In the early two thousands, at the turn of the millenium, we saw a sharp upswing in autism diagnosis. Was it because there was a greater awareness of the phenomenon, or could it have been that the greater awareness was a result of a real epidemic of global proportions? It might have been a little of both. As more and more very young children were receiving an autism diagnosis, more and more parents were researching the subject, and many of them discovered that they themselves had a milder version of their children’s condition: they had high functioning autism, known as Asperger’s Syndrome.
In 2001 I moved with my two year old daughter to a remote location in rural Missouri, in preparation for an ape language experiment. I was planning to adopt a baby chimpanzee and to bring it up with my daughter, in a cross-fostering environment calculated to allow the chimpanzee to pick up human language naturally, in an environment of total immersion.
Before we arrived in Missouri, my daughter and I had been living in Taiwan. My daughter had had a nanny who spoke to her in Mandarin Chinese, and I spoke to my daughter in Hebrew. It was only when she started going to preschool in the United States that my daughter picked up English.
The language experiment with Bow, the chimpanzee that I adopted, originally used lexigrams in Mandarin, Hebrew and English.
At the time when I adopted Bow, it was believed by many that chimpanzees lacked a theory of mind, and that in that sense they were like autistic individuals. (This is not actually true. Chimpanzees have an excellent theory of mind, much better than that of most neurotypical human beings.) Because of this belief, I started researching therapies for autistic children, and I came across Stanley Greenspan‘s Floortime DIR.
Floortime required caretakers of a child to get down on the floor on the same level as the child and to try to see the child’s point of view, while gently enticing the child to join the caretaker in as many circles of communication as the child was able. Instead of coercing behaviors that were desired by a rough system of punishment and reward, as was done in the competing treatment system called ABA, Floortime used lighthearted play sessions and enticement. ABA used operant conditioning to brainwash a subject into behaving as the caretaker desired. Floortime did not use coercion. It fostered genuine, spontaneous communication between the caretaker and the child.
Floortime worked with Bow. He did learn to communicate with us, and because of this, Bow is able to continue to live in my home to this very day, when he is 22 years old, going on 23.
In the meanwhile, as I was learning about autism, it did occur to me, based on an analysis of my life history, that I may have been on the spectrum. I never got a diagnosis, nor did I ever seek special accommodations. It was just somewhat satisfying to think that many misunderstandings in the past may have stemmed from clashes with neurotypicals, who viewed life through a hypersocial lens, believing that one can negotiate a shared reality through enforced social consensus. I likened the neurotypicals to Ayn Rand’s social metaphysicians, who could not determine truth or falsity of propositions except by reference to a social yardstick. Neurotypicals were altruists, in that they let others think for them, while autistics were autoists, individuals who thought for themselves.
And then one day, Asperger’s was cancelled! The diagnosis entirely disappeared from the DSM. Why? The initial response is that it was because Hans Asperger was a Nazi. However, this response is highly unsatisfactory, because to the extent that Asperger was a Nazi, he had always been a Nazi. Nothing about his Nazi affiliation changed in the new millenium. Why were we told Asperger’s syndrome was a diagnosis in the year 1994? Why did it become a non-diagnosis in 2013?
Hans Asperger was an Austrian psychiatrist who collaborated with the Nazis when they took over his country after the Anschluss. By creating a special category of autistics who were high functioning — Asperger’s Syndrome — he saved many children from certain death. However, he did not save all the children. Those who were nonverbal and low functioning ended up at another clinic where many were “euthenized.”
Is Asperger evil because he did not save all the children from the Nazis? Or was it good that he was at least able to save some of them? And if he discovered a real psychiatric phenomenon, does it matter whether Asperger was good or evil? Are we going to change the name of every diagnosis based on fluctuating views about the personality of the scientist who discovered it?
The Left is constantly looking to level real differences between individuals, while co-opting every label to serve their own collectivist agenda. Today on social media we see many so-called autistic influencers who are very social, well groomed and manipulative. They assert that autism is a disability, and anyone who does not need accommodations need not apply for a diagnosis. The diagnosis is merely a ticket to another form of identity politics, allowing for government funding and differential treatment of individuals.
Something that was once a doorway to self-understanding by individuals with unusual levels of autonomy from social pressure has now turned into another weapon of mass manipulation. It is not surprising, under these circumstances, that the government funds the oppressive ABA therapies and entirely ignores Floortime DIR.
