Autistic Hedgehog

Autistic Hedgehog entry

[“What do you mean you’re autistic? Sheldon acts nothing like you”

Thanks for the diagnosis, I’ll take that into account.]

This one’s from personal experience.

Or maybe one of these

http://purplewowies.tumblr.com/post/32936049220/fuck-people-who-think-that-disabled-kids-are

I know this is the one that sparked it all. Still trying to see if I can find the actual post. Did she rant after an ask? Or in her own little post?

Mod note: That would be the person in question, yes (the one from the October 5th Hedgehogs). And she had several rants after that. 

[Has no empathy?

Doesn’t give a fuck about your hurt feelings]

mod note: I’ll be honest, I’m not 100% sure I get this one but I think what it’s getting at is that to allistic people, “autistic person isn’t being nice to me when I’m being a douche” = “autistic person has no empathy”. I could be completely talking out my ass, though. 

[Autism?

That means ‘less intelligent than neurotypicals’, right?]

There are way too many people out there who think that 'Autism’ is a synonym for 'stupid’.

mod note: I think there’s a huge problem with the way intelligence is viewed in society. We have such a narrow definition of what makes people smart. My father was a brilliant man, but not in any conventional kind of way. He could fix anything (except the Nintendo, but that was honest-to-god the only thing), jury-rig anything, and he had this talent that allowed him to hang all the pictures in a new house first, then put the furniture in and have it all look right.

People love to use the Einstein quote: “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” But for people like us, for people like my father, the problem isn’t being a fish judged by its ability to climb a tree.

The problem is being a fish that rigged a pulley system so it could haul itself up into the tree by its damn fins and that’s still not good enough for other people, because it’s not the way “normal” people do it. It’s not the way average, easily measurable intelligence would do it. Thus anything that doesn’t match the status quo gets dubbed “stupid”. In truth, very few people are anything like being stupid; they’re just different.

I think where I’m going with this is: Ignore the people who equate autism and stupidity. Their definition of intelligence is far too narrow and their definition of stupidity is far, far too wide.