Any categorization of humans that has been subject to speculation from commercial enterprise and scholarly theorizing the way autism has been is bound to be completely misunderstood.
This exploitation has defined the diagnosis and the media hype that followed, and it continues to attempt to define autistics themselves. This attempt with such motivation will always be unsuccessful and only autistics can accurately define how the definition of autism relates to us and who we are.
The most blatant display of how commercial and academic pursuits intentionally attempt to define and therefore exploit autistic people is shown by the group named Autism Speaks. Their misleading name along with their refusal to listen to autistic people about who we are and what we think is the clearest way they show their contempt for autistic people.
There are very few people in the world who are being formally educated or whom are given an evaluation where they would receive any type of clinical diagnosis. Most autistic people were grown and would have few opportunities for such an evaluation before these evaluations became popular.This means the ratio of autistics who are identified as such is very small and the few that are discussing the issues that affect our lives is incredibly disproportionate of the population.
Since critical evaluations of causation theories and treatments would be a severe disadvantage to commercial and political enterprises, there is little of it being done.
Autistic people who have been fortunate enough (by the route of misfortune) to learn to identify the deceptive and abusive methods that their behavior is modified are naturally very opposed to these methods. Due to the powerful nature of the commercial interest of autism (and the general public's negative emotional response to the kind of definitions that aren't spoon fed by commercial and political spin) where people tend to seek information about autism is overwhelmingly lacking in the perception of autistics themselves. It's even more unfortunate that this results in what we have to say about how we are treated being either ignored or vigorously condemned.
If you go to where autistics are expressing who we are and what we think you will see clear evidence of how and why the public is clinging to dangerous methods of treating autistics by the abusive ways they attempt to modify autistics behavior. The commercial mainstream view perpetuates negative stereotypes, which lead to more mistreatment of autistic people. Ultimately, weather this abusive treatment continues to be mainstream will be left to the individuals who are part of our lives.
