Autism Blogs

 In The Politics of Autism, I examine the role of social media in the development of the issue.  Social media can spread vaccine disinformation, but they can also provide autistic people and their families with a way to connect with one another and to press for government action.

This blog is on the list of Best 100 Autism Blogs To Read

Lydia Wayman at Autism Speaks:

Social media is far from a perfect solution to the social barriers we experience. It comes with its own pitfalls and frustrations. But while most people could rattle off a list of negatives, it feels like a little-known secret that social media is the central hub of a thriving autistic community, in some ways uniquely suited to people who want to connect but do so in an atypical way. While social media isn’t for everyone, it is a valid and meaningful form of socializing that should be discussed, encouraged and supported.

Entryism, Antivaxxers, and COVID

In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing disease to spread.  Trump has helped spread misinformation.

 Antivax groups engage in "entryism."  From The New Statesman: "The founding example of entryism was provided by Leon Trotsky and the “French turn”. In 1934, the Russian revolutionary persuaded his supporters to dissolve the Communist League into the Socialist Party in order to maximise their influence. The term has since been applied to any group that enters a larger organisation with the intention of subverting its policies and objectives."

Anita Chabria at LAT:

As California and the nation begin rolling out coronavirus vaccines, anti-vaccine campaigners are aligning with small-business owners and far-right groups, an effort that some experts fear could supercharge mistrust of government at a crucial moment for public health.

In California, the movement toward businesses is being led by a group calling itself Freedom Angels 2.0. Originally founded by three women in response to a 2019 state bill tightening vaccine requirements for attendance in schools, the organization was best known for its protests at the state Capitol against that measure and other vaccine legislation, often filling hallways and disrupting hearings with children in tow.

But as the coronavirus has spread, so has its message — encompassing a more mainstream, values-driven ideology that centers on government overreach. That broader approach has helped the organization interest a new audience in the business community, along with others worried about schools, the economy and the social toll of isolation for seniors.

“There is this strategic mission creep into other groups that might feel disaffected,” said Richard Carpiano, a professor of public policy and sociology at UC Riverside, who has followed the anti-vaccine movement.

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Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), the only doctor in the state Senate who has also been targeted for harassment by the Freedom Angels and other anti-vaccine groups, said he believes the anti-vaccine contingent remains a “loud minority,” but concedes it could have an oversized effect.

http://www.autismpolicyblog.com/2020/06/anti-vaxxers-and-anit-maskers.html,” Pan said. “They are just large enough to ruin it for all of us, and that is the big problem.”

The Neurodiversity Movement

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the neurodiversity movement. 

At Psychology Today, Jason Tougaw writes about the movement:

Ari Ne’Eman is the founder of the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, appointed by Barack Obama to the U.S. National Council on Disability. John Elder Robison is an autobiographer, policy consultant for the national Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, and visiting faculty member in The College of William and Mary’s Neurodiversity Initiative, the first university program of its kind. Carly Fleishmann is the nonverbal host of Speechless, a comedic YouTube talk show, and co-author (with her father, Arthur Fleischmann) of Carly’s Voice: Breaking through Autism. Neurodiversity blog's include Dani Alexis Rykamp's Neuroqueer, a collective blog for multiple authors “queering our neurodivergence” and “neurodiversifying our queer; Debra Muzikar's The Art of Autism, another collective blog focused on visual art; an Erin Human's illustrated blog, which includes infographics, writing, and graphic design. Cartoonist Ellen Forney has published Marbles, a graphic memoir about her bipolar experience and Rock Steady: Brilliant Advice From My Bipolar Life, perhaps the funniest self-help book of all time. DJ Savarese, the first nonspeaking graduate of Oberlin College, is a prolific poet who co-directed, DEEJ, an intimate, political film about his experience. In his words, "Inclusion shouldn't be a lottery."

Neurodiversity--the concept and the movement--is not without controversy, particularly surrounding autism. In a recent Scientific American article Simon Baron-Cohen observes that proponents of a more strictly medical model of autism "argue that the severe challenges faced by many autistic people fit better within a more classical medical model. Many of these are parents of autistic children or autistic individuals who struggle substantially in any environment." Fierce debates rage between those who advocate for a medical cure for autism and neurodiversity activists who argue that a world built on neurotypical norms prevents neurodivergent people from thriving--and, in fact, extends a historical legacy of severe medical mistreatment of people whose minds and brains diverge from those norms.
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One thing is clear: The neurodiversity movement has demonstrated--and made public--the talents an cultural contributions of people once dismissed wholesale. In many cases, these talents and contributions emerge directly from the eccentric neurologies of people like Amethyst Schaber and Eleanor Longden. The evolution of culture, art, science, and politics depends on a diversity of minds and people.

Autism: Social Model and Medical Model

Is autism a disability or a difference?  A medical construct or a social construct? n the San Diego Law Review, Kevin M. Barry has an article titled "Gray Matters: Autism, Impairment, and the End of Binaries."  Here is the abstract:

First diagnosed by psychiatrist Leo Kanner in 1943, Autism has exploded into the public consciousness in recent years. From science to science fiction, academia to popular culture, Autism has captured the world’s attention and imagination. Autism has also ignited a fierce debate among stakeholders who seek to define its essence. Many parents of Autistic children regard Autism as a scourge and press for a cure. The Neurodiversity Movement, comprised mostly of Autistic adults, regards Autism as a different way of being worthy of respect and even celebration. The Autism war is well underway and, given Autism’s swelling ranks and proposed changes to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual in 2013, this war shows no signs of abating.

Notwithstanding its rise to prominence in recent years as something both terrifying and terrific, Autism remains understudied in legal scholarship. This Article situates the Autism war within the larger theoretical debate over the social construction of disability and impairment. This Article accepts the “social model” of disability’s claim that disability is socially constructed and rejects the “medical model” as a theoretical model altogether. But “disability” – socially constructed or not – does not explain the Autism war. “Impairment” is where the action is.

This Article argues that while impairments like Autism may refer to some biological pathology, they are in part socially constructed. Autism is constructed not just by medical researchers and clinicians who name and diagnose it, but also by those who are so named – Autistic people, themselves, many of whom define Autism as a different way of being. Autism may be both a (still unknown) biological pathology and, according to Autism’s “Neurodiversity Movement,” an experience. While this understanding of impairment cannot make peace between Autism's sides, it helps to explain how the sides are at odds and why they are likely to stay that way.

A Study of Vaccine Critics

In the Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law, Anna Kirkland of the University of Michigan has published an article titled "The Legitimacy of Vaccine Critics: What Is Left after the Autism Hypothesis?" Here is the abstract:

The last dozen years have seen a massive transnational mobilization of the legal, political, and research communities in response to the worrisome hypothesis that vaccines could have a link to childhood autism and other developmental conditions. Vaccine critics, some already organized and some composed of newly galvanized parents, developed an alternate world of internally legitimating studies, blogs, conferences, publications, and spokespeople to affirm a connection. When the consensus turned against the autism hypothesis, these structures and a committed membership base unified all the organizations in resistance. This article examines the relationship between mobilization based on science and the trajectory of legitimacy vaccine criticism has taken. I argue that vaccine critics have run up against the limits of legitimate scientific argument and are now in the curious position of both doubling down on credibility-depleting stances and innovating new and possibly resonant formulations.