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runawaybunny
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Dissing the Disabled Without Data: A Biologist Mom Punches Back - Wired
A flurry of articles has emerged in the last few weeks in which mental health professionals voice opinions about developmental disorders without providing scientific evidence to support them. Opinion is fine, except that these articles deliver it as gospel straight from the expert's mouth while not providing an iota of scientific findings as a basis. Because the opinions relate to a developmental disorder in children, these writings carry not only the great weight of being vague and unsupported, but they also carry the even greater weight of damaging real people with real developmental disorders.
In these articles–one in the New York Times and authored by a psychiatrist and the other at the Daily Beast and quoting a handful of mental health practitioners–the tone is that people with an Asperger's diagnosis are just quirky folk who don't have anything sufficiently disabling to be considered to have a disorder. The misunderstanding of diagnostic criteria or even of what Asperger's actually is makes both of these pieces worthless in terms of information. The fact that neither of them quotes a person with Asperger's or the parent of a child with Asperger's means that all the reader gets from them is the bias of the writer.
Each piece works hard, using generalizations and misinterpretations, to make sure that the public will perceive any human being walking around right now with an Asperger's diagnosis as a diagnostic fraud who is undeserving of supports of any kind, who is simply odd or quirky and taking advantage of a 'diagnosis du jour.' In other words, these articles with their clear bias and their lack of factual information do very real harm to real people who really have a developmental disorder. And that pisses me off because one of those people is my son.
A flurry of articles has emerged in the last few weeks in which mental health professionals voice opinions about developmental disorders without providing scientific evidence to support them. Opinion is fine, except that these articles deliver it as gospel straight from the expert's mouth while not providing an iota of scientific findings as a basis. Because the opinions relate to a developmental disorder in children, these writings carry not only the great weight of being vague and unsupported, but they also carry the even greater weight of damaging real people with real developmental disorders.
In these articles–one in the New York Times and authored by a psychiatrist and the other at the Daily Beast and quoting a handful of mental health practitioners–the tone is that people with an Asperger's diagnosis are just quirky folk who don't have anything sufficiently disabling to be considered to have a disorder. The misunderstanding of diagnostic criteria or even of what Asperger's actually is makes both of these pieces worthless in terms of information. The fact that neither of them quotes a person with Asperger's or the parent of a child with Asperger's means that all the reader gets from them is the bias of the writer.
Each piece works hard, using generalizations and misinterpretations, to make sure that the public will perceive any human being walking around right now with an Asperger's diagnosis as a diagnostic fraud who is undeserving of supports of any kind, who is simply odd or quirky and taking advantage of a 'diagnosis du jour.' In other words, these articles with their clear bias and their lack of factual information do very real harm to real people who really have a developmental disorder. And that pisses me off because one of those people is my son.
