Music Interests (and Questions) Coast to Coast
Published July 21, 2009 @ 04:00PM PT
On the extreme east coast of the U.S. in Massachusetts, a young autistic girl finds joy in the classical violin. On the extreme west coast of the U.S. in Oregon, a young autistic boy finds joy in indie pop. But the two stories about autistic kids with musical loves otherwise possess a nearly interchangeable story.
On one hand these stories are about kids being kids, having interests, gaining self-esteem and self-expression, falling into love with creativity. Stuff that one hopes is part of the life of kids, any kids. And yes, the activities these kids are doing would make decent local news stories if the kids weren't autistic too.
But on the other hand, these stories do fall into the boring autism news stories 101 story of AMAZING ACCOMPLISHMENTS!!!! (as well as contain some fairly barf-worthy stigmatizing language).
And, beneath both those surfaces, why should it come as a surprise that autistic kids, like any other kids, benefit hugely from doing stuff they like and are good at? This isn't a kid question (ya'll know I typically make it policy not to blog about children, and this post is not about children but about some more universal ideas), because the same question can be asked why should it come as a surprise that autistic adults, like any adults, benefit hugely from doing stuff they like and are good at, and participating on their own preferred terms in the community?
No matter what the age, diagnosis, lack of diagnosis, or what all else, we are people, and (surprisingly? er...) we tend to benefit hugely from being treated as such.
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Dora is committed to improving quality of life for individuals on the autistic spectrum--including herself! She is Co-director of the Academic Autistic Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education and a member of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network's Board of Directors.
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