It’s been said before but you know shit is bad when autism speaks is co-signing a statement with self-advocacy groups

Absolutely. It was so much work to educate myself on these topics without any guidance. And in a lot of cases (especially with autistic kids), the info that parents receive from professionals and "experts" is ableist AF, which then makes it even harder to start unlearning your ableism as a parent.

Also, does this writer have any idea how hard it is to get an ADHD diagnosis for a kid who is quiet and gets good grades (and also is not a boy)?!?

My kid getting his ADHD and autism diagnosis allowed all of us to accommodate and support him better, improved his self-esteem and self-awareness, and opened the door to other family members (including me) receiving our own diagnoses of neurodivergence (which has improved our lives as well).

I am one of the parents homeschooling because my autistic/ADHD kid was failed and harmed by public school. My kid is not broken or disordered, and he thrives in the right environment. His diagnoses were a GOOD thing for our family and for him.

Disabled and neurodivergent thinkers have been writing about these ideas for decades! It is so incoherent and disconcerting to read when someone who doesn't know any of this thinking writes about the very real problems with our kids' education through a lens of ableism.

The author writes from the perspective of the medical model of disability (that kids with diagnoses are "disordered") but basically reinvents the wheel and discovers the social model of disability (people are disabled by society as much or more so than being disabled by our impairments).

My daughter is an engineering major and she's studying at a small liberal arts college. It's rare to find engineering programs at schools like hers, and she is developing fantastic critical thinking skills. I was an English major and I'm thrilled with the education she's receiving.

"If I thought his goal was to help orphans, I'd think that he was failing terribly at it. If I actually believed his position, as stated in his book Why Orphans Must Be Crushed, I would think he was succeeding at his goal."

Turns out to be a hard thing for people to do.

You'd still see disturbingly many people going "look at this chump, this fool, doesn't he know what that machine does. Bet he can't read the big red label on it that says exactly what it does."

It turns out to be hard to accept that the guy trying desperately to cram orphans into an orphan crushing machine, really truly isn't trying and failing at achieving a totally different goal.

Even if he's spent his entire career loudly and repeatedly declaring that crushing orphans is his goal.