One of my main purposes in running this bog is to point people toward others that understand autism better than I do. I did this a couple of days ago when I highlighted John Elder Robinson's piece about reaching a common understanding of autism (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/my-life-aspergers/200910/the-cure-au...)

If you have not read Sarah's response to his piece at her blog Cat in a Dog's World, I strongly recommend it:
http://autisticcats.blogspot.com/2009/10/autism-is-medical-condition.html

Frankly, I don't see very much difference between their points on view, and it's hard for me to understand the vehemence of Sarah's response. But it's also hard for me to understand why John Elder holds himself apart from ASAN, which never matches its main foe Autism Speaks in the extremity of its rhetoric.

Read more after the jump.

Although John is right in his response to Sarah's post that Autism Speaks is one elephant in the room, there is another one:

It is hard for us to find common ground with each other because we have autism.

Autism not only impairs our ability to communicate; it makes our thinking rigid. We have more trouble reaching understanding than most people do because of the nature of autism itself. I think it may be hard for us to admit this, but it seems essential if we are to move toward the sort of common ground John Elder describes, and I think most of us certainly want.

It needs to be said that parents of children with autism often display traits of autism themselves, and this rigidity of thinking is one of them. Truly, if you consider the role that genes undoubtedly play in at autism, it becomes less surprising that parents of autistic children have trouble understanding that I sympathize with both their children AND them.

We are more prone than NTs to making all or nothing statements: "autism is a difference not a disability" or "autism wants to destroy my marriage." We have a harder time than most people seeing philosophical issues in grays rather than in black and white. This means that when we run into the black and white statements other people on the spectrum are likely to make, we are more offended by them than NT people are likely to be.

I do not agree with those who say the idea of a spectrum needs to be abandoned because the differences between us is so extreme. Rather, I think need to keep building our understanding of the spectrum so that it works better.

I guess because I am gay I tend to see similarities between the sexual minorities rights movement and the disability rights movement. At one point in time, people thought that gay people and transgender people were pretty much the same. Then we split off gay people, but thought that transgender people and transvestites were the same thing. As we have come to understand transgender people better, their lives have become infinitely better.

The same should happen as more people understand autism better. There is power in numbers. We need to band to together, not let our rigid thinking split us apart.