NAS Website

[annie]

Don't know if anybody else has seen this.

 

http://www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=253&a=7828

 

I've just filled it in.

 

Annie

XX

[CarerQuie]

I didn't think that the questions were particularly information-gathering but I did fill it in.xx

[annie]

I didn't either, but thought well, if they're doing a national survey instead of the voluntary ones, then hopefully it may have a bit more impact somewhere along the line.....we can only hope

 

Annie

XX

[Flora]

I filled it in. But it seems that it's more of a fund raising exercise than a survey. The last page asking for a donation of �15 is sort of a give away. I don't have anything against fund raising, but they should what it is, not disguise it as a survey. A real survey surely would have been more informative and more in depth. Just my extremely humble opinion

 

Lauren

[mandyque]

I filled it in. But it seems that it's more of a fund raising exercise than a survey. The last page asking for a donation of �15 is sort of a give away. I don't have anything against fund raising, but they should what it is, not disguise it as a survey. A real survey surely would have been more informative and more in depth. Just my extremely humble opinion

 

Lauren

I totally agree. It's about time that people with autism and their carers were allowed to have a full and proper say about services and what they want from the NAS and other agencies to help us.

[Zemanski]

very loaded questions - not really a survey just and a way to get numbers to support NAS (plus the fundraising)

[Lucas]

Autism is a condition which affects a person's ability to understand and communicate with the world

 

Ambigious.

 

Autism is a lifelong condition with no known cause or cure

 

Offensive cannotations in suggesting either of these is a bad thing.

 

Only 1% of people with autism have 'savant' or special capabilities

 

Factually way off the mark, I'd like to see their source. 50% of all Savants are Autistic and 1 in 10 Autistics have a peak of ability at Savant level.

 

Many people with autism can transform their lives with the right support

 

Does this mean there are a number of Autistics who are write-offs then? The survey doesn't give anyone the chance to question these assertions or correct their inaccuracies.

 

1 in 110 people in the UK has autism

 

And the NAS doesn't care about 9 in 10 of them. They certainly did nothing to help the wrongly convicted Paul Smith who has now disappeared off the media radar(I'm having difficulty finding information about his appeal), even though the evidence against him was flimsy and his Autism was appalingly exploited to put him away.

 

Autism impacts on the entire family - 2 million parents, siblings and carers are affected

 

They are one step away from parroting the likes of ASC and Cure Autism Now with a prelude to a lecture on how horrible we are and how we destroy other people's lives.

 

40% of all children with autism wait more than three years for a clear diagnosis

 

Finally a fact that hasn't been either made up on the spot or given a slant. They don't like revealing that they have no idea how long adults must wait. Unless they are relatives of children being diagnosed and get noticed, they often wait decades.

 

1 in 4 children with autism are excluded from school

 

It's actually more than that; those who are home-schooled won't count in this or others with temporary arrangements(I ended up staying at my temporary arrangement until leaving school altogether).

 

I won't even bother giving an answer to the rest as the 'survey' doesn't in fact give you any means of disagreeing. Has the NAS been infiltrated by Marxists?

[Alphazebra]

Lucas - Having seen several of your posts containing this kind of information I am in no doubt you have good resources and when you say that some of their figures are inaccurate I feel inclined to believe you. That is not what my post is about. I do think that maybe you could be reading a little more into it with some of the other points though (and obviously this is just my own opinion and no offense is meant by it). For Example:

 

 

Autism is a lifelong condition with no known cause or cure

Offensive cannotations in suggesting either of these is a bad thing.

 

I think that maybe rather than there being offensive cannotations as to that this are bad things they are just trying to state in a single line that Autism doesn't just go away and it isn't the fact that if we do nothing then everything will be alright (i.e. action is required to help) and that currently we don't know enough about it (i.e. further research is required to help). I don't see how, looking at it that way, anything wrong with this statement. We don't know enough, we need to know more, we do need to act, we need to raise awareness amongst the public and in my mind their sentence makes that clear in a nutshell.

 

I do agree with you, any suggestion that Autism or people on the Autistic Spectrum are immediately bad / trouble / hassle or anything else is not right and only helps mislead and misinform.

 

As I say this is only my way of looking at it. I would be inclined to think you maybe are taking a slightly more pesimistic view as to the motives of the people / person who wrote it. (Once again, only my own opinion).