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Month: November 2018

The Misrepresentation of Neurodiversity

The Misrepresentation of Neurodiversity

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I’ve previously argued that the pathology paradigm is in crisis and that the neurodiversity paradigm is ready to replace the obsolete pathology paradigm.  I’ve argued that we’re in a period of paradigm shift.  And I stand by those words.  However, there one more thing that we have to do before the paradigms can shift: we have to agree on what the pathology and neurodiversity paradigms are. Paradigms are grand theories that dictate the fundamental assumptions we use to approach some…

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What’s the Point of Social Skills?

What’s the Point of Social Skills?

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Just to be clear, despite the title, I’m not questioning the idea that social skills are real or useful. No, instead I’m asking why social skills are useful.  What is their purpose? It’s not a pointless or stupid question, because I can think of at least a couple of good answers: They are useful for building and maintaining friendships, social connections that are valuable because of their inherent worth; or They are useful for instrumental social interactions: for use in…

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Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Why Do Some People Believe?

Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Why Do Some People Believe?

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There are still people who believe in the most bizarre “cures” for autism.  We see stories about the continued use of chelation (which reportedly has the rather nasty side-effect of occasionally killing people) and bleach “MMS” (ditto).  Some of these complementary and alternative treatment approaches seem so utterly bizarre as to be completely devoid of any vestiges of logic, reason, or science: I once had a parent earnestly tell me that giant magnets under her autistic child’s bed were essential…

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The Autism Epidemic – Why Now?

The Autism Epidemic – Why Now?

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I’ve previously written about the “autism epidemic” and why I think it all just reflects better diagnosis rather than an actual increase in the true incidence of autism.  However, this still leaves us with an interesting question: what exactly happened to increase rates of diagnosis? The diagnosed prevalence of autism has been increasing for a long time, but one big change was the emergence of the idea of so-called “high functioning” autism in the 1980s.  Before then, autism had been…

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Falsifiability, Resources, and School Placements

Falsifiability, Resources, and School Placements

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I want to deal with a possible objection to my views on educational placement (which you can find described here). I think the universal inclusionists – those who want all children to be educated in the mainstream – use rhetorical trickery to paper over the weaknesses in their arguments.  They define “inclusion” as being a state in which all students are meaningfully and fully included as part of a mainstream school community.  Any case where a student is not meaningfully…

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