Talk:Cure Autism Now/Archive 1

Notice

"Notice: By some, if not most of autistic persons who do have the capacity to think "properly", Cure Autism Now is a visible sign of racism, cleverly disguised as help."

NPOV, anyone?

Well, I, an Aspie myself, think it's more like homophobia. The way it is in the article now should be expanded a little, IMO. --Jnelson09 23:21, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

NPOV problem/Merger discussion

"despite ABA's abusive practices." Statement should be qualified, substantiated, or more properly linked.

I am not certain if this would be a sufficiant source but CIBRA is an organisation working to raise awareness of injuries which have been caused by abusive ABA aversives along with various restraint techniques which are sometimes used seperately or in conjunction, they also have a section containing several published newspaper and magazine articles on the subject, maybe I should give an opportunity to comment before I add it to the main page though MttJocy 13:02, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

"from the tens of millions of dollars CAN allegedly collects in a year, not a singular penny has so far been spent consulting an actual adult on the autistic spectrum" evidence please? Hopsyturvy 13:43, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

The problem with not doing something is that one then cannot provide the evidence that it has not happened. CAN has had the opportunity to interview countless adults on the autism spectrum and choose not to. I have personally offered to provide contacts to the orgamization time and again, only to be ignored. But how can I "prove" this. Iris storm 14:19, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I can offer confirmation that CAN makes no effort to even respond to autists who try to contact them in an attempt to help them. I've sent them several e-mails initially asking questions and later offering aid and ever since I mentioned that I'm an autist, CAN has not responded to a singe e-mail I sent them. This evidence is purely anecdotal, unfortunately, but it almost seems as if CAN doesn't want to communicate with autists who can think for themselves. Robrecht 01:58, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

This article, in my view, seems clearly set up by one or more individuals from the so called autism rights movement for the purpose of criticizing Cure Autism Now. (Note, the wikipedia article on the movement has it's neutrality disputed, and the reasons for this are clear from reading the article). Cure Autism Now, which merged with Autism Speaks and is now referred to as Autism Speaks, is the largest and most highly respected autism organization in the United States [[1]]. Many other sources are available through simple searches; I'll find more shortly, including from the major media. The status of Autism Speaks would warrant a very thorough wikipedia article, and this article provides a very brief and rather doubtful and unflattering portrayal, one quick example, the first sentence "Cure Autism Now (CAN) describes itself...", trying to portray CAN/AS as being merely self proclaimed, when in fact it is immensely well respected in academics, science, medicine, politics, among many religious leaders, and among an astounding number of people including major social leaders, and public figures.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 06:29, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

In the article, the section "Criticism from autistic self-advocates" receives just as much length and detail as the actual subject of the article (Cure Autism Now) which should indicate that this is not a neutral article, that is, that it was done primarily for the purpose of expressing the criticism.

The major citation for the "Criticism from autistic self-advocates" is the Aspies for Freedom website, which is merely a website, and not an organization, and owned and administered by anonymous individuals I believe (from searching the website, especially at their page about them and how to contact them [2]).--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 06:42, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

• I have trimmed out the worst of the POV problems, I think it reads a lot more neutral now. Beeblebrox (talk) 06:53, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Should there be a citation for the following, especially the classification as mentally retarded part?:

"However, CAN supporters point out that the autistic individuals opposed to a cure are mostly on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum and that many autistic individuals have such low social, verbal, and full-scale IQ's that they are classified as mentally retarded."

At the first sentence, should the "Cure Autism Now (CAN) describes itself as" part be revised to be "Cure Autism Now (CAN) is"? Seem my first points above; my first comment.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 07:03, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

The sentence you're objecting to is my edited version of a previously existing but similarly worded claim. As I explained earlier on this talk page, by the definition of the term high functioning autism, anyone who isn't high functioning isn't going to be able to participate in any kind of political debates about autism and be taken seriously. It seems like basic logic to me. If that isn't good enough, I can list autistic self-advocates by name instead of using "mostly", and avoid mentioning HFA since it would be hopefully obvious that Baggs, Sinclair, etc are not mentally retarded LFA's with IQs in the 60s. The only alternative that I can see is to delete the whole paragraph since it would be reduced to just the Attwood thing. Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 01:54, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Couple things. 1, As an article specifically on Cure Autism Now, the initial section (besides the criticism section) is all there is ... the article is very incomplete ... CAN is a major organization with almost endless information about it's history, people, development, distinctions in medicine, science, politics, public, etc. And only one small paragraph on this? And like I mentioned above, the criticism section was given, at first, equal length and detail, which is very strange (very biased). I myself think either (1) the entire content should be deleted and a link pointing to Autism Speaks and an sentence that CAN is now AS due to the merger. The AS article is fairly well developed. Or (2) delete the criticism section until a fair development of CAN is given, which I myself am not up for doing.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 04:23, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

In the Criticism from autistic self-advocates section, "Dr. Tony Attwood, author of Asperger's Syndrome: A Guide for Parents and Professionals, has described the most pervasive problem among autistic adults as being a feeling that their families have rejected them and what they are." THE most pervasive problem? Citation for this? And, I don't think he states this. It might be A problem, but not THE most pervasive problem.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 04:26, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure why these various links (in the See Also and External Links sections) are relevant to Cure Autism Now the organization. Again see my comments above ... many of these links are for opposed positions against CAN, and others are unrelated to CAN. The only one that seems directly related may be Portia Iversen's (co-founder of CAN) website Strange Son, and then the countless media articles on CAN. Autism rights movement Autistic culture List of autism-related topics Tito Mukhopadhyay Neurodiversity Lorna Wing Athletes Against Autism Cure autism?--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 20:32, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

• I agree with Objectivity, this is no longer a stand-alone organiztion, and this article said next to nothing about the organization itself and was mostly devoted to criticism, I have redirected it now, so this debate can move over to Autism Speaks Beeblebrox (talk) 18:10, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I merged the two articles. Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 18:56, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Deleting the article is ridiculous, particularly given the absurd vaccine injury epidemic denialism of Autism Speaks. Ombudsman (talk) 00:05, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

• No one has suggested deletion. If you actually read the above conversation you would see that consensus, which is how Wikipedia works, seems to have been reached that the proper course of action was to merge and redirect the article as it is no longer a stand alone organization. Your claims of "epidemic denialism" can be included in the target article, provided you have a reliable source for verification. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:14, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

(removed RFC tag the only way I know how) Soap Talk/Contributions

• My feeling is that this organization merged with Autism Speaks last year, and the relevant content has already been merged into that article. This article was previously comprised almost entirely of unsourced negative content, so the material that was not merged is stuff we didn't need/want anyway. The only counter-argument voiced thus far (via edit summary) was : CAN's historical significance should not be deprecated via redirect. and the above remark about "epidemic denialism". I don't see any sources establishing any of that. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:11, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
• Merge and redirect: For the above reasons; these organizations are now merged, and the (reliably sourced) material is duplicated at Autism Speaks, so there isn't any loss of information. I'm going to go ahead with this, since the only objection I see is based on grounds that could charitably be described as spurious and non-policy-based. If other editors object, or if more rational objections are put forward, we can discuss further. MastCell ^Talk 21:59, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

• Today I did some editing on the Cure Autism Now article...quotes and added some sources...could these be transferred to the section at Autism Speaks on Cure Autism Now? Also wanted to note the apparent overuse of one source that is largely negative in content at the Autism Speaks article (8 times) I comment on this at that Talk page.--ObjectivityInAutismDiscussion (talk) 22:23, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

• Sure thing. Here is the page as it existed immediately before I redirected it (you can find all of the old revisions in the page history; they haven't been deleted). You can grab the stuff you need from there to merge it to Autism Speaks; just let me know if you need a hand. MastCell ^Talk 22:30, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

• Merge and redirect. Currently there is not enough reliably-sourced material on Cure Autism Now to justify a separate article. If a lot of material (necessarily historical) is written later, that would justify a separate article on the old Cure Autism Now organization, but such material doesn't currently exist in Wikipedia and I doubt whether it'll be written any time soon. Eubulides (talk) 00:02, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

POV tag

Why is there a POV-tag? Is it justified? --Rdos 15:48, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Other changes

I just removed the phrase "particularly those with Asperger Syndrome" from the section about autistic self-advocacy, because many of the most vehement self-advocates are technically considered to be "low functioning" (although I don't like the phrase), and not Aspergers. This phrase implied that it was primarily the "higher-functioning" end of the spectrum that is engaged in advocacy, and this is not the case.Andi1235 16:47, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

That was an essential delete of a very inappropriate and misleading line --Zeraeph 18:03, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Not true, according to the generally accepted definition of the term High-functioning autism. Pretty much anyone advocating for anything would have to be high-functioning to do so. Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 15:44, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Citations

NB. The only citation you need to establish that autistics find this organisation insulting and hurtful IS autistics finding this agenda insulting and hurtful...we can speak for ourselves, unaided, an odd time y'know. --Zeraeph 01:20, 24 August 2007 (UTC)