Autism Speaks gets even worse
I didn’t think my opinion of them could get worse.
But you know the famous “Autism Every Day” video they had made, in which one of their board members was pictured saying, in front of her autistic daughter, that she had thought about putting that daughter in the car and driving both of them off a bridge to their deaths, and all that had stopped her was that she had a nonautistic daughter to worry about too?
Well, apparently the woman who made that film asked the families featured in it to prepare by not cleaning their houses or doing their hair, and by temporarily cancelling any therapies their kids were going through. And then she showed up with no warning to film. (https://www.academia.edu/6421135/Broderick_A._and_Neeman_A._2008_._Autism_as_metaphor_Narrative_and_counternarrative)
I can imagine that depending on what “treatments” they were using, that might potentially have been a relief to the autistic kids — except that of course the unexplained changes in their schedule wouldn’t have been — not to mention that it was deliberately done to manipulate them into having meltdowns for the cameras. Plus, the increasing clutter around them would have been a sensory nightmare.
It’s such a beautiful nutshell example of what Autism Speaks does. What helps autistic kids? A safe sensory environment; knowing what’s going to happen and what it will be like; being respected and understood. So what does Autism Speaks consistently do? Ignores their needs; focuses on treatments and tactics that make things much harder for autistic kids; and then points to the meltdowns and shutdowns they cause and says, “Look how hard it is for parents of autistic kids!!!!!”
What makes it the most perfect example of how they act, of course, is the fact that to an allistic person this sounds utterly innocuous. “Don’t clean up before the cameras come! We want to show you just as things are! I don’t know when we’ll be coming, so just… don’t schedule therapy during this week or do any particular cleaning or anything! See you soon!” Just like everything they do sounds totally innocent and normal to the allistic parents. Because they put enormous amounts of money and energy into telling allistic parents that what A$ does is utterly innocent and normal.
And they get away with it because instead of using their power and their reach to educate people about what things are like for autistic people, they silence and ignore autistic voices and focus utterly on amplifying the experiences and voices of allistic family members.
