutisticDarkWeb to harass people who are pro-neurodivergence. The Autistic Dark Web is becoming a hate group, and members of it have advocated to be "put to death by lethal injection" for those who are part of the ND movement (source: http://autismisbad.blogspot.com/2015/08/neurodiversity-amendment.html ),

I request a moderator or admin of Wikipedia look into this, if possible. Apologies if this post is a mess, I'm still unsure on the formatting for these things.

69.122.254.240 (talk) 19:23, 1 June 2019 (UTC)DjangoSolarBoy

I've removed your references to a specific editor's non-Wikipedia activities as outting someone is against Wikipedia policy. If you want someone to look into it post it here; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents . Do not post links to outside activity but do advise them you can provide it by a non-public method such as email. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mattevansc3 (talk • contribs) 23:25, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Removal of Amanda Baggs, Sue Rubin, and Amy Sequenzia

I noticed that viewpoints attributed to these three autistic individuals have been deleted from this article and a few other autism-related articles. There needs to be more discussion before a decision is made to erase their voices from Wikipedia. It appears that these passages were removed because the three expressed their opinions via facilitated communication, a discredited means of communication. However, Baggs (https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/the-language-of-autism/, https://www.wired.com/2008/02/ff-autism/) and Rubin (https://www.newsweek.com/my-mind-began-wake-122229) are capable of typing independently. Sequenzia still needs support typing, but no reliable source seems to discount her views because of her method of communication. CatPath (talk) 18:30, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Baggs is not a facilitated communication user. I removed her from the article under the mistaken belief that the was. However, the technique is scientifically discredited, so we cannot include the "opinions" of it's users. The news sources that quote them are not aware of the psudoscientific status of this communication technique. --Wikiman2718 (talk) 23:12, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Rubin has been typing without a facilitator for a while now. Read the Newsweek article that I linked to above. It says, "Sue, however, has typed on her own for several years now." The article was written in 2005. CatPath (talk) 23:41, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

This source may be dubious. There seems not to be evidence that she can type independently. Since she is a FC user, we should be skeptical of any claim made about her ability to communicate which has not been proven. --Wikiman2718 (talk) 00:12, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

References

Removal of Jonathan Mitchel from Criticism and Counter Movement

Jonathan Mitchell has self published one book and writes a blog. He has no academic papers published in relation to neurodiversity.

As he is not a prominent figure in the Neurodiversity conversation his inclusion gives undue weight to the criticism section. There is also COI issues regarding his inclusion due to his relationship with Ylevental.

Mattevansc3 (talk) 03:11, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

If having an academic paper published about neurodiversity were a criterion, we would have to delete every activist mentioned in the article (except for Michelle Dawson, perhaps). I don't see a problem here. Mitchell's comments are properly sourced, and they occupy a tiny fraction of the article. And yes, we all know about Ylevental's COI issues. CatPath (talk) 04:45, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

The problem is that his inclusion is POV pushing and "Righting Wrongs". Off wikipedia, Ylevental promotes Jonathan Mitchell's anti-neurodiversity Twitter account via his Twitter account and they both are constantly communicating to each other via a anti-neurodiversity hashtag. Jonathan Mitchell's inclusion isn't about creating a better encyclopedia, it's about Ylevental using Wikipedia as a platform for his own personal anti-neurodiversity beliefs.

I also disagree on it being properly sourced. The NYT article [2] uses a direct quote from Jonathan Mitchell's own blog without commentary, that effectively makes Jonathan Mitchell's blog site the source of the quote. That's not a reliable source. On his blog his story changes from entry to entry. In the blog the NYT quote comes from he says autism prevented him From making a living, in an earlier blog entry he says he was let go from a job he held for nine years because they brought in a computerised system and he also resigned from another job after a week; http://jonathans-stories.com/non-fiction/autism-genetics.html

While small in comparison to the whole article, he is only one of three people in that section. It raises his profile and positions his viewpoints on neurodiversity as credible, Wikipedia is giving authenticity to him.

Mattevansc3 (talk) 00:46, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Ylevental may have added the passage, but it's given the proper weight and supported with reliable sources. Mitchell is clearly a prominent voice in the anti-neurodiversity crowd, so including his views in brief form shouldn't be an issue. He has been causing a ruckus among the pro-neurodiversity crowd long before Ylevental appeared on the scene.

As for the source you're questioning, I'm not sure I understand the issue you're raising. Are you saying that he was lying and that he actually made a living despite being autistic? If the author of the New York article or the editor supervising the author thought Mitchell wasn't telling the truth, the quote from his blog would not have been included in the article. We should consider removing the passage only if we find a reliable source claiming that Mitchell was lying about his claim. CatPath (talk) 17:49, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

The quote in the New York article is pulled from one of Jonathan Mitchell's blog entries; http://jonathans-stories.com/non-fiction/neurodiv.html specifically the 10th and final paragraphs. Even the author writes "But of course some autistic people do want to be cured, now. Jonathan Mitchell, an autistic who blogs against neurodiversity, says,". They offer no assessment of the validity of the statement, just that the statement was made and it came from Jonathan Mitchell.

Can we get a better source than Jonathan Mitchell himself? On the same blog site the New York pulled the quotes from, Jonathan Mitchell says in two separate entries that he worked for nine years as a medical transcriber and he lost that job, not because he was autistic but because his employer found a software package that did the job instead. This is the issue with Jonathan Mitchell, every source of information comes from him. Its either interviews he's given or someone copying comments from his blog. In both of these instances there's no apparent fact checking and his comments are presented as "fact".

As another example he claims he's an author while only once acknowledging that he's never been published and self published one of the novels https://corticalchauvinism.com/2016/10/03/jonathan-mitchell-autisms-gadfly/

He is an unreliable source and that's not really suitable for Wikipedia, especially for a controversial subject.

Mattevansc3 (talk) 20:36, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Also in the NPR interview at 2:05 they also state he works as a medical transcriptionist https://www.wnyc.org/story/108427-on-the-spectrum

Mattevansc3 (talk) 21:44, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I replaced the New York article with an academic paper. CatPath (talk) 22:07, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

And the passage regarding him not being able to hold a job? The NPR audio clip confirms Jonathan Mitchell's statement he was employed as a medical transcriptionist. Mattevansc3 (talk) 23:09, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Upon further reflection, a quote describing Mitchell's personal problems doesn't contribute much to the section. I went ahead and removed the entire sentence. I'll try to find a suitable replacement when I have the time. CatPath (talk) 18:44, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Rather than looking for a replacement would making it about the Autistic Dark Web as a whole be an option? Jonathan Mitchell is part of that group among others that were part of the criticism section like Thomas Clement and as an autistic led counter culture it would be more relevant to the page. One potential source is here; https://corticalchauvinism.com/2018/08/27/bitterness-isnt-working-the-decline-of-radical-autism-the-rise-of-the-autistic-dark-web/ Mattevansc3 (talk) 23:35, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Revert

The section is "views". It is the view of the autism rights movement that autism is a difference. Sometimes it is also considered as a disability. --66.244.121.212 (talk) 21:41, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

The view being described belongs to the American psychological association, rather than the autism rights movement. I would agree with you that the current content of the chapter could be better, but I don't think your change improves it. Please find some sources to support your point and rewrite some of the current versiion, rather than just removing chunks. If you want, you can even rewrite the entire chapter. (though I would recommend placing the proposed change for review on the talk page first, so we can go over it and make sure it is an improvement on the previous version before inserting it, as it's a fairly large change.) --Licks-rocks (talk) 10:00, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Email lists

Aocdnw: Do we really need to discuss flame wars on email lists? --Wikiman2718 (talk) 12:41, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't agree with your characterization as "flame wars", besides it is more notable and specific than multiple claims throughout the article attributed to "some activist". Might as well be some guy typing away from his home. Aocdnw (talk) 13:26, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Those claims cannot reasonably be used as justification to keep the section on an email dispute. I would like to see some evidence that the email dispute was more than a well-publicized flame war. --Wikiman2718 (talk) 13:48, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Again, "flame war" is your personal characterization and POV, no one calls it like that. Aocdnw (talk) 13:52, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

I have never before seen a reference to an email dispute in an encyclopedia. An email dispute must be even less notable than one that occurs on an internet forum. And I characterize it as a flame war based on its content. --Wikiman2718 (talk) 13:58, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

That is Original Research, your characterization doesn't matter, only what references say. Aocdnw (talk) 14:00, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

It would only be original research if I tried to call it a flame war in the article. Such sourcing is not necessary on the talk page. If it looks like a flame war, I can call it a flame war. We don't need coverage of flame wars in this article. --Wikiman2718 (talk) 14:05, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

No you can't, please read WP:OR. You would need references WP:RS calling it flame war in order for that characterization to be accepted. If you can provide them I would be happy to comply. Aocdnw (talk) 14:11, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

WP:OR states that "This policy of no original research does not apply to talk pages and other pages which evaluate article content and sources, such as deletion discussions or policy noticeboards." --Wikiman2718 (talk) 14:20, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

I think it is, calling it flame war is just your POV as far as I can see and no RS calls it like that, therefore removal on those grounds is not in question. I suggest you start Request for Comment or some similar venue, because it doesn't look like we will come to an agreement. Please do not change entire comment when you already typed and published it first. Writing it is for politeness in edit summary is very disingenuous.Aocdnw (talk) 14:25, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

I did not change the comment after it was replied to. I have shown you the relevant quote from WP:OR. If you want to request an outside opinion, go ahead, but his dispute seems a bit petty for that. --Wikiman2718 (talk) 14:35, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Ok, if it is petty then drop it. Saying it is "flame war" is complete non starter. Aocdnw (talk) 14:37, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

I think that it is a flame war, and I don't intend to include coverage of a flame war in this article if I can help it. Do you really care this much about this email dispute? I don't want to want to assume bad faith, but I think you may have a WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality. --Wikiman2718 (talk) 14:45, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Third opinion

A scrap on a mailing list is far, far too excessive of detail to be worth inclusion on an article on a very broad topic like this. Material on the email dispute should be removed. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 21:50, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Disagree, valuable information. Amazonz (talk) 09:46, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Of course Wikiman2718 is right. E-Mails? What's next, bathroom graffiti? --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:11, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Criticism section - biased against critics

The criticism section is notably biased against the critical viewpoint. Examples include multiple scare quotes, no mention of that those against cures evidently (via mechanisms like the US' ADA, state-funded insurance, or insurance companies) expect the rest of society to bear the costs of taking care of those incapable of self-care, failure to mention things associated with autism (as opposed to Asperger's) like mental retardation (clearly a deficit in functioning), etc. (Yes, I feel pretty strongly on this. It makes even less sense than claiming that ADD - which I have - isn't a disability (it most definitely is for most people). But that doesn't mean the section isn't biased.) Allens (talk) 06:54, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Will edit that. Have a feeling AFF is behind this...

—23.16.219.165 (talk) 06:59, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Agreed here too. Larger problem, however, is that this section includes irrelevant material. A Criticisms section should be critical of the topic of the article, but most of this section is criticism of therapy for people with autism. That portion of the material needs to be moved.

—TricksterWolf(talk) 16:54, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

I strongly disagree.

AD(H), Autism, Dyslexia and various other "conditions" are normal parts of human neurodiversity. These "conditions" typically involve both extreme weaknesses and extreme strengths. Often, those weaknesses and strengths are closely related.

For example, AD(H) and Autism are both associated with both the struggle to keep attention in some areas (a weakness) and the capacity to hyperfocus in other areas (a strength). Both people with AD(H) and people with Autism can learn to make the impact of their "condition" mostly beneficial by reducing the influence in their personal lives of areas where they struggle to keep attention and increasing the influence of areas where they can hyperfocus.

Because these "conditions" are double-edged swords that involve both strengths and weaknesses, neither AD(H) nor Autism nor Dyslexia technically qualify as disabilities.

—ADeviloper (talk) 17:02, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Autism is categorized as a disability by a number of sources, including ASAN. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C7:9707:B000:ECDC:EE28:C097:573C (talk) 11:10, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

ADeviloper

As an autistic person with attention difference hyperactivity dynamic, I agree with your point and I wouldn't get rid of my autism or my ADHD even if I could. However, the main complaint was the criticism section was biased against critics. Ms. Andrea Carter here (at your service) 01:24, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

one of the sponsors on the news this morning should have said Walk Now For Autism Rights Movement not Walk Now For Autism Speaks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.33.58.61 (talk) 00:02, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

References

Autism community

@Niremetal: Here are two sources which state that the autistic community condemns Autism Speaks. The fist actually says "disability community".

References

Both articles that claim to speak for the autistic community are published by The Autistic Self Advocacy Network. Since they are an advocacy group, I believe this violates the good research part of Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy. Are there independent sources that define the autistic community and who represents them? 75.166.85.137 (talk) 07:58, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

Disabled world does not appear to be written by ASAN, as far as I can tell. --Licks-rocks (talk) 11:07, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

Cite this page on the bottom: The Autistic Self Advocacy Network. (2009, September 27). Autistic Community Condemns Autism Speaks. Disabled World. Retrieved November 7, 2021 from www.disabled-world.com/health/neurology/autism/autism-speaks-video.php 75.166.85.137 (talk) 23:08, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

Neutrality of article

Disputed neutrality. It focuses what autistic people and autistic activists say, not what experts in medical field say. Aocdnw (talk) 10:53, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

This article is about activism. It should discuss activism. --Wikiman2718 (talk) 11:21, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I think it should contrast it with expert opinion as well and should have less weasel words like "Some". Aocdnw (talk) 11:30, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Please mark the weasel words where you see them. Fewer weasel words is better. --Wikiman2718 (talk) 11:33, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

I have sen your user page and maybe it is best to edit field which does not personally affect you. Just a suggestion, it is not conflict of interest but there is high chance you have strong POV. Aocdnw (talk) 11:54, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Everyone has a POV. --Wikiman2718 (talk) 12:04, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Sure, but those with personal attachment have much stronger POV, that was the point of my comment. Don't take it as offence or attack on you. Aocdnw (talk) 12:06, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Clearly, you are suggesting that I shouldn't edit this page because I am autistic. Go to a page on feminism and suggest that women shouldn't edit those articles. See what kind of response you get. --Wikiman2718 (talk) 14:42, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

This is a false dichotomy to compare women who are for the most part neurotypical, to a wide spectrum of autistic people, Most women are able to speak for themselves, and even then they disagree greatly with feminism and even many men edit the pages to show a lot of nuance and disagreements within the movement and the long history of inner conflict within the wide array of feminist movements and splinters, while this page seems to have sweeping overgeneralizations led by a small group of activists and a minority of scientists and greatly over-represents the entire the autistic community and significantly ignores the majority of scientific input and their views on autism to push what appears to be a linear narrative for a pro-neurodiversity POV. Which in reality, ignores a picture which is a much more nuanced situation, with a lot more people on or related to people on the spectrum who have different views and needs who are at risk of being spoken over by a large portion of people who are in the autism rights movement and neurodiversity community who mostly are lower in support needs rather than autistic people as a whole. And I think this is a serious problem both for the scientific community and autistic people as a whole where a small minority of autistics who can speak will over-represent an entire community of autistics for one general anti-treatment movement when in reality, being against treatment for many autistic is potentially extremely harmful and may ignore serious needs of those on the spectrum. Now before you assume I am some radical anti-autism advocate. Just so you know. I am autistic too and just because you are autistic does not mean you can represent all of us on the spectrum and generalize our nuanced views on treatments and cures to promote your worldview. -AverageWikiEditingEnjoyer (talk) 03:02, 16 November 2021 (EST)

Still, such problems are not solved by excluding a group of people but rather by including others. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:50, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

I completely agree. I am not saying the articles contents are inherently bad, or wrong, nor that they should be removed, but just that it and its contents are largely appearing to be displaying what one could see as a linear narrative from an activists perspective rather than what the general community of people related to the autism field have to say about the movement. -AverageWikiEditingEnjoyer (talk) 03:02, 16 November 2021 (EST)

Article appears to be lacking great nuance regarding its history in the autism community

Considering this and the Neurodiversity article are both appearing to be making huge overgeneralizations of a whole spectrum of individuals and related peers, each with their own varied thoughts regarding various treatments and also largely shows a clear bias against what autism scientists as many other autism advocates are currently saying, with its history of controversy and criticism both by mainstream scientists and other autism advocates in the page largely being ignored. Science isn't a democracy and I worry this page may become taken over by a small group of partisans (often those with low support needs) to push a clear political agenda for their own ends that will affect the autism community as a whole rather than to give the objective facts as they are being reported. Just so you know. I am not some pro-cure autism speaks advocate. I am a person with autism myself, and seeing the complete disregard of my and various other autistic people's wide beliefs under one anti-treatment banner is doing a great disservice for us. I implore people to please begin editing this page to reduce a level of significant bias in the article and to see things from both perspectives, and to take note of the great amount of division it has caused in the autism community such as with. , , , and --Special:Contributions/72.53.87.239 (talk) 03:43, 09 November 2021 (EST)

Could you point at specific points in the article to bring your concerns a little more into focus? --Licks-rocks (talk) 11:41, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Considering the entire article gives so much weight to the movement and its perspectives while also largely underrepresenting the controversy and criticism it has garnered over the years by others within autism advocacy, people on the spectrum, a majority of people in the scientific community and with people who are related to autistic individuals. The entire article is just giving so much information from a singular small portion of advocates and is written in what could be seen as a linear-narrative, as it is giving undue weight to report on just one view from a certain portion of activists of a very nuanced discussion of a serious mental condition, while significantly under-representing the other perspectives which are prevalent in the entire article, this problem is not just in certain parts of it, as the entire article is written like this and I argue that the only way for this to be improved is for this page to be given an undue weight tag to help promote citing more perspectives rather than just those promoted by the Neurodiversity movement. --AverageWikiEditingEnjoyer (talk) 04:50, 17 November 2021 (EST)

Could this be resolved by adding a Controversy section? And if so, what would be in it? I don't really see this "small portion of advocates" position, by the way, from what I can tell the majority of autism advocacy does in fact center around this movement.--Licks-rocks (talk) 11:42, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for responding, regarding your point, I would agree with you that the movement is typically very popular for those on the spectrum with "low support needs" who often are able to speak for themselves. However, many autism scientists in the field are greatly debating the potential over-diagnosis of autism, due to significant rise of those diagnosed on the spectrum who are able to speak for themselves. My issue with that is that while with noble intent (and at times has even done good for the autism community in humanizing those within the spectrum), those who are apart of autism advocacy while also being with lower support needs, or who may potentially not be on the spectrum at all, might end up unintentionally speaking over those who can't speak for themselves. And in that way, said advocacy might risk representing only the perspectives of a certain amount of people on the spectrum rather than as a whole, alongside scientists and those related to them who try to speak on the behalf of those with higher support needs. And that it ignores a lot of nuance regarding the condition that cannot be represented by a broad banner of "neurodiversity". This page at least in my opinion doesn't seem to fully show those other perspectives. And that argument may seem to be a common point of contention in the autism community and between others on the spectrum as a whole --AverageWikiEditingEnjoyer (talk) 13:05, 19 November 2021 (EST)

I've heard this argument a lot, yeah. I've personally never seen evidence of it actually being a problem, but my opinion on the matter doesn't really factor into it. I think this article could be improved somewhat by a "criticism" section. This would allow us to mention the most common objections to the movement in one central place in the article.--Licks-rocks (talk) 19:05, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

It's generally not a good idea to segregate criticisms into its own section. It often ends up creating issues with undue weight, with criticisms getting too much emphasis in an article. Criticisms should be incorporated into the other sections of the article where appropriate. CatPath ^{meow at me} 21:05, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

I feel the need to note that a number of people who would be considered "high support needs" can and do advocate for themselves, and I've known quite a few to advocate for neurodiversity as well. (I'm not going to grab specific sources right this moment (though I think I could), as I'm quite busy today and my purpose for making this specific reply was that reading that was eating at me.) I do think that making the assumption that only people with low support needs (typically, I mean, as one's support needs can change day-to-day) advocate for neurodiversity--or the flipside, that anyone who can speak or type has low support needs--might be a dangerous bias. (And I want to say it's possible it could even affect what someone making that assumption considers a reliable source--I can't say this for certain in every editor's case or every situation, of course, but in a few other spheres with divides like these I have seen bias result in multiple editors treating a not-quite-RS sharing an opinion (which made it a hard non-RS for the weasel-trying-to-pass-as-factual statement it was being used to support) as if it were a RS that was sharing a fact.)

(Though there are at times recognized issues with speaking autistic people tending to take the spotlight over nonspeaking and/or AAC users. There was actually a lot of intra-autistic-community talk regarding that point this year (including probably why the Autistic Self Advocacy Network gala this year place direct focus on nonspeaking autistic people) as nonspeaking autistic issues came into the spotlight earlier this year due to certain media events.)

TL;DR: There are definitely people and groups who criticize neurodiversity; I just think the message I'm replying to (last one by AWEE) operates from a base assumption that is incorrect (and one that could affect one's editing or searching for citations, if they don't take care to avoid it doing so). - Purplewowies (talk) 19:56, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Just because there is to a certain extent, advocacy groups that have done some initiatives in support for and to represent those with higher-needs, doesn't ignore the general trend in recent years of a rise in diagnosed cases for those who are in significantly lower-support needs, (some of which possibly being misdiagnosed for other conditions like ADHD). I think it is a still worrying possibility that we should consider if we factor the rise of the movement largely paralleling the rise in lower-support needs cases being diagnosed. Which may inevitably still lead to a misrepresentation of the autism experience as a whole. While it is in fact true that many people with high-support needs do advocate to some extent, still doesn't ignore the general trend that is happening regarding the rise of both the diagnosis of lower-support needs cases and the neurodiversity movement and how said people with higher-supports needs may still have a harder time trying to express their personal experiences and beliefs about the condition in a movement that seems increasingly more and more focused in recent years on generalizing a serious condition under a broad brush of "accepting" their disability and seeing it as "just a harmless difference" that doesn't at all need to be treated, rather than listening to the nuanced desires of people with higher-support as well as those who advocate for them (such as doctors and family members) would want for their autism. Because as someone who was raised in spec ed. classed, I myself have known many different individuals, all of which having different views on their autism, (some of which wanting to remain their old selves and rejecting treatments, while others to be treated or even fully cured as they see it as greatly impacting their lives, some people are unable to have any view at all because they don't even understand or comprehend their condition and how it has greatly affected them) and the lack of nuance I am starting to see regarding that in the new "neurodiversity" movement especially by self-advocates on social-media (some of which being self-diagnosed) to me says something that I think may end up doing harm to the community they claim to want to support. --AverageWikiEditingEnjoyer (talk) 21:38, 13, December 2021 (EST)

So... I needed to take space from this because I think I keep looking at it when my own brain cannot process the entire wall of text at once (and I can't properly get my mind to write out a longer response to it that makes sense and accurately explains all of what I meant, so I'm going to stick to the most Wikipedia-relevant bit). My thought process was really more that it felt like your perspective was a bit off base from my own experiences (disabled myself, have over many, many years interacted with a variety of disabled people including many, many autistic people) and it felt like the specific way you talk about your perspective and thoughts, it might have been something that could introduce bias when looking for reliable sources to back up assertions, if you don't recognize and control for it. (And we all do have biases, because we all have experiences that color our lives! What's important and was the core of my previous message (as opposed to the rest, which was more related to the topic and felt like it was a balancing act not to straddle WP:NOTFORUM) is just that I've seen people who let that bias heavily affect what sources they use to the point sometimes they don't even use reliable ones, just to be sure they're using ones that align with their biases.) (As a side note (small so maybe it won't detract from my actual response), I don't personally have a problem with self-diagnosis, but part of that may be related to the fact my parents made it very unclear to me whether or not I had a disability at all for some years so I sort of "functioned" as self-diagnosed for about three years... with a disability the school system had already identified me as having. So I can sort of jibe with some of the factors that may bring people to end up there.) - Purplewowies (talk) 07:57, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

References

Notable individuals

Why is Michaelangelo featured here? The Autism rights movement did not exist during the period which Michaelangelo was alive and this does not make him a notable individual for the campaign of autism rights. It should be omitted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by APDHistorian (talk • contribs) 11:50, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

the term "Aspergers Syndrome"

why is the term aspergers syndrome used in this article? its own wikipedia page refers to it as outdated, and it hasn't been used in an official capacity for almost a decade. Cyan-Prince (talk) 00:15, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

I really thing the entire section with "Aspergers" needs to be completely re done and added in something about the controversial nature of the term as it is an issue in the autism rights movement. Hans aspergers was a nazi and the term is completely outdated! Bottledfizz (talk) 02:46, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Why is there a redirect page to "Neurodiversity movement"?

Why do we got a redirect page if Autism rights movement isn't a movement for neurodivergent as a whole? I mean why, specifically? There are literally other disability observed movements that focus on other disorders and disabilities under the neurodiversity umbrella. Sheragirl10 (talk) 11:57, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Rainbow infinity meaning, autism specific or neurodiversity wide

Twice now I've altered the image description for the "rainbow infinity" symbol from describing it as a neurodiversity symbol to specifically a symbol for autism. Both the citation on the page and the reputable sources I've been able to find in my own research have only made reference to the symbols use for autism, there is no mention of the broader neurodiversity movement. If people are going to keep changing the description to say that it's a symbol of the neurodiversity at large, they should also be providing a good quality source to cite for that, rather than leaving the current source which only makes reference to it's use relating to autistic people. Waitingtocompile (talk) 15:24, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Actually, the rainbow infinity was never made for neurodiversity as a whole, it was only used for Autism Pride Day and overwhelming amounts of victims of autism or allies eventually erroneously used the symbol that only really belongs to that was arguably the considered the biggest name under neurodiversity, for said umbrella term. Sheragirl10 (talk) 12:06, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Problems with article scope

At the moment the overview section seems crammed with irrelevant information, unrelated to the subject of the article. It appears to be an overview of random categories and their relation to autism, not an overview of the autism rights movement. Given it's lack of information on the subject of the article, is there anything written in it worth keeping? XeCyranium (talk) 22:04, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Probably not. Indeed much of the content is on autism and not the movement itself. I would suggest moving some sections over to other articles on autism since a lot of it is good information. FonkayMunkay97 (talk) 03:02, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

This article is a huge problem. The autism rights movement is a movement that argues that autism is not a disorder, disease, or other kind of pathology and that behavioral, biomedical, educational, occupational, and other such interventions to make autistic people less autistic are unethical.

I deleted entire sections that I believed were full of nothing of value to the actual topic of the article. But a lot of sections are a mix of relevant and irrelevant things. It is going to take a lot of work to fix this article. 2013creek (talk) 19:04, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree that the sections you removed were not well-integrated into the article. But many of the issues raised therein often arise in autism rights discussions, so some may have value as context in a section that is more tied to the article. And, well, many autistic people thrive on such context anyways, so some might just be valuable context for the article in general. Indeed some of it will be valuable to other articles as well. I'll link the full diff here for convenience so editors can mine it as this and other articles are improved: Special:diff/1178937056/1182073865 —siroχo 02:19, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Certainly, if someone can rewrite these sections in a way that is integrated into the actual topic of the article, then be my guest! 2013creek (talk) 02:25, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

"Neurodiversity movement" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Neurodiversity movement has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 February 10 § Neurodiversity movement until a consensus is reached. --MikutoH ^talk! 01:21, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Puzzle piece

Opinions are divided on the use of a jigsaw-puzzle piece to represent autism, with some parents liking it, and the majority of autistic adults disliking it. Research has found it has negative connotations.

References

This image and its references were recently removed. I think it was indeed a bit messy how this sentiment was conveyed in the article but also that it shouldn't be axed entirely. Does anyone else have a good idea of how to fit this back in? Is it enough for another paragraph in the "perspectives" section? 1Veertje (talk) 13:13, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

I completely agree. It should have been rewritten and not removed since the debate regarding the puzzle piece symbol is very relevant in the ARM. Kindly, Pinecone23 (talk) 13:12, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Agree too. This issue should be discussed, not ignored. Certainly restore the image and its caption. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:25, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Please read my long reply to Pinecone23 above. The original caption, by placing the view of non-Autistic parents on a par with Autistic views, is a violation of the Human Right of the Autistic community to self-determination.

I am fine with presenting the puzzle piece as an example of one of the ways in which the voices of parents have drowned out Autistic voices and thus denied us self-determination.

But this isn't something that the Autistic Community came up with. This isn't something that we choose to use to represent ourselves. Within the Autistic Community I don't think it is controversial, I think it is widely seen as annoying.

I also think that there is a broader issue which is the extent to which the medical community gaslights Autistic people and the extent to which this has led to internalised ableism. Which complicates conversations such as we are currently having because some Autistic people will reinforce the negative medical views as a result of this internalised ableism. So saying something about the "majority of Autistic adults" dislike the puzzle piece makes it sound like there is controversy, whereas I suspect the truth is closer to "The Autistic Community dislikes this symbol." Perhaps we can find something newer than 2015 to show a more up-to-date view on Autistic views on this symbol.

I would suggest looking at articles such as this to get a sense of newer thinking about internalised ableism:

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1050897/full

"Using medicalized narratives of autism predicted higher odds of ableist cues compared to employing social model or neutral embodiment narratives."

I also found this one, which shows a link between Autistic internalised abelism and Inceldom, so this is a deeper problem than you might suspect:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01639625.2023.2268253

"Findings indicate that incels’ internalized ableism of autism is employed to categorically justify the victimhood and entitlement that grounds their ideology. This weaponization of autism is then used to promote ableism and networked misogyny." Zenmasterbear (talk) 09:40, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Following up on my continued discussion with @Pinecone23 above. I don't believe that the puzzle piece has ever been seen as a symbol of the Autism Rights movement. If there is evidence that it was at some point in the past seen in that way, then I think it can be mentioned within the history section. If there is no evidence that it has ever been seen as relevant to the ARM, then it really should be removed.

Alternatively, I think it could be appropriate to talk about the tensions between parental viewpoints and Autistic viewpoints as one of the challenges faced by people within the ARM. I would think that there is a neutral way to show the conflict between the definition of Autism Rights as Human Rights (and thus self-determination, blah, blah, blah) and the general weighting in public view (media, etc.) of non-Autistic perspectives on what autism is. We should be able to tie that in to similar issues in Disability Rights, and could use the puzzle piece as an example of how a symbol preferred by non-Autistic people (often parents of Autistic kids) is more widely associated with autism than is the preferred infinity symbol of the ARM. Zenmasterbear (talk) 06:57, 4 September 2024 (UTC)