disabilityinkidlit:

As part of our Autism on the Page event, Alyssa Hillary wonders: which characters get to stay autistic?

Here in the real world, everyone autistic stays so, though attempts to make us act out imitations of neurotypicality are the norm. Those of us who cannot maintain the act often face segregation—special education classrooms, special boarding schools, group homes, and the occasional “outing” where staff herd us through community settings without truly permitting interaction. That is, the world does its best to remove our autism from the mainstream narrative of life, hiding either it or us whenever possible.

In the world of fiction, we often see these same attempts. Sometimes a character is pushed to imitate neurotypicality while retaining their autistic neurology. In Cynthia Lord’s Rules, Catherine, the narrator, is a non-autistic sibling who pushes her autistic brother David to imitate neurotypicality, all the while wishing there was a pill he could take to wake up without autism.  … In other stories, removing a character’s autism from the narrative requires removing the character from the vicinity of the other characters. This is what happens in Rain Man, where the disabled character often presumed to be autistic is sent to a home, and this is considered a happy ending.  

[read the full article!]

disability in kidlit disability in lit autism autism on the page alyssa hillary

Apr 14, 2015
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