Allison Martin
Professor Benson
CW-S
Sept-22-2014
Normal vs. feelings? As many people would say, we are normal and autistic people are not. Who is really "normal" in this world? People with autism think faster, work faster and create new things easier than anyone I ever knew could. There are so many people who wish they could think like John Elder Robison or Temple Grandin and so many other gifted people. I don’t think that autism is a bad thing to have, in my opinion it is a gift. Human emotions, or human contact may be difficult to read or do to an autistic person, but it’s not a necessity in this world.
"One person with autism is brilliant, intense, extremely anxious and often depressed. Another is non-verbal and physically aggressive. A third is low-key, affectionate, verbal, but lacking in social and communication skills." (Lisa Jo Rudy). I think John Elder Robison was the low-key, affectionate, verbal but lacking in social communicative type whereas Temple Grandin was the brilliant, intense and extremely anxious type. John Elder Robison did have some problems making friends but as he got older, he made friends.
What is normal, and who falls into that category? Is the person who works at Dairy Queen Normal, or the person who refuses to hug their own mother but manages to visualize things in a way no one else can normal? Who can be the judge as to what normal really is? I don’t have the answer for any of those questions, but I will say everyone has an ability and a weakness. Everybody is unique in their own way, so what I can’t understand is why the world has to be so quick to judge those who are different then you. Someone who has Asperger's, like John Elder Robison, may not have the ability to understand human emotion, but that doesn’t mean we have to make fun of them and shut them out. "There needs to be a lot more emphasis on what a child can do then what he can’t do" (Temple Grandin).
Is autism a gift or is it just a disability? As many autistic people have said it's a gift, "We must remember, however, that autism is not a disability. Autism grants its own gifts to those who have it. Those gifts can manifest themselves as stellar mathematical abilities, memory,
