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Autism Science to Watch Out For

Shannon Des Roches Rosa www.squidalicious.com Photo © Jeffrey Beall | Flickr / Creative Commons [image: Photo of metal letters spelling “Science” affixed to a brick wall.] At a recent workshop on How to Find Autism Information That Will Help You, I noted that a key factor for evaluating an autism resource is: Who does the approach primarily benefit? Autistic people themselves, or people affiliated with autistic people, such as families or teachers? It’s important to identify this aim, because approaches that support autistic people in living lives of maximized happiness and potential can be very different from the parent-centered approaches—which too often portray autistic people as problems to be managed and controlled. We at Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism support the helping approach, and routinely criticize the problem/control approach—an ongoing effort as the latter remains pervasive both in popular culture, and in research. The problem/control approach is also a theme…

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Untwisting Perceptions: Autism, Parenting, and Victimhood

Shannon Des Roches Rosa www.squidalicious.com Content note: this article discusses murder, disability, and mental health. There is a horrifyingly typical coupling of devotion with murder, whenever disabled people are the victims. A recent example is Ruby Knox, an autistic young woman, who was murdered by her mother Donella, in Blenheim, New Zealand. Donella drugged Ruby, then suffocated her. Both the reporting and the judge on the case portray Donella as a “loving mum who was driven to kill her daughter.” I’m here to say: Fuck that. I need you — and judges and reporters everywhere — to understand that, however difficult it may be for families to support their disabled loved ones, murder is never excusable. There are always other options. Always. That last message is especially important when you consider that disability-related filicides like Ruby’s are more common than the occasional high-profile story might have one suppose — according to Julia Bascom…