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Autism, Siblings, and Anger

Submitted by Landon Bryce on Tue, 09/04/2012 - 09:43
Published in

I have mixed feelings about Ranit Mishori's piece about the siblings of autistic people in the Washington Post. I like that she is honest about the fact that growing up with an autistic brother was largely a negative experience for her, but is clear that that is not the case for all, or possibly even most, siblings. 

I wish she had found an example of using humor to deal with stress that did not sound so much like laughing at someone's disability:

She recalled a recent incident in which her brother, who is also deaf, was fixated on mopping the porch. He was outside, signing to himself the instructions he had just received from his father about the chore. She chose to find his behavior funny instead of embarrassing, and to appreciate the moment. “I don’t think there are any siblings,” she says, “who can laugh at their brother having a conversation with himself and a mop.”

And I'm not sure we really need a lot of research into how autism affects siblings-- at least not until we've actually researched treatments for autistic people.