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Jul5
My 100th Post: A List (Aren’t You Shocked?) of 100 Myths about Autism
Filed under: Myths about Autism, Spectrum Pride;24 CommentsYou are now reading my 100th post!
To celebrate this milestone, I’ve decided to publish a list of 100 myths about autism. I was going to make a list of 100 things about myself that you didn’t already know, but I figured I wouldn’t have enough material.
100 Myths about Autism
1. Autistic people are never creative.
2. Autistic people are never imaginative.
3. Autistic people are always good at spatial tasks.
4. Autistic people cannot empathize with others.
5. Autistic people can never have intimate relationships.
6. Autistic people can never be good parents.
7. Autistic people can never have friends.
8. All autistic people are highly intelligent.
9. All autistic people are unintelligent.
10. All autistic people are nonverbal.
11. Autistic people who are nonverbal have nothing to say.
12. Autistic people who are nonverbal cannot otherwise communicate.
13. Autistic people who are nonverbal cannot think.
14. Autistic people cannot love.
15. Autistic people belong in institutions.
16. Autistic people have no emotions.
17. Autistic people can never work for a living.
18. Autistic people just aren’t trying hard enough to fit in.
19. Autistic people are never interested in other people.
20. Autistic people do not need community of any kind.
21. Autistic people can never acquire new skills.
22. Autistic people can never lose existing skills.
23. Autistic people cannot reflect upon the mental states of other people.
24. Autistic people don’t make eye contact because they don’t care about what people have to say.
25. Autistic people are always logical.
26. Autistic people are overly emotional.
27. Autistic people are insensitive.
28. Autistic people are too sensitive.
29. Autistic people are empty inside.
30. Autistic people need pity.
31. All autistic people are like Rain Man.
32. The real Rain Man is autistic.
33. All autistic people are like Temple Grandin.
34. Autistic people cannot be happy.
35. Asperger’s Syndrome and autism are two separate conditions.
36. People with high-functioning autism have it easy.
37. People with high-functioning autism are not like other autistic people.
38. People with high-functioning autism are just socially awkward.
39. People with low-functioning autism have no quality of life.
40. People with low-functioning autism have low IQs.
41. Autistic people are a burden on society.
42. Autism is caused by poor parenting.
43. Autism is caused by vaccines.
44. Autism is a mental illness.
45. Autism is a disease.
46. Autism is a disorder.
47. Autism can be cured.
48. Autism should be cured.
49. Autistic people should be removed from the gene pool by pre-natal testing.
50. All autistic people are hermits.
51. All hermits are autistic people.
52. All autistic people think in pictures.
53. Most doctors understand autism.
54. The autism experts are always right.
55. The autism experts are experts on autism
56. Autistic people do not understand autism.
57. Autistic people should believe everything the experts say about autism.
58. The loved ones of autistic people should believe everything the experts say about autism.
59. The general public should believe everything the experts say about autism.
60. If you don’t believe what the experts say, you must be autistic.
61. If you can understand what the experts say, you cannot be autistic.
62. If you understand metaphor, you cannot be autistic.
63. Autism is a walk in the park.
64. If you have a sense of humor, you cannot be autistic.
65. If you can tell a joke, you cannot be autistic.
66. I love being autistic! It’s a blast! All the time!
67. I hate being autistic. It’s a bummer. All the time.
68. Autistic people are all alike.
69. Autistic children could “behave properly” if they really wanted to.
70. Autistic children “misbehave” because their parents enable them.
71. Autistic people do not work hard to get through the day.
72. After all, how hard could it be?
73. Autism is just an excuse to be insensitive and lazy.
74. Autistic girls do not present differently than autistic boys.
75. Autistic women do not present differently than autistic men.
76. Autism Speaks speaks for me.
77. Autism Speaks speaks for all autistic people.
78. Autism Speaks has autistic people on its paid staff.
79. Autism Speaks has autistic people on its board of directors.
80. Autistic people are puzzles with missing pieces.
81. Autistic people are broken and in need of repair.
82. Asperger’s is just the latest trendy diagnosis.
83. Having a trendy diagnosis like Asperger’s makes you popular.
84. Autistic people can never be athletes.
85. Autistic people are always clumsy.
86. All autistic people are completely incapable of eye contact.
87. Autistic people cannot carry on a conversation.
88. Autistic ways of being are inferior to neuro-typical ways of being.
89. Autistic points of view are inferior to neuro-typical points of view.
90. If you can make a YouTube video, you are not autistic.
91. If you can publish a blog, you are not autistic.
92. If you can post comments to a blog, you are not autistic.
93. If you don’t have an “official” diagnosis, you are not autistic.
94. If you can read this list, you are not autistic.
95. If you are reading this list, you must be autistic.
96. Myth #95 has just saved you a ton of money that you would otherwise have spent on an autism assessment.
97. Logic dictates that you deposit a small portion of the money you’ve saved into my PayPal account.
98. I mean it.
99. I am not kidding.
100. I will finish the list now because my autistic mind craves order and consistency.
101. Oh, what the hell, here’s one more.
102. Being on #102 in a list of 100 myths about autism isn’t driving my autistic mind crazy.
103. Being autistic, I always know when to stop.
104. Always.
105. Really.
106. Like now.
107. Or maybe not.
108. No one minds that I’m on #108.
109. It bugs everyone that I’m on #109.
110. I don’t care if it bugs people.
111. I have no problem ending this list on an odd number.
112. The fact that this list ends on an even number is a mere coincidence.
© 2009 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg
24 Responses to “My 100th Post: A List (Aren’t You Shocked?) of 100 Myths about Autism”
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that was awesome rachel.
So I have a question are you planning on having more kids and if not why? if so why? -
Hi Samuel,
Thanks for the kudos.
As for having more kids…When I was younger, I wanted to have more than one child, but for various reasons, that didn’t happen. I was sad about it for a long time.
Now, I’m glad things worked out as they did. Given my sensory sensitivities and my tendency toward hyper-focus, having one child has always worked very well for me. More children would have made my focus too diffuse, and I would have found it quite difficult to manage. Many Aspies have more than one child, though, and it works fine for them, so it’s really an individual thing.
In any case, my daughter (who is now 16) and her friends are such a joy to have around that I don’t feel like I lack for anything. Plus, I have a Tibetan godson who lives in India, and I consider him part of my family. We correspond by email, and because he cannot contact his parents in Tibet, he comes to me for many of the things that a mother can give: love, support, advice, and encouragement. So I’m able to extend my mothering energies further than my own house, which is really nice for me.
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Other than the last few, it’s a great list. Congratulations on your 100th Post… Looking forward to the next 100.
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Other than the last few? The last few were what made it, lol. Very funny. Made me laugh. Now, if you had ended it on 113, that would have been unlucky, lol
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Kate, I hadn’t even thought of that, but it’s true! I would never have ended on 113.
Come to think of it, though, it’s a little scary how close I came, isnt’ it?
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Is there a character length limit on comments ? I tried posting to this story before, but it didn’t show up.
Hope the verboseness doesn’t irritate/overwhelm !
Averages don’t tell one anything about a single individual.
Red plus yellow equals orange, but orange doesn’t tell you what red and yellow are like, in isolation-when not combined/blended.
Averages don’t shed much light on the distribution of data at the extremes, or the proportion of statistical points at which locations along a spectrum, they only offer up an artificial “middle” result.
Men, as a group, taken together and averaged out, are taller than women-yet any specific man may well be shorter than a particular woman.
Same principle applies to folks who have this or that diagnosis.“Neurotypicals” are allowed (society considers such things possible) to possess & embody contradictions: traits & behaviors that seemingly counteract each other-yet these features don’t negate one another, they add up to the rich complexity that is any human being. Well, same goes for those of us with an ASD dx. I’m rife with incongruous, inconsistent paradoxes-and these are genuine facets of who I am. I’m just as entitled to be complicated, rather than a simple “cookie-cutter” stereotype, as an “NT” person.
I’ll stipulate that it’s no easy task (for myself or for others) to separate out what issues are related to or “caused by” autism, which can lead to excessive pathologizing of all a person’s problems to the scapegoat of ASD. Who can say for sure which aspects of any person are “just part of being human-in these times, in this place, under these conditions”-as opposed to symptoms best extinguished ? I nominate greed & ruthlessness for removal from humanity’s genetic plate-oh wait, “we” (culture/society) value & venerate & aspire to those extremes of competitive “civilized” thuggery…but I digress.
There’s the grouping phenomenon, wherein it’s assumed that all members of a category are likely to get along (because they all have one thing in common), at least in the view of those outside said group. Reminds me of tv sitcoms where a blind date is set up solely on the basis of a single shared characteristic, for instance sexual orientation-and it takes more for two people to like each other than merely having that in common. Not all autistic people have to be similar to each other to be (“count as”) autistic. Not all autistic people are going to like or get along with each other, either.
However, I’m not immune from the natural inclination of the human brain to find simplistic/shorthand “rules-of-thumb”, which leads to searching for a unifying theme that’ll aid in comprehending the world around me (and the people in it). So, I understand the impulse/motive, yet I also struggle to retain awareness that there’s always going to be a disconnect, a differential, between what I can perceive biologically and the amount/level of detail that’s actually out there (beyond my own mind/body).
Wouldn’t presume to assign an overall difficulty rating to the so-called “high” or “low” functioning categories of people, either-leaving aside whether those broad distinctions are even valid-because there are numerous pros & cons to each situation, based on endless factors (such as how others treat one based on those beliefs, whether or not the label carries with it greater support/assistance of the sort that’s useful, and how expectations for one’s performance are shaped by these external ratings).
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what’s wrong with 13?
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Belfast, there’s no limit on characters. For some reason I can’t figure out, your message got marked as spam.
Do you want to post your message on this thread? The EMB theory thread would probably be a better place for it. It’s up to you.
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Ben, 13 is considered unlucky. It’s a superstition that has led the builders of high rise building to not have a 13th floor. Of course, there is one, but it’s called the 14th floor. Is this just an American thing?
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i know many people considered 13 ‘unlucky’, but never really understand what they meant. my mom thinks 13 is unlucky, except for me, but i always thought that was a catholic thing….
i was born on a friday the 13th, and 13 and 3 are my two favourite numbers (for weird aspie reasons, not superstitious)
i also lived on the 13th floor of my residence at university……and we had an earthquake! co-incidence? i think not! -
and no, canadians can be just as silly as americans, apparently.
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Thanks for retrieving & posting my multi-paragraphed comment. I don’t see a “contact the blogger” option other than via comments, or else I’d have handled the technical question that way-rather than clutter the comments.
I did write in response to the list of 100+ mistaken beliefs about ASD, but of course the Baron-Cohen “EMB” stuff was also freshly lingering in my mind.
If the tone of this post (and subsequent comments) is more light-hearted & less serious (not that there’s anything wrong with that), then feel free to relocate it to the previous posts’s comment trail. -
DonkeyBuster July 6th, 2009 at 4:46 am
Loved the list!
The Friday the 13th phobia can be traced back to the arrest of the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, Jacques deMolay (?), on October 13th, 1307. Folklore has it that at his execution 7 years later, he cursed the pope and the king of France, saying that they’d die within the year and meet him before G*d.
Oh, there’s more, so much more about the number 13…. erk. Stopping now… erk.
LOL -
i knew about some of the historical foundations behind 13-phobia, but that was one i hadn’t heard of in a long time. i’m poking fun mostly because i didn’t think i’d see an exploration of superstition on an ASPIE blog comments section, of all places.
Myth #113 – People with autism are all very rational.
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Yeah, Ben, but did you like the list?
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of course i loved the list. i like lists about catfood.
especially if they’re neatly printed, and left-justified. ooooh. i think i just thought of a new art project. -
John Dale Lyons July 6th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
I love the list.
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ROFL!!!! This is fantastic. =D Kudos on your 100th post!
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Brilliant!
Except for ending on 112. I would’ve liked 111 MUCH better!
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I can think in words but only when I’m composing a message to somebody in my head. I can’t think in words about writing unless I’m actually writing.
I don’t know if I am autistic or not, but can you explain if the thinking in pictures has anything to do with autism and why my brain does that?
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Soph, from what I can gather, picture thinking is fairly common among both non-autistic and autistic people. No one has found any significant link between autism and picture thinking. Temple Grandin hypothesizes that picture thinking is what causes language delays in autistic children, but she may very well be speaking only to her own experience. I’ve never seen any studies that prove this theory.
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I found Temple’s article online just after I left the above comment. I’m certainly not as visual as her but I think I might fit in with her hypothesis to some degree. She says in an update that she now realises not all autistic people are picture thinkers.
I am very literate but I have the feeling that my verbal abilities are heavily supported by my visual abilities.
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Soph, I have had the same teory, that my considerable verbal skills are supported by my visual abilities.
I used to do well in French tests, for instance, because I could picture the page from my notes of a particular conjugated verb. I thought this was common, but after talking to my teacher at the time, realized this is not how most kids got through. this way of working has its own drawbacks, of course, but I’ve found delight over the years in the certain advantages from picture thinking. -
I wonder whether that’s why I have to rewrite an essay many times in order to memorise something. If I read a book just the once or listen to a lecture, I barely remember anything!
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