Appearing Indistinguishable vs. Being Yourself

Neurodivergent K wrote an interesting post on the tyranny of indistinguishability. I think I have quoted one of this blogger's posts before, on the same topic, but this one again has interesitng points.

Unlike what people believing in the indistinguishability logic assume, it's not like, once you've reached this goal,, you'll always continue to appear indistinguishable. In the preemie sphere, people often talk about catch-up, when in fact a lot of preemies do not just have developmental delays, but developmental differences as well. Same with autistics, but more so: all autistics are not just delayed (in fact, I'd argue against the idea that we're delayed at all), but rather different. Suppose that an autistic, who we shall name Joey, started early Lovaas-style ABA at age three, and, he being a pretty good student, reached the goal of indistinguishability by age six. Now I know that ABA proponents often argue that autism will not go away by age six, and some even argue for ABA for adults. I reckon that if it were truly effective in its aim of indistinguisability, it'd not be needed for life. Anyway, Joey makes for a pretty average-appearing first-grader thanks to his ABA. So the government decides to cut his services (I will get to this later) and he is mainstreamed. Joey performs on grade level in first grade, even though it takes him more effort to complete his schoolwork. Effort doesn't count, and Joey continues his schooling in second and third grade. Once he reaches fourth grade, his teachers and parents notice he is lagging behind. Bring in the ABA therapist again and make him appear indistinguishable again?

Autism parents who advocate lifelong ABA would say yes. I and other autistic advocates say no. After all, as Neurodivergent says, you can appear like a crappy excuse for an NT or you can be the best person you can be. Besides, effort does matter to the autistic. Suppose Joey is restarted in ABA and, through his façade of indistinguishability, slides through middle and high school, or so it appears. His parents don't care about effort, so even though he is increasingly depressed and exhausted, he is pushed until graduation. Then he leaves his parents' home and goes to college, where he crashes and suffers major depression, anxiety and other mental health symptoms. These are so severe that he needs to quit college and ends up on disability.

This story is not mine - I was not involved in Lovaas therapy and was not diagnosed till adulthood. I was, however, similar to Joey and other autistics in that normalcy was expected of me. Effort can't be seen and the people around me likely didn't realize how much it cost me to appear like a lousy NT. I am still trying to find out how to be my best self.

Family Offered $86K to Take Son out of School, Waive Complaints of Abuse

I don't normally use trigger warnigns but this post sure requires one for graphic descriptions of abuse.

@mamabegood on Twitter just posted a news story that says that a family was offered $86K to keep their autistic son out of public school. That's what the title reads. The actual story is much worse and includes abuse at the hands of a teacher.

This story, unfortunately, is not an isolated case. Many children and adults with autism get abused by professionals in whose care they've been placed in one respect or another. The details of the abuse in thsi particular story remind me of a lot of "old-school" ABA therapy, where aversives were presumed to be the single most important factor in its success. David Swanson, the young autistic in this story, was force-fed by a teacher because he refused to eat with a metal rather than plastic fork due to oral sensitivity. Now imagine if I forced a sharp object into your mouth. This would sure be considered abuse. If you then vomited and I'd force you to eat your own vomit, that'd make the abuse even worse.

Honestly, even though this news report is generally okay, it's symptomatic of something I can't quite pin down that the most focus is put on the money offered to David's mother to take her son out of school. Is it that abuse of autistics is commonly excused because "they" (autistics) are difficult, aggressive maybe, hard-to-parent often, and many times won't meet up to the expectations of others? Please, if you've made it to this point in my post, let's join Mama Be Good on Facebook in a moment of silence. Thank you for reading.