Playing Nice (At the Feb. 11 AAC Meeting)‏

Well, it seems I need to be more respectful.
  That at least appears to be the message coming from Don Mueller, executive director of the Marcus Center.
  But I'll get to that.

   I'm not going to have a lot to say about the last Atlanta Autism Consortium meeting. This is because Dr. Leslie Rubin, from the Morehouse School of Medicine, is, by far, the most boring and content-free speaker I've heard yet at a Marcus-related event. If any of you wanted to know what year CHoA moved from this building to that building or who suggested who for what position at Marcus in what year, well, this was for you. For anyone else, it was excruciating back-in-the-day inside-baseball.

  In the course of the two hour meeting I brought up exactly two points.
  The first was in response to Rubin's question about why the rates of autism diagnoses might be rising so dramatically. Rubin acknowledged that this phenomenon might be partially explained by a broadening of definitions or an increase in public interest, but then added that there had to be more to it than that. He provided no evidence that those answers might not be sufficient in and of themselves.
  I suggested that an explanation for the rise might lay with the fact that a lot more people get richer off an autism diagnosis now than in the past. Gregory Abowd offered at this point that there was nothing unusual about that and medical professionals of all stripes might have just as much financial incentive to find a false positive as a Marcus Center employee. I  was under the impression that cancers and tumors were the sort of things that actually showed up on medical scans and other physical tests. But what do I know? Although I didn't raise it at the time, I think far better counter-analogies would be not regular medical doctors but other "experts" who preyed on whipped-up social hysteria to discover hordes of previously unknown scapegoats. Medieval witchfinders and prosecutors uncovering satanic daycare sex-cults come readily to mind.

  My second point came after about the umpteenth time Rubin suggested that everyone in the room-- "researchers," parents and adults on the spectrum alike-- should devote themselves to working hand in hand toward a common goal. I observed that of the adults on the spectrum who attend the consortium meetings, the number who support more financing for either the Marcus Center or ABA in general is precisely zero. I asked, in a tone that I think reflected the non-rhetorical nature of the question, if anyone at that meeting knew if such an individual even existed. In the brief back and forth that followed no one came out and put me in my place with a simple factual refutation: "What about Joe Blow? He's had ABA and he's with us 100 percent!"
  If the therapies of the behaviorists are so effective, where are the adults who, having benefited from them, are now advocates for these same therapies? Their absence from this debate is extremely telling. Now, to my mind, there can be at least two possible reasons for this state of affairs.
  One, as stated, adults on the spectrum who have benefited from, and are now advocates for, behaviorist methodology exist only only as hypothetical constructs. At least locally.
  Two, those who work at the Marcus Center are so lazy, or disinterested in the humanity of the children who have been in their care that they make so much money off of, that they have simply failed to keep up with any of them once they have ceased to contribute income.
  In any case, pointing out the obvious --that a single solitary adult on the spectrum had never attended an AAC meeting to support the methods of the behaviorists-- was apparently simply too much for Mueller.
 It was shortly after this brief exchange that he brought up that it was incumbent upon everyone at the meeting to be respectful of everyone else. I then inquired as to the subtext of that statement. No subtext at all, Mueller assured.
  Oh yeah, except that there was.
  After the meeting I walked up to Mueller to inquire further as to the nature of the message he had intended to send with his remark.
  Turns out it was about me after all.
  Now it is true that I have suggested that the Marcus "researchers," and behaviorists in general, don't know what they're doing. I have stated explicitly that I believe that they are engaged in fraud. I also have noted that their language towards the autistic is indistinguishable from racism. But I have always done so, within the confines of the AAC, (as opposed to, say, here where I'll just come out and say that someone like James McPartland is a douchebag for his self-described abusive treatment of socially-isolated children) in what I believe to be a respectful manner. As I have previously stated, I have treated them like the scientists I know them not to be.
  Mueller suggested that he, Gregory Abowd, and myself should have a meeting. This meeting would, I gather, based upon what was said during our very brief talk, center around what subjects I may or may not be allowed to bring up in the future. The only two subjects that were brought up by myself at this meeting were 1) the Marcus Center might have a financial interest in over-diagnosing "ASD" and 2) that no adult on the spectrum has ever come to the AAC to support the methodologies of the Marcus Center or behaviorists in general. So, I gather, this is what being respectful means to Mueller: don't bring up points or ask questions that might suggest that the Marcus Center or the behaviorist community as a whole, or in part, is either incompetent or engaged in intellectual fraud. I, and my compatriots, should sit silently at the meetings while we are called every manner of derogatory name dressed up in medicalized techno-babble. We should accept every one of their crackpot theories (even the ones that contradict each other. Oh wait, that would be all of them) as they are presented and be grateful that there are people who have devoted their lives to curing us, even if they don't seem to have a clue as to who the fuck we are.
  In other words, in this equivalent of an interracial dialogue, they are free to call us "niggers," and we are to address them as "sir."
  That, I imagine, is what Mueller wants.  But maybe not.
  We're see. In any event, I've accepted Mueller's invitation for a meeting.
  I understand that it is possible that my banning from future AAC conferences will occur at this meeting. And that's fine. The continuously-stated purpose of the AAC meetings has been to bring together all voices who have an interest in issues related to the autistic spectrum. If I am banned, or have my privileges to speak or question curtailed, then it will be clear, to my people at least, that that claim is just one more fraud residing inside the walls of the Marcus Autism Center.