The Combating Autism Act (CAA) is up for re-authorization in the US Congress and ASAN is asking autistic people and their families to let Congress know that the CAA needs to be reformed. If you can want to know more, you can read ASAN’s message. There is a Twitter campaign taking place today and a flash blog next week to raise awareness and encourage people to contact their congresspersons in Washington.
Because I’m a bit of a wonk, I read the CAA last night and then I read the GAO’s report on the CAA. Fun times. One thing that struck me is how autistic adults, if they’re mentioned at all, always come last. When it comes to autism policy and research, we’re barely an afterthought.
But that’s not really what this post is about. The theme of the actions around the CAA is #stopcombatingme, a reference to how damaging the language we use in the “fight against autism” can be. So I decided that for the flash blog, I would fix some of the common autism slogans.
There. Fixed it.
Musings of an Aspie 
Thanks – notified my reps through ASAN’s site.
Yay!
YES! BEST! THANK YOU! (Sorry for the “screaming” but I’m very excited. These are awesome.)
YES! Your excitement is contagious. 🙂 This was a 3 AM brainstorm so I’m glad it still makes sense in the light of day.
Reblogged this on Appalachian aspie..
Thank you for the reblog!
Your welcome.
Love your re working of the signs. I hate the thought of all the unique autistics I know being “cured”, “Fought” and “prevented” – Those words remind me of words Hitler used. Fighting Ignorance is the biggest issue for me. So many people (including professionals) have so many messed up ideas of what Autism actually is.
Thanks for writing this:)
Exactly. And I think people don’t realize how much the way we talk about something influences the way we think about it.
Reblogged this on Opposite Ends of the Spectrum and commented:
Signal boosting because…well…its important.
Thank you for the reblog!
Trying to figure out how I can share each meme on it’s own and individually so that twitter and FB have LOTS of these being shared at once… Is that possible and if it is, is that something you even want to have happen? Each would need a link back to your blog though…
I’m happy for people to share them however they like. 🙂 The more, the better!
Hopefully this will make them individually shareable: I posted them as individual photos to my blog’s FB page: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=607840625966464&set=pcb.607841332633060&type=1&theater (also fixed the yellow one because some people said it was hard to read on their monitor) If not, feel free to grab them and save to your computer then tweet or share.
I did that (grabbing them and put them on my desktop) and was awaiting your reply. Now will go tweet them and share on FB! 🙂
😀
Thank you so much! I love the graphics and support the cause! 🙂
Yay! 😀
Are we allowed to share these images if we attribute to you? I want to put them here: http://paulacdurbinwestbyautisticblog.blogspot.com/2014/03/iacc-autism-stop-combating-me.html
Absolutely, Paula! Please do share them.
Wonderful!
Thank you!
yeah
🙂
What you’ve done here is great! :)) I totally agree with you. You’ve made my day. 🙂
It shows that the CAA didn’t have many / any person on the autistic spectrum on their committee. It’s their behaviour that needs to be changed not ours!
I think they had one, which was the number required by law, which says a lot about how committed they are to inclusion of autistic voices.
I hope you don’t mind but I recommended your Decoding the High Functioning Label in the comment section of this NYT piece.http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/magazine/reaching-my-autistic-son-through-disney.html?rref=magazine&module=Ribbon&version=origin®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Magazine&pgtype=article&_r=0
Ah, that’s where the sudden traffic spike is coming from! Thank you for the rec. 🙂
Reblogged this on Walking Inland.
Your edit of the slogans is relevant on so many levels. Thank you.
❤ Carsla
Founder & CEO of Connect-the-Cloths
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A stylist, foodie, & writer's blog in development.
I love your tranforming energies in the artwork.
Am typing on a phone.plese overlook typos…
YES now is the time for everyone anywhere in the spectrum of life to realize that we are creating THE NEW STORY RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW.
We are all part of THE FORWARD MOVEMENT Happening here on planet earth. And I appreciate all of us who are doing our dance of life by honoring diverrsity of all sorts.
As yet another older person having this autismatic experience, I say we build cooperatives with other folks and cooperatively fill everyone’s needs for aging in place= loca food forests and great dwellings
Buckminster Fuller said to create the new way that makes the old obsolete. That is what We are doing.
Since more and more adults arre coming out of the
Thank you for enlightening us about
Good blog post. Love what you did with the slogans.
Thank you 🙂
Your welcome. 🙂
Hi,
With reference to the above post and this line I wanted share something I found online. “The theme of the actions around the CAA is #stopcombatingme, a reference to how damaging the language we use in the “fight against autism” can be.”
The title of this paper is ‘Maleficent or mindblind: questioning the role of Asperger’s in quant hedge fund malfeasance and modeling disasters’
The link is:http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Maleficent+or+mindblind%3A+questioning+the+role+of+Asperger%27s+in+quant…-a0305454235
I do know if anybody has seen this before but I thought it was a good example of the use of damaging language that is used.
They say this “Caution is urged in avoiding the implication of stereotypes, which is most definitely not intended ” but I do not think the paper is unbiased and I do think it is written in such a way as to have and support an agenda.