Acceptance and Inclusion – Not Assimilation

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Ableism, Assimilation, Inclusion

neuroatypicals need to realize that neurotypicals don’t primarily communicate in the same ways (analogies, patterns, etc) and develop tools for communicating in ways that are more easily understood by neurotypicals if they want to fit in better.

This statement is so offensive and ableist it is beyond the pale. What this statement says, is that if I want to be accepted as a human being, equal to other human beings and included in society, I need to adopt a neurotypical way of speaking, processing speech and express non-verbal communications. I.e I need to behave like a neurotypical person, appear to be neurotypical, I need to become neurotypical. That is like saying that a black person, to be accepted as a human being, equal to other human beings and included in society, needs to become white.

The above quoted statement was made by a person with physical disabilities, in response to a discussion that covered why I may not use physical disabilities as analogous with Autism –  unless I accept ABA as a valid treatment for Autism.

What the above quoted statement is talking about is assimilation. Assimilation is when a minority group make themselves indistinguishable from the majority group in order to appease and achieve tolerance for their existence. Assimilation is not inclusion. Assimilation is living life in disguise.

I do not want Autistic people to assimilate, any more than I want black or gay people to assimilate. I want neurotypical society to practice inclusion. Autistic people should not be expected to undergo years of painful and intrusive behavioral therapy (ABA) to be accepted and included in society.

But we are. Thanks to the idea expressed in the initial quote. Because some disabled people went through years of physical therapy, or speech therapy, to become less visibly disabled and thus assimilated and ‘accepted’, Autistic people should too.

That sort of thinking reminds me of the Chinese tradition of binding women’s feet for the sake of fashion and class expectations. Mothers would forcibly bind their daughter’s feet, despite knowing how painful it was – because they had had their feet bound, and because it was expected by society. The practice of foot-binding was fortunately been abandoned in the mid 19th century.

It is time that we abandon the idea that disabled people must undergo painful and intrusive physical or behavioral therapies to be included in society as equal human beings with equal human rights.

ABA is torture. ABA therapists are equal to Dr Mengele.

How can someone not see that ABA is a violation of autistic children’s human rights? That it is torture on par with the treatment of prisoners of war in Japan during WWII, in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan. Treatment that resulted in severe psychological damage to adults and subsequent life-long suffering from PTSD.

ABA is used on autistic children as young as 2 years old. To force them to ‘behave neurotypical’, because their parents are ashamed of having an autistic child, they always dreamt of having a ‘normal child’, and their autistic child is not living up to the expectations. So they either send their child to various ‘clinics and therapist’ to be ‘conditioned’, ‘treated’ for behaviors that are absolutely normal, functional and empowering for the autistic child – behaviors like ‘flapping of hands when happy, sad or scared’, to regulate feelings, for comfort, to focus; ‘dancing, singing, spinning when happy, sad or scared;, to regulate feelings, for comfort, to focus; ‘rocking, stroking fabric in shirt or pants, humming, fiddling with a pen or pencil, folding a piece of paper in increasingly smaller pieces, unfolding same paper and start over, when happy, sad or scared’, to regulate feelings, for comfort, to focus – or simply because it feels good.

“Quiet Hands, Quiet Body” is the motto, manifesto, creed of ABA therapists everywhere. Autistic children and adults may not be or express their autism according to the philosophy behind ABA.

ABA has also been used to ‘treat’ gender-variant children – and parts of ABA is being used in evangelical xian anti-homosexual therapies.

“In addition to his extensive work with autistic children, in the 1970s Lovaas co-authored four papers with George Rekers on children with atypical gender behaviors.^{[14][15][16][17]} The subject of the first of these studies, a ‘feminine’ young boy who was homosexual of 4 and half years old at the inception of treatment, committed suicide as an adult; his family attribute the suicide to this treatment.^{[14][18][19][20]}

Following his suicide in 2010, the man’s sister told the news that she read his journal which described how he feared disclosing his sexual orientation because when receiving the behavior modification treatment as a young boy, his father would give him spankings if he was given a different color “poker chip” as punishment for feminine-like behavior when playing with dolls.”

ABA is torture. ABA therapists are equal to Dr Mengele.