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I can't take this article serious given that it conflates "social skills" and "ability to interact with allistics" (non-autistics). Recent research actually sug

by hnbad 4y ago

I can't take this article serious given that it conflates "social skills" and "ability to interact with allistics" (non-autistics). Recent research actually suggests autistic children are often better at interacting with other autistic children and that allistic children are worse at interacting with autistic children (and vice versa of course). This is known as the "double empathy problem": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_empathy_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_empathy_problem Many forms of autistic "therapy" such as ABA focus on masking autistic behaviors and mimicking allistic behaviors while disregarding the needs and preferences of autistic children. Many autistic "problem behaviors" are also not the result of autism but of trauma inflicted by others. Researchers are traditionally good at insisting that autistics lack theory of mind while also completely ignoring the double empathy problem and how it may affect the researchers' ability to reason about the autistic research subjects. This is why autistic adults in recent years have become more vocal insisting "nothing about us without us", i.e. if the researchers want to study autism, the research team should at least include autistic researchers. We generally frown upon research into women's issues conducted by all-men research teams or research into Black issues conducted by all-white research teams, so we also shouldn't accept all-allistic research teams studying autism.

IIAOPSW 4y ago
Psychology, as an establishment, by and large, is about putting a veneer of scientific legitimacy over forceful enforcement of societal norms. Within living memory homosexuality was a diagnosis in the DSM. There is no truth, only power. Kids have no power, so its always "on the autism spectrum." But when they grow up and have prestigious coding jobs with money (and the associated power), all of a sudden they're "neuro-diverse" or "a bit eccentric". What's the difference between Mark Zuckerberg and an Aspergers diagnosis? A billion dollars.
- Der_Einzige 4y ago
  Glad to see genuine anti-pschiatry advocated here without the other anti-scientific bullshit that is posted along with it. Most forms of "therapy" don't work either, especially CBT. Also, don't even get me started on the fact that this group is STILL obsessed with Freud, psychoanalysis, and people who believe that humans have Oedipus and Electra complexes.
skissane 4y ago
> This is why autistic adults in recent years have become more vocal insisting "nothing about us without us", i.e. if the researchers want to study autism, the research team should at least include autistic researchers. There are many people out there who probably could get an ASD diagnosis if they wanted to, but (at least for now) they’ve decided they don’t want to go down that path. There are other people who have actually been formally given that diagnosis at some point, but have decided to reject it. Do they potentially count as “autistic researchers”? Personally, I am rather convinced by the criticisms of the scientific validity of the concept of ASD made by authors such as Lynn Waterhouse, Laurent Mottron and Sami Timimi. I think the demeaning of research by “all-allistic” researchers is harmful because people who build an identity for themselves on a label are likely to be unsympathetic towards scientific criticisms of it; and it ignores the fact that “autistic”-vs-not is a continuum divided by a socially constructed boundary. And I say all this as someone who has a significant degree of autistic traits.

by hnbad 4y ago

IIAOPSW 4y ago

Psychology, as an establishment, by and large, is about putting a veneer of scientific legitimacy over forceful enforcement of societal norms. Within living memory homosexuality was a diagnosis in the DSM. There is no truth, only power. Kids have no power, so its always "on the autism spectrum." But when they grow up and have prestigious coding jobs with money (and the associated power), all of a sudden they're "neuro-diverse" or "a bit eccentric". What's the difference between Mark Zuckerberg and an Aspergers diagnosis? A billion dollars.

Der_Einzige 4y ago
Glad to see genuine anti-pschiatry advocated here without the other anti-scientific bullshit that is posted along with it. Most forms of "therapy" don't work either, especially CBT. Also, don't even get me started on the fact that this group is STILL obsessed with Freud, psychoanalysis, and people who believe that humans have Oedipus and Electra complexes.

skissane 4y ago

> This is why autistic adults in recent years have become more vocal insisting "nothing about us without us", i.e. if the researchers want to study autism, the research team should at least include autistic researchers. There are many people out there who probably could get an ASD diagnosis if they wanted to, but (at least for now) they’ve decided they don’t want to go down that path. There are other people who have actually been formally given that diagnosis at some point, but have decided to reject it. Do they potentially count as “autistic researchers”? Personally, I am rather convinced by the criticisms of the scientific validity of the concept of ASD made by authors such as Lynn Waterhouse, Laurent Mottron and Sami Timimi. I think the demeaning of research by “all-allistic” researchers is harmful because people who build an identity for themselves on a label are likely to be unsympathetic towards scientific criticisms of it; and it ignores the fact that “autistic”-vs-not is a continuum divided by a socially constructed boundary. And I say all this as someone who has a significant degree of autistic traits.