The recent media attention is, despite being non-hostile, quite grueling. I am very introverted by nature and am not used to this kind of thing — it feels like a necessary evil to get a message out, and I find myself wishing I didn’t have to be the messenger. I am not sure how much I will post in the near future. (I might post something about the story itself, though.)

A few conversations on a few different blogs recently have reminded me the degree to which many autistic people, and people involved with autistic people, are unaware of the various ways of viewing disability (as different from each other or even as existing), and the various stereotyping that exists.

The following links are by no means perfect (in a whole slew of ways), but they might provide an interesting start:

Models of Disability deals with the common frameworks people see disability in. Another one called Models of Disability. A Physical Challenge for the Media describes common stereotypes (they’re not really just media stereotypes) of disabled people. This page has even more stereotypes listed.

I’m posting this because every single one of these applies to autistic people and our portrayals in some way, but is not unique to autistic people at all. I see a lot of conversations that basically fail to acknowledge the other person is coming from a totally different model of disability (or even that more than one model can exist), or that take the form of “Oh, if you’re not an Inspirational Supercrip, then you must be a Bitter Cripple or a Menace to Society,” and so on and so forth.