annie1 Report post Posted March 7, 2006 Information for Adults and some informal Local groups are run by DANDA. Developmental Adult Neuro-Diversity Association (DANDA) 46 Westere Road London NW2 3RU Tel: 020 7435 7891 mary@pmcolley.freeserve.co.uk May join for a small fee and information on adult issues and information can be obtained. I found them very helpful and kind. Run by people with ASDs for us. Brilliant! Good mix of people in the group I went to. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DaisyFulkirk Report post Posted March 7, 2006 Information for Adults and some informal Local groups are run by DANDA. Just to add that I have had some dealings with people quite high-up in DANDA and they're fantastic people BUT I dislike strongly, for reasons I can't easily explain, the term "neurodiverse". It is perhaps because such terms make the acknowledgement that I have a (potentially severely) disabling impairment less likely, and maybe also because it's a fairly direct rejection of the term 'disabled' itself and I'm fairly big on Disability Pride, and also calling a spade a spade and having done with it. I'm disabled. I'm a Disabled Person. The campaign for Disability Rights is the campaign for rights that my friends and I are frequently denied - I don't feel any need to be a member of any more clubs than one specific one (autistic people) and one general one (disabled people). Dunno really. It just makes me uneasy. Weird. Janet (their leadery person) I like very much, though. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
research boffin1 Report post Posted March 10, 2006 (edited) The United Nations recognised ASDs as a "handicap" in 1975 The European Union adopted a European Charter of Autism in 1996 The UK is signed up to both conventions. ASDs are disabilities or handicaps. I like handicap because it says with the right help you can be do something as well as the next person like in golf. Neurodiversity is not saying that people are not handicapped or disabled. It is saying we NTs should stop treating them as in some way second class citizens. In fact the biggest inhibitor to people with MH probs is the attitudes of other people towards people with MH probs. I see ASDs as having the same probs about other people's ideas of what ASds are. Geek. Counts street light numbers. Collects bus tickets. Knows timetables off by heart. No No No. Has some information processing and communication probs and heightened sensory perception. Has some extraordinary gifts in some areas of factual knowledge. Has difficulty organising things and expressing concepts. Example 1 World expert obsessive nutritionist. Knows all about horses. Has an extraordinary gift for reading and can remember charts of information. Expert knowledge of neuroscience. Expert knowledge of learning difficulties. Cannot take a phone message. Terrified to make a phone call, answer door. Cannot follow conversation or conceptualise at basic level - but can link at higher level an array of apparently unconnected information. Example 2 Professional standard skateboarder. Expert on Brazilian football. Expert at mixing drum and base music. Perfect pitch and ability to retain rythm through overlaid rythm - extremely rare. Gifted at logic. Cannot follow conversation or conceptualise at basic level. High level of anxiety and depressed. The claim for ND is that there is no such thing as NT, it is a con. And therefore to have treatments to make people NT is also a con. But ASDs do need recognition that they function at their own personal best in a way that is not NT and to do this they need to have others accept that they have a handicap or disability that means they need the rest of society to give them help to be themselves both financially and in terms of how their role in and contribution to society is valued by those who are not themselves gifted in the ASD way. And I include all ASDs not just the so called high functioning ones in this because there is a key measure of a society that is how it treats and values its least able members that determines whether society is civilised. Edited March 10, 2006 by research boffin1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Strange girl Report post Posted March 13, 2006 Annie1- did you go to a meeting in London? I am thinking of going along to one of them to try it out. If I can summons the courage. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
