Autism Speaks

Autism Speaks is an autism advocacy organization in the United States that sponsors autism research and conducts awareness and outreach activities aimed at families, governments, and the public.

Quotes

 * Sometimes anti-Autistic propaganda is set forth by groups that purport to assist people. For example, the charity Autism Speaks promotes the Tragedy Model of Autism, which is the idea that a diagnosis of autism means certain, unbearable, financial and emotional hardship for the family of the Autistic. A promotional video called “Autism Every Day” includes former executive vice president of Autism Speaks, Alison Tepper Singer, voicing her fantasy to drive her daughter and herself off of the George Washington Bridge. ...
 * The organization stated that non-Autistic parents of Autistics should embrace these types of feelings rather than flee from them or seek help for them. This propaganda creates an attitude of dehumanization; the message is that we are so devastating to abled peoples’ lives that we should be eradicated via whatever means necessary (whether by cure or another method), and that our lives are so miserable they must not be worth living. Sometimes, tragically, this occurs, like the 2006 case of Katie McCarron, a three-year-old Autistic girl in Illinois whose mother was convicted of first-degree murder for suffocating her.
 * Scott Thomas, "Autistics struggle under capitalism," Workers World, Apr 16, 2012