I have been reading everything I can find about autism and Asperger's. The more I read, the more frustrated I become! WHY did they have neurotypical people write *books* on a subject in which they have no first hand experience? It would be like a man observing women in childbirth and then writing a book based on his observations, to alter the behavior of those women and increase understanding of them. He doesn't have any fucking understanding of them! All he sees is the way they are acting. WHY don't they have books on this subject written by autistic people? Or,at least, written by a team of people, at least half of which are autistic, if they just can't handle the thought of an entire book written by an 'insider'. The perspective is so warped and superficial...ugh.

OK, to be fair, there are Temple Grandin and Lianne...can't remember her name and too lazy to search for it...she wrote 'pretending to be normal'. These books are not to be found in the center where I work, with developmentally disabled people (yeah, now this is starting to be a huge joke for me). Instead, there are books of strategies for how to teach them to be normal, and then they admit that they cannot really make a person 'normal'. They can only offer enough of a taste to make one cease being happy and feel deprived...as though that weren't an issue already. This is seen as an improvement? And the books always have this tone, as though the 'subjects' are not quite human, as though they have no feelings. I think they honestly believe that....*Irk*!

Anyway, this should be interesting, because today I go to work at that job and I am really angry about all this already. If one person makes a snide or belittling comment to one of the autistic clients...man I am gonna fucking lose it.....you would not believe what passes for therapy...