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Unhealthy Activities

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The Goldfish | 16:15 UK time, Monday, 9 July 2007

The Autistic Bitch From Hell at blogs about an article in which it is implied that a fixation on letters is a bad thing for an infant and that children with autism should be encouraged to focus instead on faces and social actvities. I'm not entirely convinced of ABFH's analysis of what is said, but the points raised in her post and the subsequent discussion are very interesting.

ABFH describes how as a child, she was fixated by letters. Her parents encouraged this and as a result she learnt to read extremely early and took tremendous pleasure from books as a child. She feels that this might now be considered as a bad choice on the part of her parents, robbing her of that pleasure as well as the academic success it lead to. Historically, women who were sick or rebellious (which was often understood to be the same thing) might be thought to suffering the effects of too much reading. There were all manner of activities which were feared to disrupt the fragile balance of the female mind.

Indeed, there are still echos of this in our attitude towards the health of women today, but there are even more activities which are felt to be similarly dangerous for disabled people. Not because of any actual risk, but because of this vague sense that something might be a threat to our supposedly fragile wellbeing.

ABFH, , Joel at and other bloggers with autism have frequently written about behaviours which are seen as unhealthy or anti-social for no particular reason. This weekend Joel made me laugh with how we are misinformed of the social rule that .

Meanwhile, Dave has written here and over at about the attitudes towards people with intellectual impairments and the way in which their romantic and sexual relationships being seen either as entirely trivial or outright dangerous.

Probably the weirdest example of this sort of thing from my own experience comes from my first beginning to use a wheelchair. Having some walking as I do, I had some very strange comments about the harm this might cause. Goodness knows it took enough effort to shed my own daft reservations about the whole thing, only for it to be suggested that if I started using a wheelchair, I might give up walking altogether!

I kind of understand the folk psychology around acquired dependence on a thing, but a wheelchair? I mean, I'm all for wheelie pride and everything but with our lumpy bumpy narrow-doored world as it is, walking in circumstances where walking is comfortable and safe is so much less hassle. You wouldn't use a wheelchair unless you had to, but if you do have to, then it is a liberation.

Mind you, some disabled people really do push the envelope. Elizabeth at has recently defied all expectations to take up , of all things. I'm really not sure that's the healthy thing to do, but I have a mean right-hook for anyone who tried to stop her.

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Comments

  • 1.
  • At 05:13 PM on 09 Jul 2007, Anonymous wrote:

"You wouldn't use a wheelchair unless you had to, but if you do have to, then it is a liberation."

This line of yours seems like the perfect quote to use with people who persist in failing to understand what the problem is with phrases like "confined to a wheelchair" and its ilk.

I don't use a wheelchair, but I try to do my part to speak out here and there when I see "disphobia" or whatever the term is, even when it pertains to disabilities other than the ones I share.

'men don't talk in the gents.'

Nice shoes;-)

pete

  • 3.
  • At 05:23 PM on 09 Jul 2007, Dave Hingsburger wrote:

They said that to you too ... 'you are going to come to rely on that wheelchair'. Um, yes. That's the plan. But they made it sound like I was using the wheelchair because I was lazy! I have a manual chair, I weight 17,000 stone. Now I've got to push myself on little arms instead of big legs ... yeah, lazy. This is the point of blogging isn't it. someone says something and suddenly you realize, 'I'm not alone!'

  • 4.
  • At 05:27 PM on 09 Jul 2007, Chris Page wrote:

I took the decision to use my wheelchair almost full time because of the strain I had put on my hands and elbows through years of using crutches. It is not "being lazy" or any other sign of "giving up" - it's realising what is more convenient for my long-term health and mobility.

  • 5.
  • At 07:42 PM on 15 Jul 2007, John Cartridge wrote:

I too have the ability to walk short distances on good days (if that exists) but unable on other days. The comments then fly about oh he's putting it on i saw him walking yesterday. I try to ignore these but being a sensitive guy it's not easy. I have Fibromyalgia with constant pain syndrome. but I like to do what i can maximum when i can. Good luck to all. tinlegs

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