When I was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder a few months ago, I was given some information about it. That information was from the Autism Speaks website. Now, don’t get me wrong, the little information given to me was a somewhat accurate description (but it could’ve been way better), but something about it didn’t sit right with me. When I got home, I went online and I began to research. First I started on the Autism Speaks website. Though, at first glance nothing seemed out of the ordinary, I still didn’t feel right, so I extended my research to learn more about this group. This is what I found:
1. Autism Speaks doesn’t have an autistic person on their board.
Seems strange that a group for autistic people and their families doesn’t actually have an autistic person to represent them.
2. Most of the money donated goes toward research, not services to help them.
I would think that they would provide more services and accommodations to actually help autistic people, but no. It goes toward research on how to prevent it and cure it. By “prevent” I mean they want to do prenatal testing so if parents don’t want an autistic child, the mother can abort it. And when it comes to “curing” autism, most autistic people actually don’t want to be cured.
3.Autism Speaks creates adverts and short films about how painful it is to have a child with autism.
Now, taking care of any child is hard. Taking care of a disabled child is hard. The only difference is that you have different obstacles. It’s seen as something as horrible as cancer; parents thinking that their child’s lives are over or that their own lives are over. Though some autistic people are dependent of their parents or caretakers for all of their lives, a lot of autistic people can live independent lives. It’s not the end of the world.
Autism Speaks is a hate group. Short and simple. They make us seem like we're less than people, that we're too difficult to take care of or we ruin lives. This is a bad message to those that are autistic and their families. It's so negative.
If you want to know more about autism, talk to a person who is actually autistic. Even if they can’t speak, there are other forms of communication they can use. Autism Speaks doesn’t speak for autistic people; it doesn’t speak for me. It shouldn’t speak for anyone. Let us speak for ourselves.
Here's a video from an Autistic person on why Autism Speaks is bad.
