The article, Why Autistic People Are Using #Actuallyaustistic on Social Media by Atty Altay, points out that social media has become huge in our life. Hashtags also played an enormous role in allowing activists to spread campaigns on the internet. For years, the arena of Autism rights activism has been dominated by “Autism Mom.” The “Autism Mom” is the neurotypical parents of Autistic children, mothers, and fathers who understand Autism from an outside perspective without knowing what it feels like to be Autistic. Many research is focused on the parents of Autistic children while Autistic people can communicate in some way, whether through speech, sign language, or assistive technologies.
The paradigm isn’t the parent’s fault; society teaches them that Autism is inherently bad.
From the article, The Trailer for Sia’s “Music” Hurts Autistic Girls Like Me by Charlotte Gush. In the reading, “It’s important to understand that, per the commonly accepted ‘social model’ of disability, it isn’t the Autism that disables an autistic person, but the fact that the world is designed for people who function differently than us, namely the non-autistic ‘neuronormative’ majority.” The stereotype always exists. Still, some stereotype has monopolized the public conception. From Sia’s new project, she said it is a “love letter to caregivers and the autism community.” But in her new movie, her Autistic character is not acted by an Autistic actor. And she said her movie is not an exoticizing penchant for disabled people; she always had a thing for people with unique abilities. But not every Autistic is a genius. Savant abilities are, in fact, rare in autistic people, as they are in the non-autistic population.
In the readings, we saw so many stereotypes online that can mislead people’s recognition of a particular group, such as Autistic People. I thought the stereotype punished many other minority groups. So the research is primarily essential. They call out for us representations that push beyond the stereotype.
