I have been stewing over this for days and needed to wrap my mind around a few things before I wrote about it. Mostly when I write it’s because I want to lend my own perspective. I know not everyone will agree with it.
The Secretary of Health and Human Services recently came out and said that people who have autism “will never pay taxes, hold a job, go on a date, or use a toilet unassisted.”
The statement is dangerously innaccurate. And I can’t imagine a majority of people believe it. Autism is an umbrella that includes a big expansive universe of experiences. Everyone diagnosed with autism experiences it differently.
I have autistic friends that are making a better living than most people in my friend set and have been holding down decades long relationships. I have other friends who are caring for adult children maybe for as long as they live. But these adult children are so varied in personality and talent that we can not and should not put them in a box.
We are and have been making great strides in the scientific community to understand the brain. The safer people feel in getting a diagnosis without being labeled broken the better our progress will be.
And of course the number of people diagnosed has risen because adults finally feel safe enough to get diagnosed. Many feel great relief with a diagnosis because “now so many things make sense”.
We have as a society designed how we learn and how we communicate based on neurotypical expectations and we are now learning how limited and short sighted those expectations are.
This isn’t just about autism. It’s about how all of us have a brain that isn’t “typical”. Depression, ADHD, Dyslexia, Synesthesia…. The list is LONG.
It is dangerous to limit scientific progress by making people afraid to talk about and be fully invested in learning how their own brain functions. And with learning we gain tools that help us communicate with the world more effectively.
The more I learn the more I realize “neurotypical” doesn’t exist. It is a word that someday will be considered a product of ignorance.
Just my perspective.
Be my eyes: Just a picture I love of me and my beautiful daughter when she was younger. She is making a “Loser” L on my forehead and we are laughing and being silly.
HASTYWORDS 
That’s a great perspective. And what that Secretary of HHS said is the worst sort of “ableism”, writing off a whole category of people as “useless mouths” for a diagnosis he obviously does not understand or care to.
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It was deloreable. We sure do lack real expertise right now 😦
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Beyond deplorable, dangerous.
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I don’t trust the current HHS Secretary for a variety of reasons. I’ve been in education for about a decade and almost everything that comes out of his mouth is wrong or goes against science and empirical studies. His recent assertion that the cause(s), at least environmental ones anyway, will be revealed by September of this year. Obviously, he doesn’t know how reputable studies are conducted, so I’m not going to believe anything his department puts out.
In addition to more adults being tested and feeling safe to do so, the criteria for testing has also expanded since the beginning; we’re at DSM-V and Asperger’s is included in autism.
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Agreed. We truly need experts in these positions. Not just that one.
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Great post. We can’t trust anything RFK Jr. says. It’s unbelievable that he is the secretary. The level of incompetence he displays is beyond comprehension. He claimed that a worm ate part of his brain, which might explain the nonsense he constantly spouts. Anyone with a basic understanding knows that autism is a broad spectrum that includes individuals from all walks of life. I know several PhDs with autism, so what he said was not only inaccurate but also deeply insulting.
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