If life on earth depends on biodiversity, maybe human life depends on <a href=”http://www.nancymucklow.com/2008/making-a-world-of-difference/” target=”_blank”>neurodiversity</a>.

Yet media and experts use a very different language for autism spectrum issues: <em>disability, disorder, problem, abnormality, flaw, error</em>.

Even <em>epidemic</em>. As if autism is somehow contagious.

This is not the language of neurodiversity. It’s the language of <em>ew</em>.

These ideas frame how society treats autistic people. Imagine facing that every day!

<strong>But the language reflects the reality of autism fundraising.
</strong>

Movements don’t get money for helping variants of the norm. They get money for solving big scary problems.

So if you want people and foundations to open their purses, then you’d better scare ‘em good.

Funding appeals for autism issues have a hint of the freak show in them. The worse, the better. The more fear, loathing, and pity you can stir up, the more you can keep your issue front and centre.

Nobody seems to consider that autistic people are watching.

<strong>How a society frames an issue of difference determines how people will be treated. </strong>

I don’t want to whitewash the issue of autism funding or romanticize away the challenges. But the conflict between <em>neurodiversity </em>and  <em>disorder/abnormality</em> raises two important problems:

<strong>On the one hand: </strong>

Raising heaps of money is good because families with autistic children are desperate for help. Without special interventions, the kids may not do well in life. Without assistance, the families may not survive.

So the bitter reality is that the freak show appeals are important for getting money.

<strong>On the other hand</strong>:

Funding gets allotted. To whom? To families, services, or specialized (and expensive) training programs?

Hardly.

It goes to medical researchers working on genetics and drug therapies.

In other words, it goes to <em>abnormality/disorder</em>. It doesn’t go to <em>neurodiversity.</em>

<strong>The lesson here is that you reap what you sow. </strong>