I was talking with a friend and colleague earlier tonight about how people with disabilities continue to be marginalized in various domains of everyday life, like employment and education. And then I came home and read Tyler Cowen’s wonderful article on autism and academia. Cowen’s thesis is that the skills and abilities needed to succeed in academia are the same skills and abilities that many with autism possess. Here’s a snip:
Autism is often described as a disease or a plague, but when it comes to the American college or university, autism is often a competitive advantage rather than a problem to be solved. One reason American academe is so strong is because it mobilizes the strengths and talents of people on the autistic spectrum so effectively. In spite of some of the harmful rhetoric, the on-the-ground reality is that autistics have been very good for colleges, and colleges have been very good for autistics.
But the passage that really struck me is this one:
Current prejudices are based on at least two mistakes. First, too often autism is defined as a series of impairments or life failures, thereby ruling out high achievers. It is more scientific and also more ethical to have a broader definition of autism, based on differing and atypical methods for processing information and other cognitive and biologically defined markers. That way we do not label autistics as necessary failures, but rather we recognize a great diversity of outcomes including successes.
If only we could recognize the great diversity found in the whole realm of disability. Each person with a disability has been shaped by a singular combination of experience, opportunity, and innate talent. The disability is only one variable in the equation. But our schools and workplaces consign whole groups of people to lives of ignorance and penury because they cannot conceive that a life with a disability is a life of possibilities.
Maybe not appropriate here, but connected. In the “debate” over vaccinations there is always the side that claims they cause autism. They say something along the lines of “one day he was a happy baby and the next he just wasn’t the same and my life is now horrible.” When asked, “so what if your kid has autism? It isn’t the end of the world” they quickly leave the discussions.
I feel so many PARENTS of children with autism (and clearly not all of them) feel this is the worst thing that could ever happen to their children. Many parents would rather subject their children and others to death by preventable disease then *gasp* have a million to one chance their child will get autism. Which, has been proven not true.
Then you read this. And, look, autistic kids are just as bright and smart as their peers, just different. For every disability there are disadvantages a person will need to overcome, but it doesn’t make their lives less fulfilled or important. Yet so many of the “my kid got autism from the MMR” crowd portrays their children like that, furthering the prejudice against Autistic kids.
I will now get off my soapbox.
Just here, near my computer, there’ s a complicated and very detailed drawing made by a nephew of mine who is autistic but extremely talented. He’s made a drawing of how a difficult traffic problem in his town could be solved by changeing the architecture of the streets. It’s wonderful!
I like to believe that on the one hand, this boy is very gifted, but on the other hand he lacks some of our ordinary social talents.
It is as if we always have to pay some price. As if life is all about loss and gain. (Sorry for the language that may be incorrect.)