Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My feelings about this are complicated. There is no doubt that our HFA son is significantly impaired in his ability to do some things that typical people do more easily--particularly emotional regulation, navigating social situations, and physical coordination. But there are three features that make this kind of a unique "disability."
First, his difficulties are on a continuous spectrum with normal human variation that is not classified as a disability. He just has a somewhat harder time with some things that are hard for lots of people. He's not that different from how most kids were, just at a younger age than he is. That's why they call it a developmental disability, or delay.
Second, there are often (and definitely in his case) some compensating advantages -- most noticeably greatly enhanced memory (and all that goes with that, such as easy and precocious reading and an insanely good sense of direction), but also a very precise logical mind, a sincerity and lack of social posturing that is very endearing to those who know him well, great pitch and a lovely singing voice, etc..
Third, the worst parts of the supposed impairment are socially constructed and much more about other peoples' prejudices than about his actual abilities. Typical people aggressively shun those who act differently or seem weird, generally for no good reason. They interpret reduced eye contact as a sign of shiftiness or dishonesty. They are impatient with someone older than a small child who has difficulty controlling his emotions. They engage in elaborate and subtle exercises in primate dominance dynamics to bolster their own perceived status and put others down, and write off as clueless anyone who doesn't understand the stupid games they are playing. Why are these things my son's "disability" as opposed to deficiencies that typical people have in understanding and basic decency? The same sorts of problems infect expectations about academic performance. Neurotypical people are naturally good at seeing what we call "the big picture," and conveying concepts with metaphors and figurative or poetic language. Autistic people tend to be more literal, and see trees more than the forest. Textbook writers and test designers and teachers putting together assignments tend to value and emphasize the things that neurotypical people do well, while devaluing the things that autistic people do well. Sometimes I feel like my son has been entered in the Consumer Reports annual survey of minivans, when he's a sports car. Minivans are great. So are sports cars. Judging a sports car by minivan standards is just stupid. But our society does a lot of that.
Is my son disabled? In his ability to successfully navigate the ridiculous and arbitrary minefields that we typicals construct for each other, for no particularly good reason, yeah he is. But he is also the most honest and sincere person I have ever met, an absolute delight to know and love, and in some areas extremely smart--like deep into the 99th percentile smart. So you can decide what kind of arbitrary, made up word you want to use to describe that. As the linguists say, the word is not the thing, the word is not the thing, hi ho the derry-o, the word is not the thing.
Great post. Thanks.
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