History
Jim Sinclair was the first individual to communicate the anti-cure or autism rights perspective in the late 1980s. In 1992 he co-founded the Autism Network International, an organization that publishes newsletters "written by and for autistic people". Other individuals involved in the creation of the ANI were Donna Williams and Kathy Grant, two autistic individuals that knew Sinclair through pen pal lists and autism conferences. The first issue of the newsletter, "Our Voice", was distributed online in November 1992 to an audience of mostly neuro-typical professionals and parents of young children with autism. The number of autistics in the organization grew slowly over the years and became a communication network for like-minded autistics.
In 2004 Michelle Dawson challenged applied behavior analysis (ABA) on ethical grounds. She testified in Auton v. British Columbia against the required government funding of ABA. That same year The New York Times covered the autism rights perspective by publishing Amy Harmon's article, "How about not curing us? Some autistics are pleading."
The rise of the internet provided more opportunities for autistic individuals to connect and organize. Due to geographical distance, communication and speech patterns of autistic individuals and the domination of neurotypical professionals and family members in established autism organizations, the internet provided an invaluable space for members of the movement to organize and communicate.
Read more about this topic: Autism Rights Movement
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I cannot be much pleased without an appearance of truth; at least of possibility—I wish the history to be natural though the sentiments are refined; and the characters to be probable, though their behaviour is excelling.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men. We do not like that kind of immortality, but what is to be done about it?”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“What you don’t understand is that it is possible to be an atheist, it is possible not to know if God exists or why He should, and yet to believe that man does not live in a state of nature but in history, and that history as we know it now began with Christ, it was founded by Him on the Gospels.”
—Boris Pasternak (1890–1960)