Down the Rabbit Hole
This is a personal message from the site administrator, Bonnie Ventura.
Until recently, I’m sure no one would have described me as a political activist or seen any likelihood of my becoming involved in an international civil rights campaign. I thought of myself as a fairly typical suburban American “soccer mom” with a happy marriage, two healthy school-age kids, a professional career in the publishing industry, and a comfortable home in a nice subdivision. Life seemed very good indeed.
Then I got an unexpected letter from the school principal, asking me to read an enclosed article on Asperger’s syndrome and to consider having my son evaluated. I couldn’t imagine what might have prompted that suggestion, given that my son had always performed very well on schoolwork and standardized tests. Although he had a few nervous mannerisms, he seemed to be quite well adjusted socially, much more so than I had been at his age.
After I read the enclosed material, it still made no sense to me. The quirky but obviously intelligent children described in the article certainly didn’t appear to have anything wrong with their development. I came to the practical conclusion that, whatever it was, I didn’t need to worry about it, and I put the disability evaluation form in the shredder.
I must still have been pondering it subconsciously, however, because I found myself thinking more about my own childhood over the next several months. As a precocious reader with a vivid imagination, I had a great love of books. Fictional characters such as Alice and the Red Queen, Peter Pan, and Heidi seemed almost as real as the people around me. I saw the world as a magical place where one might, at any moment, be whisked away on fascinating adventures.
When I started school, I was identified as a gifted child because of my advanced reading ability and was skipped ahead two grade levels. Somehow, all through my school years, I never quite seemed to fit in with the other students. I had little interest in my classmates’ activities and often daydreamed, wandered off, or sat quietly in a corner with a book. I didn’t understand why teachers found this so worrisome. After I matured enough to reflect on the possible reasons for my behavioral differences, I naturally assumed that my social awkwardness was the result of having been two years younger than my classmates, in addition to the stress of my parents’ divorce.
Although I hadn’t seen any reason to question that assumption in the past, I became curious as to whether some of my unusual childhood behaviors might have had neurological origins. I took what seemed the logical step of searching for online information about autism and Asperger’s syndrome. When I saw the extremely negative stereotypes pervading the Web, I was appalled.
I soon realized that, like a modern-day Alice in Wonderland, I had tumbled down the rabbit hole into a bizarrely twisted world in which large numbers of bright, creative children with uniquely capable minds were being described as mentally impaired and genetically defective. And they were, in many respects, very much like I had been as a child.
Other autistic advocacy sites have made the point that, if such historical geniuses as Einstein and Newton were growing up today, they would probably be placed in special-needs classes, dosed with behavioral control medications, and treated as if they would be lucky to find even the most menial job. It’s a point that bears repeating, along with this question: How many of the potential geniuses of the 21st century are, at this moment, languishing in classrooms for the mentally disabled, believing that they are incapable of any accomplishments whatsoever?
Sounds very much like the plot of some dismal science fiction story, doesn’t it?
And yet, this is the real world, not fiction; we can’t just turn the page and go back to our comfortable lives. If we do nothing, if we fail to act, then this will be the world in which our grandchildren grow up or, God forbid, in which our grandchildren are routinely aborted when prenatal testing reveals the genetic markers for autism. It will be a world in which genius has been eradicated, mediocrity and conformity are exalted, independent thought is a disorder, personal integrity is an impairment, and diversity is a disease to be cured.
Take a stand… for our future.