*I am reading books and articles for a directed reading on the history of psychiatric, intellectual and developmental disabilities for my final semester of college.
As it turns out, I do not regret the life choice of reading Kanner so far, disturbing though the descriptions are. It's important to know this history.
Not that I agree with all the gross painting of autistic people as empty shells and tragedies. But I was reading these chapters and these kids' parents seemed autistic too. They just were ~people~ in society instead of ~unpeople~ and the expectations that only certain people could be autistic prevented them from being labeled as such.
Kanner literally wrote at one point "One is tempted to think of them as successfully autistic adults, in the sense that they do a creditable job in their chosen occupations and quite a few have attained sufficient recognition to be listed in some of the Who's Who compliations" (Kanner, essay from 1954 republished in Childhood Psychosis: Initial Studies and New Insights in 1973, pg 74).
It's a common theme that persists today, to be honest. Anyone who is considered successful by society's standards gets told they can't be autistic, that their professional or self diagnosis is wrong.
(In my book, you don't have to be considered traditionally successful or independent to be worth advocating for, with, and to be respected and valued with human dignity). But people need to stop having such rigid definitions. and accept that like all people, autistic people are different from each other.
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