´óÏó´«Ã½

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.

• Visit