classic autism, classicaly abused

am fed up with both some parents of autistic kids and many of the autistic community saying those of us with classic autism do not have good points, they say we are not able to achieve anything unlike people with high functioning autism.

what gives anyone the right to define our lives and judge our achievements by theirs when we have very different lives and have a lot more of our own challenges to deal with?
what gives them the right to say we cannot achieve things and aspie or neurotypical people automaticaly achieve big things when much of society do not work nor contribute in different ways to that which is around them?
how does that make them more superior?

and how dare anyone say we are retarded!
we are not 'retarded',those of us on the spectrum who are also diagnosed under intelectual disability [known as learning disability in this country,what people call learning disabilities in america-such as dyslexia,dyspraxia etc are most commonly refered to as learning difficulties here and sometimes specific learning disability or SPLD] have different levels of limited mental capacity which affects how we process things,under stand things,how we see the world,causes us difficulty in learning; especialy the meanings behind things,it is not because we are 'retarded AKA 'slow', we have a limited mental capacity which has a knock on effect on capacity level to learn,understand etc.

americans have long understood how grossly offensive and historicaly abusive 'retarded' is to us, including when used as the medical label 'mentaly retarded' which is an ancient throwback to the old assylum years when intelectualy disabled people were locked up, forgotten about, abused taken advantage of and murdered without a care in the world because we were classed as inferior sub human beings and it is still the same way today,it is quite surprising that a lot of the elitism and discrimination comes from people with disabilities themselves.

thankfuly this year sees 'mental retardation' thrown out of the DSM manual and replaced with intelectual disability,they have the cheek to call us the slow ones when they have known the labeling was wrong for so long.




here is a list of some achievements of mine,as someone with severe classic autism.

• developing different/alternative forms of communication.
• at twenty one,learning to accept hugs without attacking people-and actualy coming to realise that tight hugs were awesome.
• having a profound connection with animals,being able to calm the most agressive horses through natural behavior and connection.
• being a advocate for several profoundly autistic adults.
• being a dressage and show jumping rider for the riding for the disabled association [RDA] with no saddle and no stirrups and never having fell off once apart from when in seizures.
• with the high support of the owner of the fairfield residential organisation and staff;including putting information into PECS booklets; was able to incubate and hand rear many chickens to be our pets.
• am much better with coping with the feel of water on hands now thanks to having to sort the chickies out.
• am able to put linux on computers,screw it up usualy but will keep trying till it works.
• am a new athlete of the special olympics.