A couple of years ago I had the opportunity to provide a presentation regarding Neurodiversity at the 10th Annual Nurturing Developing Minds Conference. I was not aware of the fact that anybody had retained a copy of the slides nor did I have a copy of the same. However, a link to the same appeared in my Wikipedia page and I thought the same could be of interest to our readers. The lecture covered the first 32 slides but I usually bring additional slides that I think may help me answer questions from the public. For those interested in this subject or who think they may have a use for the slides, the presentation can be found at http://hsc.ghs.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Neurodiversity_v2.pdf
Cortical Chauvinism
A site discussing autism related issues
Cortical Chauvinism 
A big harm is the implied belief autism cannot be «treated». Yes, it is developmental, but it doesn’t stop there. It isn’t just what the brain is, as if a person is their brain, rather, stuff also happens TO the brain. Mental illnesses such as schizophrenia are also developmental but research is focused on treating it because they believe stuff happens to the brain with that. Autism is both developmental and an «illness» that doesn’t stop once puberty is over. A person may occupy different levels of severity in symptoms throughout their life. It’s not a personality difference!
I read about Suramin, I am agnostic about whether it helps or it is a placebo. But the point I want to make is the frustrating thing is the doubts raised about using it based on «side effects». Lithium is used to treat bipolar, it’s a mineral and toxic, but they find ways to deal with it. Synthetic medication is the rage and pharma doesn’t want unpatented substances like what Suramin is, a sleeping sickness drug, or TMS to get in the way of what they can profit from. I don’t doubt had they discovered penicillin or lithium now, it would take decades just to approve them. A mold extract and a mineral used in making batteries…
Quack cures discourage looking into things that aren’t created in a laboratory from nothing. It’s like the unfortunate effect of false rape accusations. A lot of people despise false rape accusations because they believe the falsely accused is a victim, like the victims of quack cures such as bleach enemas. True. But we can’t forget the fact false rape accusations also make it harder for true victims of rape to be believed, and quack cures make it harder to pursue leads into what isn’t always a fancy composite substance, but may well be found elsewhere like low frequency TMS.
Neurodiversity and the anti-vaccinators both are guilty of casting doubt into the fact autism is a disorder with neuropathologies which could be treatable someday directly. Despite all the evidence not all the symptoms or abnormalities in autism can be merely explained by just a different developmental trajectory that ends once the person is an adult.
ND calls a lot of them co-morbidities, but with other disorders like schizophrenia, they call them positive/negative symptoms.
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