AutismWeb Forum

I have just discovered Michelle Dawson, who claims to be an "expert" regarding autism, based on her own self confession of having "aspergers". (never verified, as far as i can see, self confessed autistic)

I havent found any information regarding her diagnosis being "official" yet she seems to speaks for thousands of people with aspergers and is a sort of "role model" for the "aspies for freedom" gang and many others. I wonder whether she is autistic or if she has merely jumped on the "autism" bandwagon to make a "name" for herself. People flock to her like moths to a light bulb and I personally don't get it because she really seems to be anti parent, anti intervention, and anti everything really.

You may have guessed she is inured with the "neurodiverse" (whew been there, done that on this board already) people and that interventions of any kind, particularly biomed and ABA are harmful and even life threatening.

Just thought she would be interesting as a topic as she is all over the internet with thousands of "followers", some who do so blindly, in my opinion. She is a canadian as far as i know, maybe some of the canadian posters know of her, and her anti ABA/biomed stance. Here is her affidavit to the Canadian Supreme Court against a family(s) who were fighting for ABA funding in the province of British Columbia, Canada. http://www.sentex.net/~nexus23/naa_sup.html

What would possess a woman, clearly who has no comprehension of having children, or being a parent, to argue in the supreme court against ABA, particularly against families who wanted to make their own educational choices for their children? Loathsome really. Tons of excuses by Ms Dawson are on her website as to why her "affidavit" was necessary and why this particular court challenge was a victory for persons with autism? Ugh. Parents obviously are under immense pressure in Canada.

I have to say that it wouldnt be hard for a person to feign being autistic (aspergers) if having aspergers is anything like "this" woman's aspergers, particularly if there was something in it for them, like adoration, or being a secret pawn of the government, employed to shoot down parents asking for help?? hmmm? There is so much information out there now on what it is "like to be autistic, particularly aspergers autistic). This woman, if autistic at all, is clearly "high functioning" and has no place dictating to parents, or messing with their heads, when their children are nothing like her. I suppose in the face of social exclusion and ignorance, coupled with the legacy of terrible treatment of persons with autism, that she is a beacon of light to those who are unhappy with their experience or the state of affairs. I don't have a problem with that at all. In fact I would applaud anyone to fight for the rights of persons with the label of autism.

What I take issue with is that she offers nothing to parents like me for my child except "leave him be", no ABA, no biomed, no behavioral intervention at all. Not that i would listen to this woman anyway.

She should come to my house for the day, particularly after my son has had a large bowel movement and spread it all over the walls and carpet, and then stuff it in his mouth, or watch him pull his hair right out of his head. At one point he was totally bald at the front. Or watch him run from me when i let go his hand, in front of passing cars. If we all listened to Michelle Dawson, our kids could die. Neurodiverse, my backside. Nothing neurodiverse about that. I dont recall "SHE" had these problems as a child, from reading about her. Clearly the woman has an axe to grind, i can't figure out her motives beyond that, but i have a good idea.

british columbia a province within canada has strange standards and lack of real/significant programming and funding for not only autistic children but special needs in general and many are flocking to special needs friendly/rich alberta where funding is here assesible and gov. sponsored. the private schools are not outrageous and overall health care and standard of living is in a better state. each province has different rules and regulations regarding intervention funding and programs which senate is trying to regulate to be country wide rather than per province but so far as in all political pushes for reform... it sits. as for this gal... never heard of her but you may have noticed i have a real problem with others telling anyone how to raise a child regardless of handicap or not. this whole nd thing has sort of a cult like auora to it with the leader being the strong dominant know better than you, do whats right for the group and not for you and your family regardless if the circumstances are similiar to the aspergers type or not. wanting to belong and having difficulties in todays society are understandable but to be forcing a group of similiar people to hold your beliefs and standards as gospel is cult like no matter how you look at it. if they were to say who is forcing? well... taking a supreme court stance and lawsuit with a family and condeming their right under the canadian constitution to choose therapy/help for their child is by nature "forcing". if one court can judge then whats next? a city? then a province? then a country bowing to the standard set by someone who may only be right in her views for her own needs or those so very similiar to her but not the group of autistics as a whole. i have never read a blog and never intend to ever. the subjects and any dealings ive read here seem farthest away from the standards i want my son to grow up posessing, to live with confidence and assurity in who you are no matter how much you accomplish is to NOT follow the crowd per say and that goes for if you are autistic or not. more troubles and dissapointments come from being a puppet/follower when it comes to finding a place in the world and knowing you count for something regardless of your strengths and weaknesses. a searcher for the you, you want to be will mean distinguishing between you as part of a group and you personally and this is life wether nt or autistic. so it is disturbing to think this movement is gaining popularity and strength from a certain end of the spectrum group of individuals and that they try to speak for the whole of peoples on the spectrum especially when it all derives from their perspective and probably truth that the aspies can be just fine without any intervention at all. but in no way can they or do they know this to be truth for others being on the opposite side or even somewhere in the middle of the spectrum and besides that, regardless of spectrum diagnoses we all have the God given thing of uniqueness and difference from every other living being on earth so really no one is 100% completely like anyone else in thoughts, likes, wants, needs etc. etc. even if they were on the same end of the spectrum or similiar. that is the joy of being human and i consider this to be exploitation of the end of the spectrum that may or may not comprehend fully the consequences of following such positions on human rights matters and is shameful and wrong to decieve the vunerable and less capable of making informed consent to hold the same viewpoint as them. with the growing number of influences like this to our children that can alter their mindset is akin to peer pressure in a way and we better be just as parents to nt children,ON GAURD.

2boy2 eloquent as ever! I dont think there is anything to add to that!!

Well, I say hell with them, too. As you said, many Asbergers kids and adults have never suffered from the more severe autistic symptoms and behaviors - the running off, the smearing, the head banging and whatever else we can come up with.

We know a family with an Asberger's son who just didn't look at you and made strange comments ..that was about it. No one really judged him to be anything but a little bit different . .she did not have to cope with severe autism - just a quirky little kid. He did everything else that his other three brothers did ..no one new any different. Now, to contrast that with my child who tantrummed, had severe GI problems, didn't speak, etc. . ..there's a huge difference.

I'm sorry, but if my docs and I discover that my child is defiecient in certain vitamins and minerals, I'm going to treat that. To not treat it is like not treating malnutrition. If my son is speech delayed, we're going to treat the problem, not let him go unintelligible. We will "fix" what we can and what is entirely fixable. Whatever we can't, we will accept, but just about most of it is treatable.

She was dx'ed with Autistic Disorder, not Aspergers Disoreder.

If one wants to know why she opposed treatment for autistics, then one should ask. I can attest she will speak with anyone.

Actually that's not true. I have been to a discussion forum where she is the leader of the pack, and they ousted anyone who disagrees with her calling them liars and sick. Do i have to post this here?? or do you take my word for it. She dosent do the name calling, she gets her minions to do it for her. Their zeal and blind trust of her is really something to behold. Nothing new here. When people feel pushed into a corner, all they need is someone who has a big mouth and plenty of time and energy and whammo, a star is born.

Michelle Dawson coupled with the ND crowd are hardly an adversary of those who believe in behavioural and biomedical interventions because their arguments, from what i have seen, have been laughable, not laudable. But, i suppose you can fool some of the people all the time.

I can just as easily make up a fake name, call myself "autistic" and be a proponent of the same stuff. In Michelle's case, it either boils down to money, or self infatuation and aggrandizement, coupled, perhaps with a woman who really needs some psychological counselling.

Sad really, even sadder that people are beguiled by her. But, apparently people with aspergers have difficulties with figuring out people's true intentions? If this is true, she has built a career on it. My opinion anyway.

Yes, she's (officially, several times over) diagnosed with autism, not Asperger's. And she's an autism researcher, co-author of several important papers in fact. She was in a video on autism years ago -- they wanted to portray someone who was a "failure" rather than a "success story", and she was the "failure" they picked.

Here's a link to her interview recently along with one of her fellow researchers:

http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/archives/06-07/oct07.html

They do research into autistic people, not as non-autistic people with things added and subtracted, but as something different in our own right.

Many people have only heard about her through smear campaigns, whose purpose was, as far as possible, to minimize her connection to "real" autism, to cast doubt on her credibility, and to make people assume the worst about her motivations. She has withstood all of that as well as she could, and continues to work as a respected autism researcher.

She's also had a lot to say, and very eloquently and thoroughly, about her opinion of the ethics of certain very specific autism "treatments," and this has earned her a lot of enemies, but does not mean that she's all that some of the less scrupulous of those enemies claim she is.

I was around to watch the smear campaigns start and they were pretty breathtaking but almost totally untrue. And often based upon demonstrably untrue stereotypes of what an autistic person would and would not do -- at one point, for instance, there was a newsletter issue that claimed that she was not autistic because she spoke in public (and autistic people apparently never speak in public), and then at the end it quoted an autistic boy doing public speaking and did not question his diagnosis because he agreed with the author of the article. That's how obviously contradictory people got in their rush to basically make up falsehoods about her.

Also, by the way, she has visible scars from self-injury, head-bangs a good deal, cannot cook or take public transit, in general is very limited in everyday living skills, etc. I know several people who have met her. Maybe you ought to meet her before making such strong accusations about what she does and does not know anything about.

I have rarely seen anyone targeted so nastily or so viciously as I have seen Michelle targeted -- and there's a word for that particular kind of targeting, defamation of character. But, the way we're all portrayed as cult followers and so forth is nothing new. I can remember when it was Laura Tisoncik getting those accusations, because she had dared to say something against a parent group that was excluding autistic people, and so they made all of the autistic community sound as if we were all following her and had no minds of our own (cute rhetorical trick for diminishing people without having to argue against their ideas, but totally untrue).

And I can remember it being... just a whole string of people, of which Michelle Dawson is only one. It's an interesting habit over the years, of people basically, when confronted with the autistic community, refusing to believe that we are a community, and pulling out one representative almost at random (maybe the most visible) as if that person is "leading" us all somehow.

By the way, there have only been two "autistic" people that have been uncovered as definitely faking something. One was a journalist posing as an autistic moderator on a discussion board, and not very high-profile. The other was a 40-something speaking woman who claimed to be a 25-year-old non-speaking man and there was even a video published of her emails under the premise that she really was this 25-year-old man, and then a poem published as if this person existed as well. Her views, far from being neurodiversity, tended towards the autism-as-tragedy side, so people who believe in cures don't like to bring her up, or else go on quoting her as if all this never happened.

But Michelle Dawson is the real thing. She had to be diagnosed by a wide number of people who stood up to a lot of scrutiny for legal reasons. And she's diagnosed with autism, not Asperger's. People just assume "Asperger's" when they see a sufficiently intellectually bright autistic person (which is actually a prejudice about non-AS autistic people). But it's also very easy to see things about her, even in her speech and writing, that to my knowledge are impossible for a non-autistic person to fake (certain levels of strain with language that are visible to another autistic person often even if not to anyone else). Also it is likely that during the diagnostic process, especially given where she works, she was subjected to tests that not only measure weaknesses in autistic people but also strengths. Those strengths are impossible to fake. (I have taken some of those tests, and also have those particular strengths, but, yeah, not possible for a non-autistic person to suddenly do as spectacularly in those areas and patterns as an autistic person would.)

It seems to me that Michelle Dawson could take a lesson from herself on "acceptance." To "accept" that parents of autistic kids who have treatable co-morbid issues have a right and will exercise their right to treat these conditions regardless of her opinion.
What right does she have to attempt deny these parents of the funding necessary to help their child before the child grows up and becomes dependent on public funds in order to survive?
If ABA is the only PROVEN treatment to help autistic kids, then she has too much nerve to stand in the way of a treatment that she herself NEVER NEEDED.
The very thought of Ms. Dawson filing a lawsuit and causing additional stress to these parents lives on top of the difficulties that they already face everyday shows her lack consideration for this family. This is a slap in the face they don't need and has the potential to push them over "the edge."
She should definately mind her own business when it comes to other peoples autistic children unless she'd like to offer some respite care or grab rag and help clean up the smelly artwork on the walls.

Thank you, Diane.

In particular, thank you for arguing with her viewpoints instead of her existence.

(It gets tiring to prove your own existence, as I'm well aware for other reasons: In Michelle's case she has to prove she's autistic, in my case I have to prove I can write.)

But, I think that autistic people have the right to stand up for our viewpoints about autism, right or wrong. Parents already have the right to stand up for their viewpoints about autism, right or wrong, and they're far more separated from autism than we are.

When I disagree with other autistic people, my approach is to state why I disagree with them, rather than assume that because they are autistic people, they should have no say in setting policy about autistic people. Autistic people are often pretty much the only people left out of policy discussions affecting autistic people, and we should be allowed to make our points the same as anyone.

I know a 40-something autistic woman who has frequently commented that "It's very strange at my age to watch other people's parents, some of whom are young enough to be my children themselves, making policy decisions that affect me or others like me, and be not allowed to comment because I'm 'not a parent'."

Hi gtto,

You said:



Is this 40 year old woman interested in doing ABA therapy? How is the fact that a 3 year old autistic child could be provided a therapy or biomed to help them function independently in life directly affecting HER life?
I can tell you if she's depending on public assistance in ANY way, she should be concerened that these little children of 3 years and younger make as many improvements in their lives as they can.

Otherwise, their won't be enough "public" money to go around to take care of YOU (if you receive any public assistance) or her when these children become adults and their parents die. Have you considered this fact at all with your neurodiversity opinion? Do you realize that middle class Americans are already paying 30 to 40% of their income in taxes? Where is this money going to come from?

Gtto, You brought this up before on this board (the 40-something autistic woman), and I did a search of the complaints against her by bloggers. Are you saying this person, MM, is not really autistic, or only that she's wrong to publish under the literary persona of a younger, nonverbal man? She apparently does become nonverbal for periods of time, and she wouldn't be the first author to take the persona of the opposite gender. Why are some bloggers so angry with her? Nonautistic people publish under fake names and use literary personas to convey their experiences. Why is it considered awful when an autistic person does it?



There are autistic people who no longer engage in self-injury, who can cook and have learned many useful everyday (and academic) skills through the very treatment (ABA) that Miss Dawson is trying to deny other autistic people. How sad that she feels a need to prevent other people from being taught with a proven method. All people have a right to be taught in the way that is most effective for their learning style. I didn't understand why anyone would feel a need to interfere with a child's right to a free appropriate education. After reading her affivadit, it appears that she is using this child and his education as a political platform to make some points about Canadian society. How unfortunate for this child and his family.

Hi gtto

I understand your point about the need to respect the opinions of autistic adults ( and I do). I can disagree with you - or with Michelle (And I DO) but I can tell you why and how, and I have tried with her. I remember a strong- and Long ( you know my style ) attempt to explain that I am not against autistic adults , that I accept and love my autistic son differences but I want to help him to have the best health he can have,to be the best autistic he can be- not neurotypical. Once and again, she returned with accusations to me to be unscientific and unethics, even when I explained her that this was extremely unfair to me.

I wonder if many times what you read with some ideas in mind I read with another predisposition and my understanding is different. This is a world of perceptions and what I see is a misunderstanding of my intentions, my motivations and my feelings by autistic adults and I wonder how many times the same happens with researchers- beyond the situations where you see without doubt some kind of language.
I am very surprised by the context- and the extrapolation- many times I see of the reading-especially scientific reading- by autistic adults.Even when I have tried to explain my understanding it has been over and over misleaded as incorrect/unethical- and honestly I do not think so- Because the same attitude has had very helpful consequences for my son´s health. When I read imbalance -biochemical- I do not feel as offensive but an oportunity to explore and to decrease physical disconfort autistic people can have- properly tested and diagnosed not to change/erradicate the autism per se. How are you going to change genes?
I wonder if the kind of language that science has is not producing a very negative form of approach because of this different understanding and the lack of the mental/emotional knowledge//empathy with the other´s feelings- and the preassumption of several attitudes as for sure.
And surely I udnerstand that autistic adults can feel offended by the language used to describe autistics because I feel the same.
For me I am my son´s advocate, for all the levels of him: his mind, his soul and his biochemistry- but this by no means imply the lack of acceptation of the autistic human being he is but the need to help him to be the best autistic he can be-. not neurotypical - but the most healthy he can be and I found not ethical problem in this. But this position is simply discarded as inexistent or misunderstood consistently as matched with the most or even slightly extremists views-that I do not share.
I wonder if we can move ahead with empathy to be the rule and with the understanding that many parents doing biomedical.- even if you do not believe it- have the same acceptance and love to our children that the parent advocating for neurodiversity. I am one of them. What we differ in -many of us- is in the elections of treatments because of our clinical search/findings (even if they are anecdotic for science or unpublished)-beyond and also with the educational/traditional therapies ones- not in the love/acceptance of our autistic children.

I do think that our role as parents is extremely important in the mental and emotional health of our children. And I want to prepare/learn me the best to this process. But I also think that, in the same way that I acknowledge your rights to all the consideration and respect of every of us I have the right to be respected and to ask for even if my ideas are not the same. I consider that many times the word negotiation is absent but do not you think that in the growing up we all must learn to negotiate socially? And the only basis of this process is the interest in the others´s true feelings and motivations and not the mental constructions about the other´s feelings and motivations- many times affected by own perceptions of the world that are very affected by personal experiences?
Therefore effort and negotiation - socially speaking- obviously not only from society in general for accomodation but for true understanding from autistic adults AND non-autistic adult (parents or not) is what I see absent in general.
I understand what you say but also the advocacy is much more to give yourself the permission to say anything to anyone of anyway. Because the effect is the contrary, even if the intentions are loable or important because there is no objectivity behind, even if the defense of human rights are involved and the behaviors or words must be understood in context. And there are a lot of autism advocates that unfortunately have this style. And many of the problems they talk about are real and urgent and important to consider and I agree with them in theory sometimes but I disagree with them in the style/tone or in the practice and with the free aggresion/offense to people thinking different- including obviously me.
We need the best advocacy possible in autism, with passion and commitment but also beyond the criticism as much as possible because the message is then almost lost in the anger and the important is not seen many times, lost in the personal attack.
And you are a very good- excellent is a better word- role model for me, because I have never seen this kind of interaction, even if you can be politically incorrect you have never been aggresive in advance for free.
In autism, for all of us,- parents, researchers, organizations and yes, autistic adults IMHO- it matters what is said how is said and when is said and I would include, based on what and to who (and this is crucial). In a world of perceptioin, the interest in the other´s feelings and positions is for me the first step of true understanding...and therefore advocacy is productive because you can get true commitment to a real advocacy for human rights of autistic people of all ages, involving ALSO parents actively.

What do you think?
Ma Luján

I'm saying that she's wrong to take the literary persona of a younger, non-speaking man. There's a line there that shouldn't be crossed.



Fake names are fine, pretending to be a whole other person (and in particular with certain traits that she does not have, that comprise some very specific lines of power and credibility, rightly or wrongly, in the autism and autistic communities), is fraught with problematic power dynamics. It would be the same if I chose a "literary persona" who was an autistic person of color -- the specific traits she chose are not neutral ones in so many respects.

As someone who was something approaching a 25-year-old nonspeaking woman at the time that all this was happening, I did not appreciate having an image of a person like me put out there by someone who had not lived a life like mine. It was little better to me, power-wise, than a non-autistic person with an autistic "literary persona" writing about autism, even though there's a good chance that MM really is autistic. Also, it seems strange to me that at some times she claims to just BE that "persona", other times she claims that "persona" is a co-author outside of herself. Why the co-author business?

(For an example of a non-autistic person with an autistic "literary persona":

http://www.members.tripod.com/davidrich7/howto.htm

And yes, I consider that seriously problematic despite agreeing with some of the message.)

And that, rather than the pseudonym (she hasn't even always used a pseudonym, just a different persona -- and "Jim Sinclair" is a pseudonym after all) is what makes it hard for me to trust her in other respects.



She believes (and has scientific reasons for believing) that ABA hinders the most common autistic (and for that matter, non-autistic) learning style, and suppresses autistic people's greatest learning strengths. But it would be better to argue that with her, not me.

Respect,



I have disagreed more with Michelle and longer on that forum than anyone. I have never been called a sicko or a liar by her or anyone on that forum.

I contrast this with how I have been referred to here among other places.

Yes Respect, I think you should post there, provided you can keep to the argument.



They are minions? Wow, does Michelle know this? Do the minions know this?

Just because soemone is a regular poster to forum doesn’t mean that they are “minions”, else wise we are moderatorbills minions. Is someone going to tell Bill about this?



Know you, I have disagreed and still disagree with Michelle a lot. However the above argument doesn’t address a single one of her points, it makes a blanket statement.



This is just an ad hominem and should have no place on this forum.



Again where is the refutation? This is just a blanket statement.

Lookingforanswers,



She did not try to deny people ABA, she opposed a legal case that would have equated ABA with medically necessary treatment. I am an ABA person I also disagree with such an equation. It would also mean that autism=medical illness in and of itself.

She makes no such distinction in her affidavit, which incidentally is all about herself and not about the child in question. Thus my point: this was a platform for expressing political views unconnected the reality of a child and his education.

Thanks for explaining your viewpoint. I've seen no evidence that MM isn't autistic. Apparently she was diagnosed in childhood.

My viewpoint is that this is what literature is: people writing in personas to tell stories they believe to be true in a figurative sense. Is it "strange" that she claims to be a 25-year-old nonverbal man inside, while other times she insists that person is outside herself? Maybe (I'm not a psychologist). Should she find a more graceful and transparent way of presenting this literary persona to the world? Probably, especially if people feel they were fooled into thinking this was nonfiction.

Can someone who is socially identified as female imagine life as a man? Jim Sinclair, whom you mentioned, writes about being intersexed. Gender identity is not necessarily related to chromosomes.

Can a 40-year-old imagine life as a 25 year old? Yes (probably fondly). Can a woman who is capable of speech but is mute for long periods imagine life as someone who doesn't speak? I would think so.

I appreciate your explanation on why some members of the autistic community are so down on MM.

Lookingforanswers,



Supreme courts are probably the right place for expressing political views. The parents expressed them, and the Attorney General of Canada did too, and so did Michelle.

The argument at the Supreme Court of Canada was not just in favor of getting ABA for one child, but an entire group of persons. The outcome of that case, no matter which way it went would be broader than that child/family. Her case was deeply connected to this reality.

I would imagine that any opposition she has to ABA is based on the image of old skool ABA and not the ABA that many of us are familiar with. Alex has an ABA therapist, but to the untrained eye, she appears to be just playing with him. He has a great time with her. Old skool ABA is/was miserable and emotionally damaging to many autistic students.

"ABA," much like "bio-med" or "neurodiverse" means many things to many people. I'm just trying to understand why some people are so outraged by what she has to say and some people think she is fighting the good fight.