Simulation

In a recent post, Jannalou discussed an educational charity in British Columbia that gives presentations in schools about autism and the diversity of the human mind. The group, which is called the Friend 2 Friend Social Learning Society, teaches children that differences are okay.

I haven't seen the presentations firsthand, but from a look at the Friend 2 Friend website, it's clear that the group understands that autistic children want to have friends—that they're not antisocial or oblivious to their peers' existence, but instead have problems making friends because their peers are ignorant about, and uncomfortable with, their differences.

This is a very important point. All too often, when autistic children do not have friends, they are assumed to be suffering from some mysterious and innate social defect. It's quite refreshing indeed to discover professionals and educators like those at Friend 2 Friend, who recognize that the main problem is prejudice and that the "cure" is teaching the majority population not to fear autistics.

As Jannalou points out, however, there are aspects of the Friend 2 Friend program that need to be changed—in particular, a "sensory simulation game." By their nature, disability simulations tend to create a misleading and overly negative impression of whatever condition is being simulated. Jannalou also observes that accurate information about autism often is hard to find and that common points of reference can be hard to identify and explain. She asks: What are good experiential alternatives to disability simulations? How do we get the right information out there?

I have a few thoughts. First of all, the ultimate goal isn't to teach children interesting facts about autism, but to integrate autistic people into mainstream society on equal terms with other citizens. As such, we have a useful historical point of reference for this effort: Racial integration in the schools. It's not an exact parallel because society did not categorize autistics as a minority race in past generations; however, we do have a nasty history of "nerds" being bullied in the schools, and this prejudice is akin to racism in that the victims are singled out because they are perceived as a different kind of people.

Although the concept of the autism spectrum is a very recent development, there are many parents and other family members who, during their own school years, had only a few friends because they were seen as "nerdy" or "weird." That is to say, the label may be new, but the prejudice is not; we're talking about a minority group that, while never officially segregated, hasn't been fully integrated into mainstream society in the modern era, either.

How did educators deal with the challenges of racial integration? Certainly not by putting Afro wigs on the white kids or otherwise trying to simulate the experience of being black. Nor did they bring games into the classroom to teach selected facts about blackness, without any actual black folks being involved. Rather, they emphasized making personal connections with real people. Black community leaders came into the schools and gave presentations about their culture and history. Teachers made a point of regularly assigning children of different races to work together on class projects and community activities. Educational television programs like Sesame Street showed children of all colors playing happily together.

I'd like to see Friend 2 Friend get together with The Autism Acceptance Project and create school presentations in which autistic singers and artists visit the schools, talk about their lives, and display their art; autistic university students discuss their interests, their ambitions, and what has made school easier or harder for them; people from multigenerational autistic families build exhibits illustrating their family's culture and history; and so forth.