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| Why not ask autistic people what their lives are like? |
In this entry, s.e. smith writes about what is really a concern today: there are many conversations today about autistic children growing up and how parents need help to cope. Doesn't every parent need to cope? But she quite appropriately points out, this is just another example of talking about someone (autistic adults and their lives) and instead focusing on what autistics have to say.
Granted, some autistic people can't communicate in the way that some people can (some use different modalities--for one great example see Amanda Baggs' video "In My Language." Excellent), does that mean their opinions, voices, etc. don't count?
Another blog, after a Google search, writes about her son's struggles from her perspective as a mom, she talks a bit more realistically, but would like to find a blog by an autistic adult talking about these things and share that instead.
In closing, I did a quick Google Search for "autistic people talk about growing up" and there were 176,000 results, but the first results don't appear to be written by an autistic person, although a link to WrongPlanet.net came up as the second result, but after clicking on this link, nothing specific appeared just their home page.
Of course every parent may have something to say about their child's life, autistic or not, but as they age, shouldn't their perspectives become more important?
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