mat, although there are not enough to reflect the depth and scope of the exhibition itself. It is here I would recommend better photo and video recording and more thought into saving, archiving and disseminating the results and content of events. I had posted the limited exhibition photos online at The Autism Acceptance Project website (www.taaproject.com) , along with the submitted artwork and writings by autistic people. Recently, as Reaume predicted in his essay, we lost that information when the website was hacked earlier this year. Not all of our content is recoverable.
Also important is the abundance of resources and contributions at Neurodiversity.com, the work of ASAN (The Autistic Self-Advocacy Network) as well as other major agencies and projects run by autistic people prior to and after TAAP. Specifically, nerodiversity.com remains one of the websites containing and assembling significant autism history that is at risk of being jeopardized if not kept in hard-copy. Specific and notable to Canadian autism history is Michelle Dawson, a Canadian autistic researcher. Her work, under the umbrella-title, The Misbehaviour of Behaviourists, is a significant piece of the history of how autistic people are mistreated in Canada (The Auton Case, The Human Rights Tribunal, and her exclusion at Autism Society of Canada). She has recorded her work at the website No Autistics Allowed (www.sentex.net/~nexus23/naa_03.html). These are only three examples of many more autistic-run online organizations and individuals — all which must be preserved, recorded and interpreted. This is something that more researchers may wish to consider.
Can An Autism History Really Exist?
“…we have to value all aspects of our past and to instil this value in others who keep these records so that future disability histories can be preserved, written and debated for generations to come,” says Reaume. “In doing so, the historical memory of our collective past can, one would hope, make for a better future where disabled people are not marginalized and oppressed as has so often happened in Canadian history. The history can influence a collective sense of identity and political engagement. It can also influence public policies that have a direct impact on people with disabilities as policy-makers learn from the past while being influenced to improve practices in the present.”
I would wager that most people don’t acknowledge that a history of autism either exists, or could exist. When autistic people take note that they “don’t exist” in the consciousness of society, it would be difficult to own a history. In an activist vein, neither the term autism nor the recognition of autistics as valuable or capable, even within the context of severe impairments, exists as a widely accepted definition or understanding of autism. Within Critical Disability Studies, there is a lack of use of the term autism as we otherwise hear of the deaf and blind communities, one might argue, precisely because there is little written about autism in history. This connotes that there is still not enough citation of autistic identity and history, even within Critical Disability Studies programs, although there is acceptance that this is an area in need of development.
As someone invested in autism, rights, inclusion and autistic citizenship and identity, I feel this absence when reading Reaume’s citations of particular disabilities written in historical contexts, likely in light of a recent diagnostic label. In Critical Disability Studies, autism is lumped under the broader label of intellectual disabilities. Yet this lumping often ignores the particular needs and struggles within this community. While labeling can be dangerous and problematic, it can also lend itself to assisting and accommodating the unique needs of this population. Autism is unique in many respects, and requires a unique set of teaching methods, not analogous to, but parallel in terms of customization of education as we do for the blind, deaf or dyslexic communities. Autism also shares its history with the wider dis