WHO-MHSU: Dialogue about the necessity of the Fundamental Distinction between “Autism” and “Autism Spectrum Disorder”
This subject is of the utmost importance, because the “Autism-Disorder Confusion”, which is omnipresent in the world, causes people to see autism only in a negative way:
– which does not allow autistic people to lead dignified and fulfilling lives;
– which prevents people from seeing the qualities of autism (since “the qualities of a disorder” is an absurd idea), and therefore from developing them;
– which makes that the public authorities provide almost no effort to correct the “social system” to make it more suitable for autistic people (since they believe that autism is only “a defect to be eliminated”);
— which therefore perpetuates a “troubled and disturbing” social and socio-generated environment that is difficult for autistic people to bear, which contributes to maintaining their difficulties, their suffering, their exclusion (or self-exclusion, including suicide),
— not to mention the stigmatisation and harassment imposed on people perceived as “fundamentally defective for life” (since their autistic nature is reduced to solely “disorders”). Continuer à lire →