Assumptions+About+Autism

=**"Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in." - Alan Alda**=

Through research, I found this interesting blog from 2009 titled "//It's Never That Simple: Autism, Assumptions, and Ability//" that is worth a read. We make assumptions about people all the time, even our students. By making this Wiki I hope just as I have done, you become more aware of what Autism is and how you need to change your methods of teaching a child with Autism. As educators we have to be more thoughtful and more educated and more informed. That is the purpose of this Wiki and here is the article I found:

//"Being autistic means spending your entire life dealing with people's assumptions. This is a fact that remains true for everyone on the autism spectrum, young or old, male or female, professionally or self-diagnosed, pro- or anti-cure.//

//Being autistic means being labeled as high- or low-functioning, as if autism were a prism instead of a spectrum. On one side of the barrier, people assume you're simply a whiny brat who hasn't learned to behave. On the other, people assume you're incapable of doing anything for yourself.//

//If you're "high-functioning" but lack the executive processing ability to live alone, you're not trying hard enough. If you're "low-functioning" but try to do things for yourself, you're treated like a child trying to get the cookie jar off the highest shelf.//

//If you can "pass" as neurotypical and choose not to disclose your diagnosis, people will assume you're neurotypical and ascribe to you abilities that you may not have. If you choose to disclose, people assume you're the Rain Man.//

//If you don't want to be cured, people assume you don't want or need any help at all, and that you don't want any "real" autistic people to recieve any help.//

//If you need help, are able to ask for it, and do ask for it, people call you needy. If you need help, are able to ask for it, and don't (out of fear of being dismissed as "needy," or difficulty articulating, for example) they call you too stubborn for your own good. If you need help and are unable to ask for it, they call you incompetent.//

//If you have balance problems, people assume you're drunk. If it hurts to make eye contact, people assume you're lying all the time. If you ask the neighbors to turn their music down so you can sleep, people call you rude, and if you ask them more than once, they say you're whining. If you choose not to go to a big party because too much sensory input renders you completely non-functional, you're called antisocial, a "party pooper." If you refuse to eat ratatouille because you're unable to swallow eggplant, people call you ungrateful and picky.//

//Everybody on the planet, whether autistic or not, has to face people's assumptions about them. But it's different for autistic people. If you're neurotypical (not just non-autistic, but completely NT) and have to correct a person's assumptions about you, other people listen, and some of them even change their views accordingly. If you're on the spectrum and correct a person's assumptions, they fill the vacuum left with yet another assumption. It's amusing that we, who supposedly have no theory of mind, can accept that people are profoundly different from one another regardless of diagnosis, gender or race while so many others refuse to see past their generalizations.//"

@http://www.disaboomlive.com/blogs/outsidethecircle/archive/2009/05/01/it-s-never-that-simple-autism-assumptions-and-ability.aspx