The Canadian Autism Climate: Too Cold For Comfort Introduction

www.esteeklar.com
[Ed. This is part of our continuing series on international perspectives.]

I hate to be typical, but I begin the Canadian autism story at the same place as every other autism story a parent will write.

We, what I call, “autism parents,” no matter where we fall on the political autism spectrum, meld together. We all have that universal critical juncture at the time of the autism diagnosis, when are expectations are shattered and an opportunity to forge a new reality begins. It is usually at this point that our journeys may seem similar but can really take off in different directions.

The beginning of the story begins like this: Our children were born, they seemed to develop “normally,” many were deemed anxious by ourselves and our pediatricians as we woke up umpteen times in the night, battling the fatigue of yet another challenging day of trying to “engage” our children in the games that were familiar to us, or soothing their anxiety or tantrums. Instead, we wondered if they were instead geniuses (learning letters and numbers early if they are hyperlexic), if they were deaf (if they didn’t respond), and by the time we expected speech, if something was seriously “wrong.” We simply weren’t sure what we were dealing with. Either by conversation with friends or through a hyper media campaign telling us we have to prevent autism or cure it, or other popular media throwing around the word autism like ADD was once thrown around (s/he is so ADD" to “he’s acting autistic today"), implying that autism is something terribly “wrong,” we got our kids the formal diagnosis through doctors, psychologists and other “autism experts.” As long as children fit within the recent criteria of “symptoms” or “indicators,” as recently drafted in the Diagnosis Statistical Manual as 1993:

1) Impairment in social interaction and communication;
2) Repetitive behaviour
3) Obsessive…

Then, our children were bonefied.

Whatever the entry point into the foray of autism, what lies ahead is largely dictated here in Canada of what the government dictates is the proper autism “intervention.” Based on the notion that autism is a disease or something “wrong,” the government of Canada continues to endorse an intervention promoted by a series of parents in Canada.

This government-stamped intervention is Applied Behavioural Analysis or ABI (Applied Behavioural Intervention). Based on a history of viewing cognitive disability as an illness, a human deficiency, and of treating Canadians with cognitive disabilities as less than human in our own history, the Canadian Government has continued to base its autism policy not in the social model, but in this deficiency or medical model. As a result, we have continued segregation of autistic citizens in every aspect of our communities, no matter how hard we try to employ the principals of diversity and Inclusion. As long as we continue to view autistic people as requiring an intervention to make them “better,” our system can never claim that it accepts diverse citizens.

The next post will examine the current autism climate in Canada. As autistic children continue to be surveilled in order to purportedly measure the success of ABI in Canada, I cannot help get shivers down my spine.