I'm a woman with autism who is a psychiatric nurse, so naturally I read everything I could about women with autism and came across Simon Barron-Cohen, who I had an allergic reaction to. I felt as though he had no understanding of autistic people at all. It's as though he observed behavior and came up with some pretty dumb hypothesis about us without actually talking to any of us and asking us about what the meaning of our behavior was from our own perspective (unbeknownst to Simon Barron Cohen, you can actually talk to people and ask them about the meaning of their behavior if you want to learn about them, unlike animals and plants and pre verbal children who you can't do that with).
Thanks for clarifying my thoughts about why I dislike his work so intensely.
Also, people with autism struggle to connect to other people, but the need for human connection remains, so while getting a pet can be really helpful to fulfil some of those needs, being palmed off on an object seems like a really cruel and heartless thing to do with us. How about giving us some "social skills training" and a social group.
I'm a woman with autism who is a psychiatric nurse, so naturally I read everything I could about women with autism and came across Simon Barron-Cohen, who I had an allergic reaction to. I felt as though he had no understanding of autistic people at all. It's as though he observed behavior and came up with some pretty dumb hypothesis about us without actually talking to any of us and asking us about what the meaning of our behavior was from our own perspective (unbeknownst to Simon Barron Cohen, you can actually talk to people and ask them about the meaning of their behavior if you want to learn about them, unlike animals and plants and pre verbal children who you can't do that with).
Thanks for clarifying my thoughts about why I dislike his work so intensely.
Also, people with autism struggle to connect to other people, but the need for human connection remains, so while getting a pet can be really helpful to fulfil some of those needs, being palmed off on an object seems like a really cruel and heartless thing to do with us. How about giving us some "social skills training" and a social group.
Fascinating.