April is Autism Month, which means many things to the ten-plus million people who make up our community in America.  For some, it’s Autism Awareness.  For others, it’s Autism Acceptance.  And there are those who wish for Autism Cure.   We have yet to agree on what we want, or what to stand for, and that holds us back in terms of advocacy.  We also don’t agree when it comes to who’s part of our community.
Some people see the autism community as exclusively autistic people, while others see the community as consisting of autistic people, family members, close friends, and caregivers.  Personally, I embrace that wider membership, but I understand the thinking of those who wish for a narrower definition.
The question of what to seek as a goal is tougher.  Many autistic people feel that we’ve moved beyond awareness and it’s time for acceptance.  I wish that were universally true, but I still see very widespread ignorance of what autism really is, once outside my circle of acquaintances.  The broad public does not know much more about autism than they do about epilepsy or multiple sclerosis, just to name two examples.  As much as I wish otherwise, we still have a public education job ahead of us, to achieve broad and meaningful autism awareness.
True understanding is often said to come with first person experience, but autism is such a broad term that no single person is representative of the whole spectrum. The medical term for that is, "Autism is a very heterogeneous condition."
Autism acceptance has been the goal of self advocates for almost twenty years.  Jim Sinclair asked for acceptance "as we are" back in 1993, but we still have a long way to go to achieve that. Sinclair may have found acceptance, but that’s not true for many of us even now.  Every year a new crop of parents wrestles with acceptance of their newly diagnosed children, and the misalignment between the child of their fantasy or dream, and what appears a hard reality. Some get there quickly; others never do.
Many autistics believe that autism is an inborn neurological difference, and as such, is not subject to cure.  To those of us who hold that view, the healthiest path is to accept the way we are and make the best life we can.   Other autistics reject that idea and hold on to the hope for a cure.
I believe we can hold both views. In many conversations, I have heard how one person’s definition of “cure” seems identical to my definition of “relief of suffering or disability.”  In my opinion, we should all support relief of suffering.  No one should live in fear of epileptic seizures, or suffer from debilitating anxiety or intestinal pain.  We should all support the development of technologies that help nonspeaking autistics communicate with the wider world.  We should also support the development of therapies to help autistic people organize their lives, make friends, and engage society.


In recent years the subject of neurodiversity has risen to the fore.  In simple terms, proponents of the neurodiversity concept posit that autism has been part of the human genome forever, and therefore it must serve an evolutionary purpose.  While I agree with that view I am also quick to point out that does not mean autism is not terribly disabling for many of us.  But if it's "how we were born" or "a way of being" as opposed to an injury or disease, the term "cure" is not really applicable.  To many, "cure" sounds like "getting rid of our kind of people" even as I believe most people mean the word as "relieve their disability."