This hits close to home in a number of ways, so allow me a bit of a rant. We see it in so many ways, but the sort of thing pointed out in @telcodad’s post above is another example. We get so-called experts assigning labels like “Idiot savant” and others, starting from the perspective that affected individuals are defective, and every term needs to highlight that “fact”. It is these same people who get to classify the various forms of the “disorder”, decide what terms to assign, and in some cases, tell people what they’re experiencing and what/how they do or should think. How about we stop that?!
We have affected “high-functioning” individuals who also just happen to be formidable scientists, a number of whom are referenced and quoted in Dr. Grandin’s books. Why are we not throwing grant money at them for this sort of research, and letting them inform the research, based on concrete knowledge of the autistic experience? Unless Geier or Kennedy are themselves autistic or respected neuroscientists, what the hell do they know? There are people who are both of those, right in the United States, as well as at the University of Toronto. If this were to be at all credible, why are they not leading the research? It’s harmful and counterproductive.
The foregoing goes far beyond just this one instance of government stupidity, but in this case, I think we know the answer, and it’s wrong. If they’re not going to put money into good-faith, honest research, conducted by credible teams, then they owe it to science and humanity, especially those affected, to just shut up! And if funding real research blows up the pre-conceived notions that they wanted to promote, then they’ll have learned something useful, and they and those who trusted them will be forever grateful.
