Autism Movement Takes Pride in Misunderstood Condition

A growing number of autistic persons reject and resent classifying their condition as a disability. By contrast, they say, autism is an integral part of who they are. From NPR:

[Jim] Sinclair [who is autistic] says [those in the autism movement are] responding to people who tell them autism is something that needs to be cured. They're asking -- instead -- to be accepted just the way they are.

"What the rest of the world needs to know about autism is that it's not something that can be separated out from the person, it's part of the person," explains Sinclair. "And so you cannot meaningfully say I love my child but I hate the autism.

"That's like saying I love my child, but I hate that she's a girl and I'd like her to be a boy instead. So when you're saying all of these things about how terrible it is that you've lost a child and how much your child is a disappointment to you, and how much that you wish you had a different kind of child, we're hearing that. And what we're hearing is that you don't want us and you want someone else instead."

We could all learn from the autism movement: Don't accept that some aspect of your being is bad or defective just because some people(or several people, including many medical professionals) tell you it is. Granted, many conditions do need to be cured and oftentimes a person's attitude or behavior does need to change. But we need to question our assumptions before we label certain persons ill or disabled.