Search for:
Aug 20 2022
The tin can conundrum: the problem with “labels”

Most of us have probably heard the saying by now. “Labels go on tin cans, autism is a diagnosis”. It’s true, calling autism a label is inherently invalidating. Being Autistic is an identity, a culture. As Dr. Chloe Farahar of Aucademy explains, autism itself is an abstract concept, the only thing that exists is Autistic people. So why do we feel the need to separate out and diagnose people according to the way their brain works.

After all, this is the neurodiversity movement, are we not trying to end the medicalisation of different neurocognitive styles?

Let’s consider neurotypicality. You don’t get “diagnosed” as neurotypical. This is because people with neurotypical bodyminds are able to perform their cultures neuronormative standards. They are able to assimilate into society, and therefore are generally good and obedient profit machines that don’t upset the status quo.

Neurodivergent people, however, are somewhat of a wrench in the gears. We can not perform neuronormative standards, not comfortably anyway. We require the masters house to be dismantled and rebuilt. Here’s where the conundrum comes into play.

As Dr. Nick Walker explains in her book Neuroqueer Heresies, the master will never give you the tools to dismantle their house. In this case the masters tools look like a society that disables neurodivergent people, and uses that disability to pathologise neurodivergence by locking all of the support that might improve our lives behind a medical diagnosis. That medical diagnosis, in turn, is then used as a marketing tool where by people have to pay for diagnosis (in many countries), pay for support, and in fact the “autism label” is used to wack a premium on anything that might make our lives more comfortable.

Let’s not forget that the ABA industry pulls down millions every year by selling the idea that they can “fix” your “broken” child, converting them into a person who can perform to the neurotypical standard. “Indestinguishable from their peers” has become somewhat of a motto for those who want to see autism eradicated.

So how do we break out of this conundrum?

As Dr. Walker says, we “throw away the masters tools”. We find and bring the tools necessary to dismantle a society that oppresses us. In this case, the masters tools are diagnosis and the so-called “supports” that we find locked away behind it.

It may sound radical, but we need to work towards a world where diagnosis is no longer necessary. A neurocosmopolitan society where no one neurocognitive style holds power over another. It’s radical, and sounds deceptively simple, but it isn’t.

In order for this to work, we have to dismantle the structural oppression that our current economic systems wield.

We have to understand the intersections between different minority groups.

We need to work together to create a world that doesn’t value arbitrary values over the value of human life.

This probably won’t be achieved in our lifetime, maybe not in our children’s lifetimes, but it can be achieved. We just have to take the first steps in the right direction.

A direction that takes us away from the pathologisation of different minds.

So let me end by saying this. My name is David, I’m neurodivergent. It isn’t an illness, I don’t require fixing because I am not broken. I live in a world that doesn’t fit me well by design. I refuse to accept that world, and I hope to leave a better one than the one I was born into.

David Gray-Hammond 4 Comments
Dec 30 2021
Autopia: The reality of accommodating Autistics

At Aucademy we have long talked about our vision of a perfect Autistic utopia, affectionately called “Autopia”. The vision is of a collective living scenario, away from the pressures of a world that puts neuronormative standards and culturally accepted neurotypicality, ahead of any neurocognitive type that does not fit into its restrictive box. We often imagine a world with sensory safe spaces, collaborative living arrangements, and a distinct lack of hierachy.

Such a world would be brilliant, and beautiful. However, the reality of creating a world where Autistics can live in peace and comfort as their authentic selves is more complicated.

As discussed in a previous article, we are at a transitional point for the world. The neurodiversity movement fights every day to ensure equitable and fair treatment of all neurodivergent people, but we are still some way off from a world in which no one is given privilege, and all can access the world comfortably.

What would such a world look like?

The world we wish to create is not as simple as safe spaces and collaborative living. It first must do away with the pathology paradigm. Currently, neurodivergence is treated as a medical issue, with any associated disability often being viewed through the lens of the medical model of disability. Converse to this we have the social model of disability.

Our first steps towards Autopia require us to understand the ramifications of the social model. Under this model, disability can be considered to be the result of oppression. Rather than arising from a medical deficit within the person, the social model suggests that we are disabled by a society that fails to give us equal access to the environment. Thus, this failure can be considered a form of oppression. In some cases the oppression is a direct thing, with those responsible intentionally refusing access to disabled people, in other cases the oppression is more indirect, caused by a lack of understanding that inadvertently perpetuates the oppression of the disabled person.

Ableism is also another consideration. Once society has effectively oppressed and disabled a person, it then discriminates against them. Many disabled people are forced out of the work force by such ableism, forced to survive off of whatever money their government decides is appropriate (often with little care as to whether or not that money is enough to survive on). People are judged by societies standard of what a disabled person should look like, and what they are capable of, with little interest in what the disabled person has to say about their experience.

Understanding the ramifications of the social model, and the ableism that follows societies oppression of those who do not fit into culturally accepted standards, allows us to start seeing the pathology paradigm that has kept the neurodivergent on a lower rung of the ladder for quite some time.

This is where the neurodiversity movement comes in, and where an understanding of the neurodiversity paradigm becomes paramount.

To create Autopia, we must do away with cultural neuronormativity, and accept that human minds are diverse and beautiful. We must understand that no single neurocognitive style is superior to another. Ultimately, we must create a world where words like neurotypical and neurodivergent become irrelevant. This bold new world would not need such words, because no one is considered “normal” or “typical”, and no one is considered “different” or “atypical”. It is a world in which we all simply co-exist. No one has privilege over another. The world and society at large are accessible to all.

Unfortuantely, such a world is quite some time away. There is a great deal of work to be done to achieve it. The current world we live in traumatises Autistic and otherwise neurodivergent people on a daily basis. For more reading on how society harms Autistics, please see the Creating Autistic Suffering series housed on this blog, the series is authored by myself and Tanya Adkin.

To achieve Autopia, we must challenge our beliefs and thoughts. Society has done a good job of forcing the pathology paradigm on us. Now is the time to unlearn those lessons.

David Gray-Hammond 2 Comments
Dec 28 2021
Why requiring Autistic people to be diagnosed is a betrayal of the Neurodiversity movement

It has long been accepted that diagnosis is a privilege that many are not afforded. What is not discussed is how diagnosis itself feeds into the pathology paradigm that has surrounded Autistic people since Autism was first conceptualised.

Requiring that a person be diagnosed Autistic is in and of itself a pathologisation of that neurocognitive-style.

One no longer expects a homosexual to be diagnosed with a disorder or condition, and yet we strive to be diagnosed as Autistic. While I recognise the privilege that having a diagnosis has given me, and I admit that my diagnostic paperwork saying “condition” instead of “disorder” filled me with joy; it has taken me some time to realise that my need to be diagnosed was in fact a perpetuation of medical models and pathologisation.

Being Autistic is an identity based on a specific neurology. It is not inherently good or bad. There is nothing to be fixed or cured, so why force people to acquire a diagnosis?

If a person largely identifies with the core experiences of being Autistic, then why should we deny them the right to identify as who they are? Should we not have accepted by now, in the 21st century, that neurodiversity is a natural phenomenon, and not a collection ailments requiring intervention.

Of course, a move away from diagnostic approaches would undermine what I would refer to as “the autism industrial complex” which largely consists of behavioural therapies and quack biomedical solutions, sold as the only way to separate your neurotypical child from the autism that has infected them.

Indeed, when one considers all the harm that the pathology paradigm has done, it seems to me that a world where being Autistic requires a medical diagnosis is not one designed in any way to accommodate Autistic people.

Should the neurodiversity movement wish to achieve its aims of acceptance and equitable treatment for all neurotypes, then we must strive to move away from all medicalisation of the natural diversity of minds. Until this is done, the neurodiversity movement can not succeed.

David Gray-Hammond 3 Comments
Verified by MonsterInsights