It’s because of my sensitivities that I had to choose the ’symptom’ and asperger characteristic of strong sensitivity to sound, light, some tastes, odors and colors today. If I picked a different asperger issue to counter-balance the massive amount of misinformation circulating through the media, my anger level would escalate too high.
I doubt most people realize how difficult it is for someone, such as my ‘aspie’ self, to endure watching documentaries filmed on the topic of autism. I won’t mention which one I viewed today, but I will say it lasted 93 minutes and 52 seconds. It did cover the issue of sensitivity to sound and light, but practically nothing was said about autistics’ sensitivities with taste, odor, or color. That’s no big deal.
What is bad however is the way that people are reacting towards autism and autistics. Watching so-called ‘educational’ videos on this topic reminds me of a bunch of hens running around a hen-house in a panic without knowing where the fox is. There is no way to ’sugar coat’ this — the ignorance level of a lot of the people who are putting themselves in charge ‘helping’ autistic children (especially the Asperger syndrome/high-functioning autistics) is scary.
Why don’t these people incorporate the help that ‘well-aged’ adults, who are either Aspies or on the high end of the autism spectrum, can give them? Doesn’t this missing ingredient raise any red-flags for anyone? . . . or are people to dull and/or proud to notice?
My heart breaks when I see the way that adults in these documentaries try to ‘train’ autistic children! It’s obvious to me they don’t know what they’re doing.¹ Some of them at least are getting a vague ‘connection’ pulling them into the right direction when they allow their children to teach them something. The reason these children can’t teach anyone else other than their parents is because no one else really cares to know! People may pretend, but if they are, they’re most likely doing it for whatever money they can grab for themselves by taking advantage of a situation.
How long will it take for people to wake up and see that it is not the children who need to change, but rather society’s perception of them? One mother summed it up perfectly! She said her daughter taught her that there was NOTHING wrong with her daughter, but rather the problem was that society would never VALUE her daughter . . . even though her daughter has aspects about herself that have value which society could benefit from.
Heightened sensitivity itself is a value when used in the proper channels. Is it necessary to say what advantages a person has, who is able to discern more subtle sounds, tastes, odors, colors, lights, movement, details, etc. with greater accuracy, than someone who is less sensitive in these areas?
If we know that you can’t put a round peg into a square hole, then why do people believe it is possible to fit autistic children into mainstream schools? Since it’s obvious there are enough neuro-A-typical children in society that would benefit from schools specifically geared to their style of learning, the whole idea of trying to make mainstream schools accommodate their needs is absurd!
The problem however that would crop up with schools specializing in teaching students on the autism spectrum would be keeping out the greedy foxes that sneak in. The television media is already feeding them, along with big businesses such as: Starbucks, Toys ‘R Us, and Build-A-Bear Workshop. I spot quite a few of these ‘bad apples’ sitting in at asperger conventions. It’s easy for me to tell who they are by the way they ‘talk down’ to me as if I’m inferior. If I’m not supposed to be sensitive about that, then I say, “Oh well . . . good luck everyone because you’re going to need it!”
¹I’m talking about the general long-term consequences more than anything. The process is slow and subtle; one step at a time.
