More about ASAN and our community versus Attwood and Hénault
As I have previously mentioned on my blog, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network started a petition asking Dr. Tony Attwood and Dr. Isabelle Hénault to dis-affiliate themselves from anti-autistic hate groups, and requesting apologies to our community. Apparently ASAN received a reply from Dr Attwood, which they have described as "a form letter". ASAN have posted their reply to Dr Attwood on the internet. I don't expect this conflict to be settled any time soon.
ASAN's Response to Dr. Tony Attwood
http://www.autisticadvocacy.org/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=43
5 comments:
The more I find out about this man and his cronies, the more I think he's the Devil personified.
In my mind he's a seeker after fame, adulation and money.
He is no friend of ours. He's a tapeworm. It's time to take the Purge.
Personally, I wouldn't trust the man as far as I could throw him. I guess he has a big reputation because he was writing about AS when it was much less well-known, and I've got to admit, during his career he has informed people about AS who had never before heard of the condition. I have met an undiagnosed autist who first realised they were on the spectrum years ago after watching Dr Attwood's talk at a National Press Club Luncheon broadcast on ABCTV. This must have been a huge revealation. Although Dr Attwood has done a lot to bring AS to the attention of the public (unlike many other clinicians and academics hiding away in their ivory towers), I think it is time for generational change.
I take you point about the 'early days' - however, having spent a rather nauseating couple of hours going over His Majesties website over the years (courtesy of the Wayback machine) - I'm left with the overriding impression that he set out to be a 'star', everyones' friend and rich.
For example - it was extremely unprofessional for a psychologist to paste pictures of his home and family all over the web.
And still he gives quite detailed accounts on his present site of his family and personal life.
To me, this seems to be a cry [sincere or not] of 'love me, love me, love me'
I just can't see anything other than a Slimey Pom. His most vocal defenders seem to be entirely in his thrall.
But anyway, enough of him.
Who are the next generation?
We need to identify and target them with our work.
I have also thought it kind of innapropriate the way Dr Attwood displayed his family life on his web site. I didn't think it was so much an image-building exercise, I interpreted it as a neurotypical gloating about everything that he has (relationships, lucrative career) which he assumes that his prospective clients (autists) do not have. I saw it as a kind of advertising (You too could have a pretty wife like mine and a lucrative career if you buy my books and learn how to smile like a complete phoney!!!).
Who are the next generation? I guess the next generation of AS experts must be themselves autistic, autobiographers or scientists or researchers of some type, or non-autistic researchers who collaborate with autists in a respectful partnership. Some of the people in my blog's link list might fit these descriptions. I'd like to see AS experts who are motivated to do research by intellectual curiosity or a desire to correct injustices, rather than a burning desire to prevent, intervene, treat and cure. I'd also like to see experts who study the spectrum within the context of human society and the human species in general. Prof. Baron-Cohen has done this, up to a point. At the end of the day much of the established wisdom might well be swept away by new knowledge gained from genetics and epigenetics and all of that bizzo. Not so long ago people were asking if there is a link between synaesthesia and autism. A genetic study says there is.
Oh, and another thing that I'd love to see in a new generation of AS experts - people who apply what we know about the autistic spectrum to give a fresh perspective on the psychology of non-autistic people. A new area of academia named "Neurotypical Studies"? What are the special deficits and cognitive strengths of NTs? What social and intellectual environment do they need to develop optimally? Where are the upper limits of their intellectual potential? Is normality a recognizable syndrome or is it just a statistical concept?
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