Category: Take-home Final Examinations

Jasmine Williams

Dr. Foss

Disability Literature 304 Section 02

Final Exam

April 30, 2019

Autism the Concept of Being Normal and Breaking down Stereotypes

Autism has been a topic in which society tends to view differently. People who are non-autistic sometimes do not understand how to interact with an autistic person. Not knowing how to interact with a person with autism comes with the stereotypes of autism. Some view autistic people as not worth listening to, awkward and, not being able to fit into society. The term normal is used often in both society and disability studies to define the way people interact or carry themselves. Normal is something that society want one another to reflect in order to fit in. Autism comes with stereotypes put in place by society but, over the years advocacy groups and people who are autistic help put down stereotypes place on the autistic community. People who part of the autism community are speaking about their differences, how society reacts to their differences and the questions that non – autistic people ask.

Normal is a term that comes up in disability studies and how society define the term of being normal. Normal is a term that is tricky because it is a term that is hard to define. Normal can be used in many ways and, according to Sinclair normal is used by parents as a source of not relating to the autistic child (Sinclair). New parents want the best for their children and provide for them in the way that society views as a better life for a child (Sinclair). However, when a child is autistic some parents stop viewing their child as normal and instead view the child with autism as a tragedy (Sinclair). Also, the different ways in which autistic people navigate society is seen by some as awkward and one might ask why? That is because “Non- autistic people see autism as a great tragedy” (Sinclair). How non- autistic people view autism makes some ask do non – autistic people really know what autism is?

Autism is defined as a neurological condition, that affects the way information is processed in the brain, autism is a spectrum condition and ranges from a person being non- verbal or highly talkative (Murray 1).  Knowing the scientific definition of autism still impacts the controversy on how one could inherit the disorder.  One controversy was the Anti – Vax Movement and how parents believed that vaccines were the main cause of autism (Murray 83). Vaccines use to contain mercury and some people believed the toxin in the vaccines was a link to autism in children (Murray83).

The vaccination movement shows how people get nervous about the concept of autism. People who are non- autistic not only get nervous on the concept of the condition but, they also tend to mourn people who have autism. Mourning about autism happens because non- autistic people view people with autism as being lost (Sinclair).  Lost meaning not being able to be the best according to society standards and society not accepting autism (Sinclair). Autism does not equal to mourning and instead, should be explored (Sinclair). Meaning that just because someone is autistic does not mean you lose them (Sinclair). For example, Sinclair points out the meaning of mourning for parents that have children with autism, “You did not lose a child to autism” … “You just waited for a child that never existed” (Sinclair). Listening to an autistic person point of view would help non – autistic people learn about the autism community and people close to them who is autistic. Listening would also help with autistic people trying to navigate society and provide autistic people with a sense of being welcomed in society.

DJ Savarese did an interview with CNN Dr. Sanjay Gupta in which Savarese express how communication was the key for people trying to understand him and others who have autism (Savarese). With autism having the stereotype of being socially awkward often communication gets ignored. People with autism want to be able to express their concerns but, they are rarely valued. During the interview, DJ Savarese explained his autism and how his communication was different and required an aide to help him interact with people (Savarese).  One of the questions that were asked during the interview was “what can free people do to help a person with autism” (Savarese). Savarese explained that for him communication was key, typing out the question work for him, looking at him instead of the facilitators and ignoring his voluntary movements (Savarese). Savarese response was important because it showed an example of how listening to a person with a disability is beneficial than just assuming.

Autism affects people in different ways and, serves as another minority background to some people. According to Morenike Giwa Onaiwu Preface: Autistics of Color: We Exist … We Matter, Onaiwu reflects on people of color and how autism reflects them and how sometimes people of color are not seen in the autism community. Onaiwu explains how she personally feels “like a minority within a minority group,” because she is both a person of color and autistic (Onaiwu xiv). Autism for Onaiwu is overlooked because she does not represent the stereotypes of an autistic person (Onaiwu xv). The stereotypes of autism were noted by Onaiwu in the following way: “Autism = (white male presenting) toddler wearing Thomas the Train shirt, Autism = (white male presenting) geeky computer programmer” (Onaiwa xv). As a woman of color Onaiwu felt that there was no space in the autism community for people like her and the autism community only reflected on the white male perspective of autism (Onaiwu xv). Preface: Autistics of Color: We Exist … We Matter provided the voices of people of color with autism with the use of poetry.  One of the poems COBRA Confessions of a Black Aspie went over how autism impacted how people viewed them. The poem reflected this by saying “I’m different from other blacks because I’m autistic…. I’m different from other autistics because I’m black (Onaiwu xviii).” Another piece in Onaiwu work reflected the ableism in the autism community and how one “cannot recognize ableism without recognizing how it is affected by racism.” Onaiwu also, reflected on Dee Phair Unpacking the Diagnostic TARDIS when she reflects on being a mother, a person of color and, autistic. In Phair’s piece, she emphasizes how she is not alone when it comes to autism, being a person of color and a mother and that there is someone in society who goes through the same situations that she goes through (Onaiwu xvi).

Autism is a condition that affects a person in many ways and over the years we have seen people with autism pave the way. For example, Temple Grandin, Donna Williams, and Dawn Prince – Hughes made it possible for audiences to understand autistic lives (Murray 32). Having autistic influences help show society that people with autism can achieve their dreams. Having autistic influences also, help answer some question that non- autistic people have about the disorder and the autism community. In disability studies class we reflected on autism studies and how society tends to take different views on the concept of autism. In class, we went over the advocacy and how autism was treated in the past until today. While studying autism I have personally learned how people interpreted autism differently. Some people only tended to talk about autism medically and some wanting to see autism explained and reflected in the autism community itself. The study of autism has come a long way with the term of a normal person or a normal child. In today’s society advocates encourage people to learn about autism and learn about the people close to them with autism.

As a society, we tend to dream of being normal to be accepted by society and, tend to not explore a person’s unique qualities.  Autism affects each person differently and people should learn and listen to the autism community. Murray, Savarese, Sinclair, and Onaiwu explains how autism affects people differently by their own personal accounts. One autistic person might face a challenge that another autistic may not have to face. Autism does not discriminate and there is no one way of autism. During the end of the day, we can come together and understand autism and how autism itself impacts disability studies.

Word Count: 1357

“I hereby declare upon my word of honor that I have neither given nor received unauthorized help on this work”

Jasmine Williams

Work Cited

Murray, Stuart. Autism,New York: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, 2012.

Onaiwu, Morenike Giwa. Preface: Autistics of Color: We Exist We… Matter, http://courses.chris-foss.net/dislit19/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/giwa-onaiwu.pdf. Access 24, April. 2019.

Savarese, DJ. “Cultural Commentary: Communicate with Me”. Disability Studies Quarterly, vol. 30, no. 1, 2010. http://www.dsq-sds.org/article/view/1051/1237. Accessed 29 April 2019.

Sinclair, Jim. “Don’t Mourn For Us.” ANI Fashion Website, http://www.autreat.com/dont_mourn.html. Accessed 29 April. 2019.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Gem96mYhtUxcBfnNYLzSAJDa_3kYmAEUPNSC0mW3b_8/edit?usp=sharing

(Link is pdf version of paper)

Amanda Smith

ENGL 384

Foss

April 20, 2019

Autistics as Advocates

Autism is often misconceived as a disease that inhibits a person beyond belief. A person that cannot communicate, cannot read social cues, cannot have emotion, cannot be imaginative, and cannot behave normally according to society’s standards. Majority of non-disabled “ablest” people continue to perceive the autistic individual with this misleading view of incompetence as if autism is something of a great tragedy based on the written accounts and experience of ablest. Fortunately, autistic individuals are breaking these bounds made by the ablest with self-advocacy. Making their voices heard and known, more and more autistic people are beginning to publish their own words, emotions, experiences, and views as an individual with Autism. Recent publications by authors with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are showing the world that they and other autistic individuals cannot be defined by the doctor’s prescribed diagnoses or ablest views. Looking at written works by authors D.J. Savarese, Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay, and Craig Romkema it can be seen that these stigmatized characteristics of autistic individuals are not correct. These autistic writers speak up and prove to their audience that they do have emotions, can illustrate a new and unique point of view as a person with this disability, and describe their thoughts and behaviors with imagination and intellect despite the views and labels given to them by the able-bodied society.

Abandoned by his birth parents and presumed incompetent at an early age, David James (D.J.) Savarese found not only a loving family to adopt him but also a life in which he could communicate through a text-to-voice synthesizer. As he makes his way through his education in public schools and faces society’s obstacles of inclusion. Through the determination of fighting society’s standards, D.J. creates his voice through poetry. When D.J writes poetry he explains that “poetry is autistic: it revels in patterned sound. For me, poetry is more natural than spoken language, maybe because I spent so many years hearing it without comprehension” (Savarese, “Poetry”). Throughout his writing, in high-school, he had been working on comprehension of material, one of which was through a poem called “Alaska”.

The poem’s topic was supposed to be about The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, but D.J. took the poem into a different direction of self-advocating. He states, “icebergs hear the cries of the hurt/just like they’re trying really, really to be free” (Savarese lines 1-2). These lines can be interpreted as imaginary illustration of society’s exclusion of D.J. pressing on him, and D.J is calling out, wanting those in his society to listen to him and communicate with him. He personifies society as the cold icebergs and the “hurt” as himself. His dad analyzes D.J’s work and agrees, saying he’s “stag[ing] the problem of separation as one confronting the natural world” (Savarese 279). He is telling society to communicate with him and not be afraid to.

Further, into the poem, D.J shows how his text-to-voice facilitator helping him communicate by saying, “branches they try to yearn freedom but they fear it/trying to get freed points out their great/hurt yearning long, long branches that live” (Savarese lines 6-8). Once again, D.J. is the  “hurt” as a nonverbal autistic individual who has the means to communicate. The branches encapsulate the idea of his facilitator giving him the ability to reach out and connect or socialize with people in society, but they fear it, as he puts it. D.J’s words represent the idea that even though nonverbal autistics cannot talk with their vocals, they have the ability to communicate and hold a conversation by other means. His poem holds a deep emotional meaning with words such as “yearning” (Savarese line 8) and “cries” (Savarese line 2). D.J. has the means to hold emotional, intelligent, and even poetic conversations despite what non-verbal autistics have been labeled as (don’t know how to connect with others, lack of emotions). Through his poetry, D.J demonstrates that he is not defined by his diagnosis and becomes a leading advocate on behalf of other non-speaking autistics. Similar to D.J’s another young poet, Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay, tries to connect with society through his poetry.

At the age of three, Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay was diagnosed with what the medical community would describe as severe or low-functioning autism, a nonverbal communicator. He grew up in India and came to America with his mother, who taught him his reading and writing skills. During his developments in reading and writing, Tito began his writing journey and wrote a series of five poems, one of these in particular called, “Misfit”.

The poem, “Misfit”  is set outdoors in a peaceful environment where men, women, and birds reside, where the earth is “turning and turning/The stars receded, as if/Finding no wrong with anything” (Mukhopadhyay lines 1-3). The narrator, Tito, places himself into this setting and describes his actions with the world around him. Tito says, “Birds flew by all morning/The sky lit/From the earth’s turning and turning/My hands, as usual, were flapping/The birds knew I was Autistic/They found no wrong with anything” (Mukhopadhyay lines 4-9). It can be interpreted that in this section of the poem, Tito is describing his ‘flapping’ as a way of interacting with the birds or expressing his emotions in his own interpretive way. The birds see this and know he is who he is, and see no wrong with his expressions. This is how society should be treating Tito, but instead, they gawking him.

In the lines, “Men and women stared at my nodding/They labeled me a Misfit/(A Misfit turning and turning)” (Mukhopadhyay lines 10-12) The men and women in this section are the society Tito (or autistic people in general) deal with daily. The people are the ones who smack this label of ‘misfit’ onto him while staring at the abnormality of his expression. Tito faces this maltreatment and begins to feel isolated and exclusion as he calls himself a ‘misfit’. By putting the accepting view of the birds first, and the men and women’s reactions last, the next lines become Tito’s self-advocacy.

Tito reflects on what he has just realized and witnessed. He says, “ I found no wrong with anything/Somewhere a wish was rising/Perhaps from between my laughing lips/Why stop turning and turning/When right can be found with everything” (Mukhopadhyay lines 15-19). Here Tito is recognizing the ill behavior of society, but wishing and hoping that people will finally realize there is nothing wrong with the way he and other autistics expresses themselves. The rightness he is talking about is that he is dissimilar from the normalcy that society compares him too. But he is a person too, who is intelligent and can speak for himself. In this poem, Tito is indicating that he is not someone to be excluded, he lives and communicates in the world just as anyone else, and society can find the rightness in this. Just like Tito, Craig Romkema shares his thoughts on the labels he had been identified by.

Craig Romkema had developed a cerebral palsy and movement disorder that made fast typing difficult. He also had sensitivities to sound and light and according to his words, a tendency to act more autistic under stress. He knew that I had great challenges ahead of him as he goes to high school and college (Authors 2011). Through Romkema’s journey through his high school and college career, he faces many opinions, labels, and diagnoses. Through self-reflection, Romkema writes a poem called “Perspectives” talking about what able-bodied people have diagnosed and labels him as. At the beginning of his poem, he is in his room doing nothing but “watching the fluttering/of a pen between my incessant fingers” (Romkema lines 1-3). As he watches himself do action, he recalls what others might have labeled his pen fluttering:

Self-stimulation, some experts call this,

Eastern mystics might call it meditating,

Psychologists used to blame it

On “refrigerator mothers”

Optometrists prescribe special exercises and glasses,

Researchers recommend vitamin A.

From the beginnings of my differentness, I remember

Doctors, students, therapists

Measuring my head,

The tightness of my muscles,

The tracking of my eyes,

The dysfunctions of my stomach (Romkema lines 4-15).

Romkema has had every medical and personal opinion about the way he acts and how they relate to his autism. From what he sees as a normal flicking of the pens between his fingers, what any ablest may consider normal if it were not for his disability, he finds that all his interaction with society has been about labeling him and fixing his ‘differentness’. These lines indicate that the narrator is fully aware of what people are saying; that “others not acknowledging I understood every word” (Romkema line 18). The people believe that he needs to be fixed with vitamins and special exercises. They treat him like an experiment rather than a person as they measure and track the functions of his body. The relationships he has encountered have all been uncompassionate; as a condition rather than a human. Even with his parents, they treated him as if he wasn’t a person, he says that “somehow we would find each other/Connect/The way they could with the sisters and brother/Following me” (Romkema lines 28-31). Nevertheless, Romkema advocates for himself as he describes his experiences and views as an autistic man.

In the next few lines he states, “ I am not only subject/but researcher/Giving valuable feedback/On treatment results/Sharing the inside view/Learning from the outside” (Romkema lines 38-43 ) and also saying that, “now I can type thoughts, questions/Responses/Enter discussions on Shakespeare and/Algebra/Vote, give opinions on government actions/Now my mind is free, is free” (Romkema lines 46-51). He is telling society and the people around him that he is able to communicate, learn, discuss, and give back. He is not defined by his labels given to him from his disability and knows he can be just as capable as any member of society. Now he’s contributed, and self-advocating for himself and contributing to research and his studies. By writing this poem Romkema takes on the role of an advocate for all autistics facing over-diagnosing.

Autism is not a fatal condition and society cannot judge autistics capabilities and capacity for self-insight despite what the doctor’s prescribed diagnoses or ablest views say. D.J. Savarese, Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay, and Craig Romkema’s poems give a voice to autistic individuals that are dealing with the able-bodied repression. By creating these poems, they show that they and others have emotional thoughts and experiences and are able to communicate these intellectual and poetic ways. Not only do they give a voice, but they call out society to tell them that they can communicate, they can hear what is being said about them, and they want to say it’s not true, and they want to be heard.

Works Cited

Savarese, D.J. “Poetry.” Deej, www.deejmovie.com/poetry/.

Savarese. D.J. “Alaska” dis/lit 19, 27 April 2019, http://courses.chris-foss.net/dislit19/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/djs-1.pdf

Mukhopadhyay, Tito Rajarshi. “Five Poems.” Disability Studies Quarterly, dsq-sds.org/article/view/1192/1256.

Authors, JKP. “‘I Am Not a Statistic or a Category…By God’s Grace, I Am.” – Craig Romkema, Graduating Class of 2011.” JKP Blog, 8 June 2011, www.jkp.com/jkpblog/2011/06/art-craig-romkema-college-graduation/.

Romkema, Craig. Embracing the Sky: Poems beyond Disability. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2002.

Word Count: 1,787

I pledge. AJS