An important concept in social justice circles is the idea of privilege. For those unacquainted with the concept, perhaps the easiest way to describe it is that by being born into a certain group (race, gender, economic class, etc.), you’ve automatically, even unconsciously, been given an advantage in certain matters as a part of that group. This, of course, even applies to disability: if you’re not disabled, you’re automatically granted advantages that many disabled people will have to work for at best, or may never attain at worst.

I’d write about neurotypical privilege here, since that’s the most obvious case that’d be relevant to my own disabilities, but Bev from Square 8 has already created a neurotypical privilege checklist that’s so good, I don’t think I could ever manage to outdo it. (And besides, I contributed a couple items to it myself!)

However, along with Asperger’s syndrome, I also have auditory processing disorder. It affects pretty much every act of spoken communication I participate in, so it’s not something that can be easily ignored. And I’ve noticed that many people don’t even consider how certain activities can be discriminatory to those of us with abnormal hearing or auditory processing.

I wish I could provide an outright hearing privilege checklist, but that’d be problematic given that I have at least some privilege in that respect myself. My hearing itself is OK; I’m overly sensitive to noises, and I have perfect pitch that’s a blessing for solving the Selenitic Age in Myst but a curse when I’m asked to play on a piano that’s horribly out of tune. At the same time, because of my auditory processing disorder, I do share many of the same difficulties understanding speech that someone who’s deaf or hard of hearing would have. Nonetheless, it’d be best to refer to this as an auditory processing privilege checklist, not a hearing one.

So, without further ado:

The Normal Auditory Processing Privilege Checklist

• I can watch first-run movies in any theater and still understand a majority of the dialogue without having to attend a specially scheduled screening with subtitles.
• I can watch movies on streaming services and comprehend the dialogue with the same ease that I could with a DVD rental.
• TV shows are equally accessible to me whether I record from TV or watch them online. I could drop my cable TV subscription without losing access to those shows.
• I can easily carry on conversations with several other people in a bar or restaurant, no matter how noisy the place is.
• I can easily understand what people say to me on the phone, and do not have to frequently ask for repetition.
• If I want a smartphone data plan, the minimum required voice plan of 300–400 minutes that must accompany it is not overkill.
• I can decipher the lyrics for most songs without having to look them up.
• Rock concerts are at a perfectly reasonable level; I don’t need to stand at the back or remember to bring earplugs.
• I can understand messages broadcast over PA systems without a lot of difficulty.
• Lectures are just as easy for me to comprehend without visual feedback such as PowerPoint as they are with visual feedback.

You’ve likely never thought about how many of these experiences aren’t universal, or how these situations might be discriminatory— and that’s precisely the point of this. I see so many posts, for instance, talking about eliminating cable subscriptions and going to online TV viewing; yet most of the cable-only shows I’m interested in, if they are available online in the first place, aren’t captioned in any form.

And that’s just the start. Can anyone think of any other examples of privilege experienced by those without auditory processing disorder? I’m totally open to suggestions; feel free to leave them in the comments!

As you might also be aware if you happened to look at Google’s home page today, it’s also the birthday of Hans Christian Andersen, author of numerous well-known folktales. Among many other stories, he wrote “Thumbelina,” “The Little Mermaid,” “The Emperor’s New Clothes”… and, of course, “The Ugly Duckling.”

“The Ugly Duckling” is a story that Andersen himself has admitted was based on his own experiences growing up. And it’s always resonated with me as well, as an autistic living in a neurotypical world. Despite all efforts to be accepted, I’ve never quite felt like a duck neurotypical; I only truly felt free, free to be myself, when I learned of the autism spectrum, when I learned that I behaved and perceived things differently because I was different.

Think about it. How many times do we see autistic people described as broken neurotypicals, rather than as individuals with their own distinct thought patterns and processing styles? How many times do we see people trying to make their autistic children behave like them, rather than letting them exhibit entirely harmless behaviors that just happen to be trademarks of autism?

And isn’t it all a bit like expecting a swan to look and act like a duck, when it is, in fact, a shining example of a swan?

Though it may seem a bit strange to think of a fairy tale as a shining example of autism awareness, it does seem as if people could learn a lot about it from “The Ugly Duckling.” And it amazes me how many people haven’t even considered that analogy.

You all should know by now my feelings about what counts for autism awareness these days; if not, see my posts from 2008 and 2009 to get caught up.

So yes. Once again, I’ll be blogging quite a bit more than usual. I’ll be monitoring my Google News alerts and Twitter searches, as well as the occasional offline news source, for anything that looks blog-worthy. I’ll be writing about autism advocacy and what fellow blogger SadderButWiserGirl calls “autism badvocacy”. And of course, I’ll be sharing some personal anecdotes to give readers a look at autism from the inside out.

I’d have blogged more today, except I’ve been pretty much out of it between grading for my graduate assistantship and a really irritating headache that keeps coming back. (Seriously, why does Autism Awareness Month also have to coincide with pollen season? )

Greetings. I’m Cody, I’m autistic, I have a girlfriend, and I love her.

Yeah. I hear you saying it right now. There are autistics who actually want friendships? Autistics can actually feel love for others? Autistics can be in romantic relationships?

And to answer those questions: Yes, yes, and oh so definitely yes.

On one hand, it amazes me that these tropes continue to persist in the face of all manner of evidence to the contrary. And yet, on the other hand, it really shouldn’t amaze me.

I don’t know how many times I’ve seen some sort of human-interest story or fundraising film about autism in which a parent rambles about how their once talkative kid will no longer say “I love you”— or how their child doesn’t even seem to show affection at all. And I don’t know how many times I’ve seen, in these same sorts of films, all manner of evidence from the kids in question that they’re quite concerned about their parents— with the parents never even noticing these overtures.

And I’m definitely not the only one. Amanda Baggs, a fellow autistic blogger, noticed this as well:

An interesting aspect of this in action was the “Autism Every Day” video in fact. I showed the video to the people at the MIT Media Lab recently, but instead of watching it straight through, we stopped it and focused on the social behavior of the children in the video, and the parents in the video. The interesting part to me was that the social behavior of the children was not only often invisible to their parents, but often invisible to the people who worked at the Media Lab as well. I had to point out to them things like one child speaking to her mother and inquiring about her mother’s emotional state, another child’s affection, another child looking up at his mother’s face to gauge her feelings.

And that, I think, really cuts to the crux of these tropes. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if there are indeed some autistics out there who really don’t want friends, who really aren’t interested at all in relationships, most of what I’ve found, at least based on my experiences in the online autistic community (and note the word community there!) is quite the opposite.

It’s just that we don’t necessarily show these feelings in a way that neurotypicals can quickly comprehend.

My girlfriend and I have actually noticed a related pattern even in our IM conversations— not to mention our occasional face-to-face encounters.

(A brief interlude, because I’m sure the previous statement will, in itself, likely seem a bit odd to most readers. See, we live several hours apart, neither of us drive, and intercity transportation in our state is horrible, so there are spans of several months in which we don’t see each other in person. And with my auditory processing issues, phone calls aren’t exactly convenient either— though we do carry on Skype-to-Skype conversations every once in a while, which aren’t a problem because of the enhanced audio quality. But a majority of our interactions are through SMS and instant messaging, just because it’s the most convenient option.)

What I’ve noticed is that we rarely use the words “I love you” in our conversations. Sure, it was a shock for both of us the first time those words came out in a late-night movie theater trip. But now that they’ve been said, why do we need to keep saying them? It’s like that poem by E. E. Cummings: “since feeling is first / who pays any attention / to the syntax of things / will never wholly kiss you.” Why bother with “the syntax of things”— saying the words “I,” “love,” and “you” in that order— so often, when there’s such a variety of other ways to actually show it? And indeed, our IM conversations are peppered with frequent emotes of the very sorts of things we’d do in person: hugs, cuddles, hair ruffles and the like.

Oh, yes, that’s another myth that I hear far too often, incidentally: autistics can’t be touchy-feely. Sure, I don’t like unexpected touching— but really, does anyone? Mutually agreed-upon cuddling and hugs, however, are perfectly fine… and indeed, they’re usually extremely comforting. (And that’s not all too surprising, either, given the ideas which led to Temple Grandin’s hug machine.)

But even beyond that, this particular relationship wouldn’t be what it is without one additional factor: mutual acceptance. That’s the whole reason that so many potential friendships have failed me. It’s not, as so many neurotypical observers would think, because I didn’t want the person as a friend, and definitely not because I didn’t want a friend at all.

Simply put: my girlfriend likes me for who I am. And I like her for who she is. It’s those quirky traits that both of us have that attracted us to one another in the first place, and it’s those traits that continue to attract us to each other.

And that’s why so many potential friendships fail for me. So many people just want me to be someone who I’m not… and although I’m perfectly happy to put up a façade for social situations that require it, and I’m perfectly happy to work on those little ‘hidden curriculum‘ items that never really occurred to me in the first place, I’m not willing to go so far as to change my entire state of being to some random individual’s whim. If I have to constantly feel like I’m working at something in order to be around someone, if I have to keep my guard up at all times and can’t just be myself, that defeats the implied trust that exists in a friendship. Indeed, my closest friendships ever have all been with people who accepted me for who I was, and who didn’t want me to become something that I’m not.

So, neurotypical observers, before you’re too quick to label an autistic acquaintance or relative as being uninterested in friendship, lacking in signs of affection, or unromantic, take a closer look. There may very well be more than meets the eye.

April is coming.

It’s only just nearing the end of February. I know that. I also know that there are many things I need to get done in my life before April Fools Day comes around again.

But still, April is looming. I can almost feel myself bracing for it.

April Fools Day. The day it always starts.

Justifying The Existence Of My Boyfriend Month.

Justifying The Existence Of Our Relationship Month.

Justifying The Fact That No, I Am NOT Going To Try To Change Him Month.

Hi, I’m codeman38′s girlfriend.

The one the “My autistic child is never going to have a girlfriend!” moans during Autism Awareness Month claim doesn’t exist.

(Then again, every year a number of people usually manage to claim adult autistics don’t exist, so codeman38 and I are likely somewhat even on that. Not that either of us is keeping score.)

Thanks to the growing side awareness about something people are calling ‘Cassandra Affective Disorder’, sooner or later I’m going to get labeled as something I’m not.

So let me put this plainly:

I’m sick and tired of being told I’m broken in some way for loving him, and sick and tired of having to explain that most of what gets said during Autism Awareness Month doesn’t apply to him or most other autistics.

And I’m especially sick and tired of the way all people in relationships with autistic people, whatever their point on the diagnostic spectrum, are being tarred with this Cassandra Affective Disorder thing.

1) He did not deceive me into thinking he was ‘normal’.

One of the first bits of personal information we exchanged the day we met was that I have Attention Deficit Disorder and he has that plus an Asperger’s Syndrome diagnosis. I didn’t know what that meant right then, nor for the several years we were friends before dating, but at any time – even that night – I could have gone to my dorm room, searched on Google, and found every bit of misinformation and information about that diagnostic label that the Internet had to offer.

And yes, we were friends for years before we became a couple. I got to know him. Sure there were some details, like perceptual quirks, that he had to eventually tell me about because an observer couldn’t know, but at no point was he trying to mask anything past what he normally had to do to get through a day in college.

Every time I read one of the ‘but I didn’t know what he was!’ descriptions of ‘My Hell Relationship With An Autistic Person’, I can’t help but think that what I’m reading sounds a lot like a typical case of a couple who didn’t know each other, really know each other, before they got together. Barriers never got dropped. Suddenly, being together is a safe place instead of a social situation. Coping mechanisms get dropped, and behaviors the non-autistic didn’t know about show up.

And there’s probably a fair dose of the usual ‘but he wants the toilet paper roll turned the WRONG way!’ disputes mixed into it — except that society right now does default into ‘the autistic is always wrong’.

2) Using a relationship to force someone to change? Is wrong.

And that is pretty much what a lot of the symptoms of CAD seem to be to me: one partner trying to change the other. It’s just that since those things happen to be innate traits, present from the time of earliest memories if not present from birth, that pushing doesn’t actually do much of anything except cause a lot of negative emotional fallout on both sides.

When I was in high school and college, the Warnings You Are In A Bad Relationship brochures and talks usually included the idea that someone who tries to change you from who you are is not someone you need to be around, much less date.

I was being warned to avoid people with the same sorts of relationship behaviors that supposedly go with dating an autistic according to the CAD people.

Forcing change of innate characteristics based on the desire of another party is considered at best mild relationship abuse unless, and so far as I can tell solely unless, the victim has an autistic spectrum diagnosis.

And at least some claiming CAD exists claim pretty much everyone dating or married to an autistic person — any autistic person, no matter what diagnosis, no matter how ‘high-functioning’ — has this supposed disorder.

I’m, however unintentionally, being labeled an emotional abuser of my boyfriend because and only because he was given an Asperger’s Disorder diagnosis late in high school.

3) Stop with the two uses of the word ‘encouraging’.

This is an old old rant codeman38 has heard from me before. We’re both word geeks. Hopefully he won’t mind my finally repeating it in public here.

There are two main forms of the word ‘encouraging’ in use today in America.

One is the everyday positive ‘he was an encouragement to me’ usage. People may question the motives involved, but the general outcome for the target of the encouragement is held to be better than if it hadn’t happened.

Those bells everyone keeps ringing during Olympic skiing events? Those are supposed to be this kind of encouraging.

And then, there’s the other meaning of the word, usually heard in the sentence “Don’t encourage him.”

It’s never been said to me, but I can feel it sometimes. When he stims and I don’t do a ‘dude, stop that’ maneuver. When he’s focusing so hard on something that he can’t actually focus usefully and it’s time for the funny youtube clip that is somehow not socially right because it’s distracting him from focusing on how much he can’t focus (I’m still trying to understand that logical loop).

And, most especially, the one or two times he’s rocked and I’ve joined in.

There, I finally admitted it. And it’s surprising how socially wrong even admitting that actually is, given that just a quick trip to someplace with a porch swing would make it suddenly traditional ‘oh that’s so sweet’ dating behavior.

And that brings me to

4) There are many ways to say I Love You.

I shouldn’t have to say this. That book a while back about people having different Love Languages should have said it all for me, but the ‘I’ll never hear my child say ‘I Love You” claims during April every year mean I apparently have to.

Codeman38 has an auditory processing disorder as part of what gave him the Asperger’s Diagnosis. He’s got other perceptual quirks, to be sure, but that’s the big one.

That means that, regardless of whatever effects autism may have on his own emotional displays, sometimes words can’t work as a sign of affection with him. If I tell him “I love you” over a cell phone connection, even a good one, there are many many days I might as well be saying “My hovercraft is full of eels” because he’s not going to understand me.

This means that apart from Skype and the times we do manage to be in the same room at the same time, we’ve got text messages, e-mail, and instant messenger as communication tools.

So, even without emotional display preferences coming into it, neither of us hears ‘I love you’ all that much.

But here’s the thing: love doesn’t take saying the words often. They are not some magic incantation that makes an emotion really exist. Getting someone to say “I love you” does not make them love you. Never hearing someone say “I love you” isn’t absolute proof that they don’t.

We pass each other web links all the time, things we know the other would be incredibly interested in even if they aren’t our personal cup of tea.

We keep an eye out while shopping, and if there’s something like a $3 DVD at BigLots we know the other has been searching ages for, we make sure it hasn’t already been found, get it, and add it to the pile of things we’ll exchange the next time we do manage to be in the same place.

We offer humor when needed, and sympathy when needed.

And I’m tired of it being like all that doesn’t matter just because it can be a week between times we each type three words, and has been known to be months between times we hear them.

——

And if you think all this affects me, just remember: all it takes is ending one human relationship, just one, for me not to have to deal with these assumptions and judgments of society ever again.

Codeman38 doesn’t have that option. Other autistics don’t have that option.

Anyone they ever date or marry will have to deal with this pile of problems and issues unless things change, and the very people who lament autistics not being able to date successfully are often the very people driving these stresses every single April.

I’ve never applied for a job in the traditional manner.

Sure, I’ve done some work for my father’s office, and I’ve done some freelance work for organizations owned by his friends and associates. But this has all been through connections, through friends, family, and friends of family; I’ve never actively sought out a job on my own in the traditional way.

But it’s not that I don’t want to— in fact, I would absolutely love to find a job that suits me well. It’s just that the process is… a difficult one for people with the issues I have, to say the least.

I still remember when I attempted to go to a college job fair a while ago— it was about as chaotic as one might possibly imagine (no doubt aided by the fact that this was a particularly large job fair put on by the biggest university in the state). It was crowded. It was noisy. And… well… that poses a bit of an issue, for someone with social anxiety and no cocktail-party effect. I still wonder how anyone was actually able to carry on a conversation in there— the noise got to me so quickly that I left after only a few minutes (and, in that scenario, it would have been rather pointless to listen to my iPod!).

So clearly, that’s not exactly the best option for me. But there are job-search sites, right?

Well, yes. Except that there are certain important bits of information that businesses tend to omit from their job search listings. Things like… where the job and/or interview will be located.

It’s no secret that I can’t drive. And some parts of town, simply put, are not even accessible via public transit. There’s one major business corridor that’s just beyond the county line, and because of quirks in the way funding arrangements were made between the two counties, the nearest that any buses get is a mile and a half away. Not exactly a pleasant walk to work— though at least the road in question has sidewalks, which is more than can be said for other transit-inaccessible parts of town.

Even in parts of town that do have bus service, the schedules can be rather wonky. Most routes only run once an hour, and based on where my apartment is, I’d likely have to make a transfer to another route. And because of the way the routes intersect, in order to get to a job at 9:00, I’d have to leave the apartment around 7:00 to get somewhere that’s mere minutes away by car.

Oh, and on top of that, I’d have to figure out a way to work such things as grocery trips into my schedule if I worked five days a week, since there’s no bus service to my apartment on weekends when school is not in session.

Matters are also not helped by the fact that, in general, IT-related jobs— i.e., the ones I’d be searching for— tend to generally be clustered in larger cities. And of course, I’m attending graduate school in a smaller college town, about an hour and a half away from the big city. Transportation options are… rather limited, to say the least. Greyhound only runs twice a day (and not on a schedule that’s actually suited to work commutes, either), while there’s an airport shuttle that runs more frequently but is $45 each way.

Of course, I could also choose to live in said city during the summer, but that would bring its own set of challenges— things like trying to find an apartment lease for just the summer that was short enough to allow me to return to school afterward, and that allowed for easy access both to work and to such things as groceries via public transit.

And that’s just the job searching process, of course. Upon finding a job I could get to, and discovering the interview would be held at a location I could get to… well, I’d have to actually do the interview.

Here’s where the social skills issues come in. At least I’m starting to get better at faking eye contact (something I alluded to in The Stress of Seeming ‘Normal’); I’ve found that staring at the bridge of someone’s nose, or their eyebrows, is virtually indistinguishable by most people. But still, even with the eye contact issue taken care of, interviews are largely made up of… well, mind games. I love Bev’s latest video on the subject at Asperger Square 8 (and don’t worry; it’s even captioned!). Let’s just say, it’s not uncommon for people of my neurology to be skipped over when it comes to applying for a job. And that’s completely ignoring the uncomfortable clothes one has to wear to an interview (which, of course, one must also wear on the bus ride there), or all the little aspects of etiquette that one has to keep in the back of one’s mind (and that one is quickly judged on)…

And phone interviews? You’d think those would be easier because of the lack of eye contact, right? Well, not if one’s constantly having to stop to process what was said because half the consonants are muffled— needless to say, that quickly gets tiring. And yes, there’s the option of the relay service; for a traditional relay call, that leads the interviewer to quickly realize that the potential employee has hearing difficulties, while for a VCO call, it leads to long blocks of silence as the interviewee waits for the transcription to catch up with what was asked. (Not to mention that, depending on how the interview is set up, you may have to call the interviewer back via relay if they call you initially.)

On that note, a lot of business people seem to want to be contacted via the phone, or contact you via the phone. You can probably see how this can be stressful.

So yes. It’s not that I don’t want to get a job— it’s just that, between searching and applying for a job, and all the other little things like transportation that are involved in the process, it’s stressful and spoon-consuming to an extent that people just don’t realize. I don’t doubt that I’ll eventually get a job on my own at some point, but the process simply won’t be as smooth sailing as it is for a non-autistic.

But this time, they’ve really outdone themselves.

Before I explain what they’ve done to make me say that, I have to provide a bit of background information. You see, back in early August, Autism Speaks sent out this press release encouraging people to submit videos of autistic individuals for use in an upcoming film project. This project had huge names behind it— most notably, award-winning movie director Alfonso Cuarón, the man behind both Children of Men and the third Harry Potter movie— and was to be titled “I Am Autism.” According to Autism Speaks co-founder Suzanne Wright, this project was intended to “shine a bright spotlight on autism,” and was to be unveiled at the United Nations World focus on Autism on September 22.

Seems pretty harmless, right? “I Am Autism.” Sounds like it might be some sort of “We Are The World”-type production, about how we’re all affected by autism in some way. And “shining a bright spotlight”? I actually had a small gleam of hope that Autism Speaks was finally shedding their doom-and-gloom message for something more positive.

Well…

Yesterday was September 22. The final cut of that video was not only played at the United Nations meeting, but also released to the world via YouTube. And it was not what I was expecting. In fact, it was worse than even the worst-case scenario that I could think of.

This is the video that they released. I’ve transcribed it below, because of course, the video isn’t captioned (something, incidentally, that I’ll get back to later):

– man: I am autism. I’m visible in your children, but if I can help it, I am invisible to you until it’s too late. I know where you live, and guess what? I live there too. I hover around all of you. I know no color barrier, no religion, no morality, no currency. I speak your language fluently, and with every voice I take away, I acquire yet another language. I work very quickly. I work faster than pediatric AIDS, cancer, and diabetes combined. And if you are happily married, I will make sure that your marriage fails. Your money will fall into my hands, and I will bankrupt you for my own self-gain. I don’t sleep, so I make sure you don’t either. I will make it virtually impossible for your family to easily attend a temple, a birthday party, a public park, without a struggle, without embarrassment, without pain. You have no cure for me. Your scientists don’t have the resources, and I relish their desperation. Your neighbors are happier to pretend that I don’t exist, of course, until it’s their child. I am autism. I have no interest in right or wrong. I derive great pleasure out of your loneliness. I will fight to take away your hope. I will plot to rob you of your children and your dreams. I will make sure that every day you wake up, you will cry, wondering ‘who will take care of my child after I die?’ And the truth is, I am still winning, and you are scared, and you should be. I am autism. You ignored me. That was a mistake.

– woman: And to autism, I say…
– man: I am a father…
– woman: A mother…
– woman: A grandparent…
– man: A brother…
– woman: A sister…
– man: We will spend every waking hour trying to weaken you.
– woman: We don’t need sleep, because we will not rest until you do.
– woman: Family can be much stronger than autism ever anticipated, and we will not be intimidated by you…
– woman: …nor will the love and strength of my community.
– man: I am a parent riding toward you, and you can push me off this horse time and time again, but I will get up, climb back on, and ride on with the message.
– woman: Autism? You forget who we are. You forget who you are dealing with. You forget the spirit of mothers…
– all: …and daughters, and fathers, and sons…
– (crosstalk: several people calling out “We are” and the names of different countries)
– all: We are the United Nations.
– man: We are coming together in all climates.
– woman: We call on all faiths.
– woman: We search with technology…
– woman: …and voodoo…
– woman: …prayer and…
– man: …herbs…
– man: …genetic studies…
– woman: …and a growing awareness you never anticipated.
– man: We have had challenges, but we are the best when overcoming them.
– woman: We speak the only language that matters:
– all: Love for our children.
– woman: Our capacity to love is greater than your capacity to overwhelm.
– woman: Autism is naive.
– woman: You are alone.
– man: We are a community of warriors.
– all: We have a voice.
– woman: You think that because some of our children cannot speak, we cannot hear them. That is autism’s weakness.
– woman: You think that because my child lives behind a wall, I am afraid to knock it down with my bare hands.
– man: You have not properly been introduced to this community…
– all: …of parents and grandparents, of siblings and friends and schoolteachers, therapists, pediatricians, and scientists.
– woman: Autism, if you are not scared, you should be.
– man: When you came for my child, you forgot:
– all: You came for me.
– woman: Autism: Are you listening?

So yeah. That was the video that they released. Not exactly the sort of “bright spotlight” I was expecting; that’s either as dark as a black hole, or else one of those spotlights that’s so bright it’s painful to look at. (Or maybe it’s more like a searchlight…)

Really, there are so many different things wrong with this.

First off, we have the same sort of rhetoric that characterized the New York University Child Study Center’s “Ransom Notes” ad campaign— of autism as a ruthless, evil monster that kidnaps children, takes their voice, and holds them ransom. It was bad enough when NYU used it, but Autism Speaks has taken it to a whole new level. We have the comparisons to AIDS and cancer (yeah, because it’s perfectly logical comparing a non-fatal condition to fatal diseases). We also have false statistics; despite what Autism Speaks seems to think, divorce is actually comparatively rare amongst families of autistics, as measured in a Harris poll which was pointed out by Ari Ne’eman.

And of course, just as in the Ransom Notes situation, there was no consideration that one of the autistic kids that this whole thing focuses on might actually end up watching the video, much less comprehending it. (Perhaps that’s one of the reasons it wasn’t captioned, the cynic in me says…)

Second, we have hasty generalizations designed to make things as absolutely gloomy as possible. Not all autistics make it impossible to attend religious services and parties. Not all autistics cause families to bankrupt themselves. Not all autistics… well, you get the idea. And yet the video’s narration frames all of these things as if they were universals.

Third, once again, there’s a focus on the experiences of parents, and practically none on the experiences of autistics themselves. Sarah at the “Cat in a Dog’s World” blog has a particularly good post on the ableism (and general fail) inherent in such statements.

And lastly, there’s the fact that the use of this footage of autistic kids almost feels like a bait-and-switch operation. If I were, in fact, an autism parent who had signed over video footage to Autism Speaks (and not an autistic adult), I, for one, would be quite irritated at what the footage ended up used for. In fact, I have to wonder if any of the parents who did submit footage are bothered by the context in which it ended up being used.

Oh, and incidentally, there is a reason I brought up the fact that this video wasn’t closed-captioned earlier in this post. You see, just on a whim, I decided to try watching the video on mute— and without the narration, it tells quite a different story indeed. Rather than looking like some dark doom-and-gloom scenario, what I saw in the muted video was footage of a bunch of cute kids, and a few autistic adults, being content to be themselves— something I’m sure Autism Speaks likely wouldn’t stand for.

For more discussion and criticism of this ad, check out the following posts:

• Left Brain/Right Brain: Autism Speaks media campaign…I am autism / The Autism Speaks bait and switch with I am Autism
• Cat in a Dog’s World: Autism Speaks & Alfonso Cuaron: Full of Fail / I Am Autism & The Embarrassment Trope / Harry Potter and the Bigoted Charity
• Turner & Kowalski: I am Autism Speaks
• Asperger Square 8: Responding to “I Am Autism”
• Zachary Lassiter: I’m Pissed!!
• A Life Less Ordinary?: What if someone did this with, say, Down’s Syndrome?
• Club 166: When Will They Listen?
• ASAN Northern Virginia: I Am Autism Video: (Autism Speaks Gets It Wrong Again)
• Ari Ne’eman: PRESS RELEASE: Autistic Community Condemns Autism Speaks’ “I am Autism” Campaign

Assumptions.

People tend to make assumptions of a person’s abilities and general nature based on that person’s appearance. But sometimes these assumptions turn out to be incorrect. Some people adjust their personal stereotypes to adjust for their errors; others cling to their assumptions and classify these cases as exceptions to the rule.

You’re all probably familiar with this sort of dynamic as it applies to such matters as race and gender… but yes, it applies to disability as well. And in fact, I’ve seen it happen in two different directions in just my own experience.

I’m considered a high-functioning autistic; in most cases, I’m not all that indistinguishable from a neurotypical. But just because I appear ‘normal’ in most circumstances doesn’t mean that I am— as people discover when I’m put into certain situations that do give me difficulty.

For just a few examples: I can’t drive safely because my visual perception is just garbled enough to be dangerous. I can’t carry on conversations in noisy bars because I can’t hear one person above the crowd. There are some people I can’t even carry on phone conversations with because their voices are unintelligible to me over the phone.

Yet many people have difficulty believing I have trouble with these things… because, in other circumstances, I don’t look disabled at all. Even when they’ve seen me in the circumstances that give me trouble, many people don’t believe that these issues are, in fact, issues; I’ve been accused on more than a few occasions of deliberately exaggerating my difficulties when I was trying to do no such thing.

And of course, it gets worse when I’m stressed and the coping strategies start flying out the window. In these cases, I start acting more stereotypically autistic, with such behaviors as hand-flapping (which, though it appears a bit quirky, I should stress is completely harmless). With even more stress, I start having trouble speaking, further puzzling people who have known me in circumstances where I could speak perfectly fluently.

In essence, because I present ‘normally’ in a typical scenario, people make the mistaken assumption that I am neurotypical, and are quite surprised when the autistic quirks start coming out of the metaphorical woodwork, when they find out that I can’t drive a car even after years of practice, or when they try holding a phone conversation with me and it ends up being made of Epic Failure To Communicate. Some people do realize that yes, these things are in fact issues for me, and make appropriate accommodations; others, on the other hand, remain convinced that these things couldn’t be difficult for me despite the evidence.

Several of my acquaintances from various autistic forums online have the opposite issue: they’re extremely intelligent and quite eloquent in writing, and yet their presentation in the offline world is one that could hardly be considered ‘normal’. In their case, their intelligence has ended up being underestimated by people who saw someone with typical autistic behaviors who was using a communication device rather than speaking— never mind, of course, that neither autistic behaviors nor the use of alternative communication says a thing about overall intelligence— and who refused to adjust their stereotypes even in the face of overwhelming evidence otherwise.

It’s quite frustrating in either direction.

And the thing is, I honestly can’t blame people for making these initial assumptions; it’s an easy trap to fall into. I do, however, think that sticking to these assumptions even in spite of evidence is very much worth criticism. And I also think it’s worth trying to work against the larger stereotypes that lead to these assumptions— by, for instance, emphasizing that the use of a communication device indicates nothing about one’s intelligence, or that just because someone appears healthy doesn’t mean they aren’t disabled.

And this leads to one of my biggest problems with a lot of the disability ‘awareness’ campaigns out there: they only enforce these stereotypes further, rather than working against them. Just thinking back on the autism awareness ads I’ve seen, I still see a lot of doom-and-gloom scenarios talking about how most autistics will never live independently, will never have significant others, etc.— but, with the exception of the recent Autistic Self Advocacy Network campaign, can think of very few cases that have shown that autistics on the high-functioning end of the spectrum exist or that lower-functioning autistics can still hold successful lives without a cure.

Now compare the traditional autism awareness ad to this wonderful commercial from United Cerebral Palsy, which takes the traditional stereotypes about CP…and turns them completely on their head. Unlike most of the autism awareness ads I’ve seen, UCP’s ad campaign is all about destroying these sorts of stereotypes; I honestly wish there were more autism PSAs along these same lines.

So, in short: Be careful with the assumptions you make; you might be surprised at how wrong they may be.

And I was ready to cook some for myself tonight, since I figured most restaurants would probably be closed for Easter. I’d already gotten spaghetti noodles and sauce at the store; I’d already checked to make sure I had a pot to cook it in; I thought I was ready.

Some of you probably see the issue already.

I remembered to check if I had a pot to cook it in. As I realized this evening, however, I forgot to check whether I had a colander to pour it in afterward. Which, of course, it turns out that I didn’t.

So much for that plan.

And it’s not as if I can go to the store to get one today, since (1) none of the stores are on the Sunday bus route, and (2) they’re probably closed for Easter anyway.

Guess I’ll be seeing which restaurants are open downtown; there’s bound to be one, at least…

I’m glad to see that those of us on the autism spectrum aren’t the only ones who have issues with Autism Speaks’ tactics and approaches. Thanks, Cara, for getting this out to an even wider audience.