Some of us don't like Steve Silberman's horrific ideas about autism. He's going to be the keynote speaker at the ASA conference in a few weeks.
Therefore there's a petition for the ASA to remove him as speaker.
It is wrong for ASA to have a keynoter who states that autism versus a healthy brain is the same as a windows versus a linux operating system, who states that disability is part of the human experience and we all become diaper wearers at some point. Wrong for him to say autism unemployment is due to human resource offices not willing to work with nonverbal people, wrong for him to rewrite the history of autism, and wrong to say the love Mark Rimland has in the community obviate the need for a cure for his very severe autism.
I realize this petition has no chance of succeeding and the person who started it did this pretty late in the game (should have been started at least a couple of months ago).
However, I hope those of you who feel as I do will sign this petition so we can let the ASA and the rest of the world know how we feel even if they won't dump him as their keynoter.
Change . org banned me from signing petitions because I wrote a bunch of honest petitions that they deleted. Change . org is opposed to the truth, same as ASA.
ReplyDeleteJonathan thank you for speaking honestly about autism and the challenges it presents for so may who suffer from autism disorders. The Autism Society of America is no long a force for advancement of public knowledge of autism disorders. While it may be true late to stop the ASA embrace of Silberman's self promoting, unscientific, non evidence based non sense it is important that you have tried and are continuing to speak the truth.
ReplyDeletewell you can really thank Yuval Leventhal who started the petition, i'm just carrying on his good work.
ReplyDeleteSilberman is coming to the All In conference in Melbourne, Australia as well.
ReplyDelete[this is the Victorian Autism Conference which happens every two years].