The difference between the Autism Acceptance approach and the "Ten Things Every Child With Autism Wishes..." is one of perspective. The "Ten Things" book strongly suggests that "all autistic people have these traits."
Although the title is provocative and attention-getting (as blanket statements, superlatives, and words such as "Every", "Always", and "Never" tend to be), I did not see a suggestion that "all autistic people have these traits".
The folks at the Autism Acceptance site attempt to make sure that many voices and perspectives are heard, including those of autistic people themselves
In doing so they include reference to
sensory-free rooms, and stims/stimming, which some may see as the same or virtually indistinguishable from
sensory dysfunction which you earlier dismissed as an
inappropriate stereotype, and have not illuminated the differences or distinctions you perceive.
I will note that the information on the language development page you linked to on that site is less than half true for my 2E autistic child (never echolalic, no problem with abstraction, interested in shared experience).
may be of interest. There is a
spectrum, your child may be on the spectrum but there is no expectation that a child on the spectrum would match every characteristic. Lists of characteristics generally provide a broad umbrella, or a wide net... they are meant to be inclusive. Similarly, lists of gifted characteristics do not imply or infer that a gifted child will exhibit ALL characteristics, or will exhibit characteristics to a particular degree.
...there is a lot of variation among autistic people.
Agreed! The
diagnostic criteria may be a good resource for raising awareness of this.
Possibly
it's up to each individual and family to decide which autism resources are useful to meet particular needs, without discrediting any particular resource or author.
