Understanding Asperger’s is still a work in progress. It has long been referred to as being on the high end of Autism. My mom found an on line article that claim that some were wanting to separate Asperger’s from the Autism spectrum do largely to our high IQs. However, the American Physiological Association announced in February that they would be doing away with the Asperger’s diagnosis in 2012. From that point forward, all of us that are currently diagnosed as having Asperger’s will be recognized as simply as being Autistic. Those in favor of this change say that it will make it easier for us to get the benefits that we need.
However, there are many Aspies who are opposed this because they do not want to be associated with those who are deemed “lower functioning Autistics.” At first, I was one of them. My reasoning was that those of us on the Asperger’s end of the spectrum have been wrongly judged for our entire lives. The reasons for this are so lengthy that I’ll deal with it in a future blog posting. Bottom line, that we have been branded as lazy, under achievers, lacking in intelligence, etc.
I, along with many other Aspies I know, have been fighting our entire lives to get people to give us a chance to show what we can do when we are given an opportunity to do what we do best the best way we know how. I like to say that we have the geniuses necessary to take over the world if we could just stop tripping over our own two feet. Unfortunately, tripping over one own two feet gets me far more notice then my intelligence. However, when I’m put in a venue when my intelligent can shine, I make those who are “normal” look handicapped. For this reason many of us Aspies don’t consider ourselves handicapped, but simply different. Lumping us together with those Autistics who can’t function at our level would seem to undermine the ability of us Aspies to be given the chance to show the world what we are capable of.
So, what changed my mind? Back in 1971, when I was about two years old, my parents took me to a place called Gompers here in Phoenix. It was recognized as the place to take if you believed that your child was what we would now call “developmentally delayed.” They ran all of their test on me and simply concluded that there was no hope for me ever developing past the mentality of baby. I was, for reasons that had nothing to do with this, adopted when I was five and a half. My adoptive parents took me to get tested and were told that I’d never develop past the mental age of a three year old. Both my birth and adoptive Mothers rejected these predictions and dared to believe in me.
This got me thinking, what if my Mothers believed the predictions made about me rather than defying them? Would I be the “lower functioning” Autistic that the “expert” predicted me to be? What about those Autistics who are “lower functioning?” How many of them are having their development impeded by their parents believing rather than defying the “experts?” I am not saying that there may be some that will never achieve the same level of development as their peers, but that everyone deserves to be given the benefit of the doubt.
Therefore, I stand in defiance of all nay sayers. I defy those who disregard what I am capable of when I am in my element because they will not look past the extent that I struggle when I am not. I defy those who dismiss anyone with any kind of developmental challenges, whether they are Autistic or otherwise, without giving them a chance to develop beyond what they are in spite of these challenges.
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