Another Way to Approach Autism
Since the first identification of autism in 1943 (Kanner) a lot of research has been carried out to study this condition from different perspectives. Now we know much more about autism but still there are a lot of "why's" we cannot answer yet. One of the obstacles on the way to answer these "why they behave the way they do"-questions, in my opinion, is our 'lack/impairment' of imagination. Yes, many of us might be considered impaired in this aspect as we interpret the 'autistic behaviors' from our (non-autistic) perspective. For example, we consider the so-called self-stimulatory behaviors (flapping hands, banging head, twirling, spinning, rocking, etc.) meaningless. Yes, they do look meaningless for us. But are they meaningless for a child who tries, for example, to reduce pain caused by hypersensitivity to certain sounds, or to stimulate his vision that otherwise is 'misty' or 'hypo'? Why do we always assume that the way we perceive and interpret the world around us is the only way to do it?
Despite the fact that many people with autism have tried to communicate their views and insights, these attempts have mostly passed without much professional notice, one of the reason being, their views and insights are unconventional to the majority of people (so-called 'normal' people). However, 'different' does not mean 'abnormal' or 'defective', and 'normalcy' is a very relative term, as the 'norm' is often applied to the performance of majority, and it is more justifiable to term it 'typical'. To avoid having to use the term 'normal', autistic people at Autism Network International (ANI, founded by Jim Sinclair and Donna Williams in 1992) have introduced a new term - Neurologically Typical (NT) to describe non-autistic people.
Here I deliberately use the term 'autistic people' rather than 'people with autism' because autism is not something that is just attached to them. I am aware of the 'people first, then disability' approach. However, without autism they would be different people as being autistic means being different. If people with autism themselves prefer to name themselves autistic, why should we be so shy to call them that? Just to show them our respect? But there are other ways to do it. Why should we be ashamed to call them autistic? Autism is not something to be ashamed of. To draw a parallel, we should call Russian people as "people from Russia" to show that we respect them despite the fact that under the communist party regime the policy of that country was, to put it mildly, incorrect.
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