Lenny Schafer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lenny Schafer is the adoptive parent of an autistic child. He is the editor of the Schafer Autism Report, an autism publication that has generated a lot of controversy, especially from the autism rights movement.
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[edit] Schafer and the Autism rights movement
Lenny Schafer has discussed his opinion on the autism rights movement on Wikipedia. His main area of disagreement with the autism rights movement is that the movement does not consider autism a disability, and does not support treatments and/or a cure for autism.
[edit] Schafer's opinion on autism and Asperger's
Lenny Schafer has stated the opinion in his Schafer Autism Report that the activists in the autism rights movement are not really autistic but Asperger's instead. He believes activists (which he claims are Asperger's "imposters") are claiming to be "autistic" instead of "Asperger's" to gain media coverage that they would not likely receive with an "Asperger's" label. He has written a three part article titled "Somewhere over the spectrum: Is Asperger's autism?" in the Schafer Autism Report at [1] [2] and [3]
Schafer has stated that he believes referring to Asperger's as autism trivializes what he calls "real" autism. However, both Asperger's Syndrome and Autism are classified as Autism Spectrum Disorders in the Diagnostic Statistics Manual, the primary reference source for doctors.
[edit] Schafer's view on high functioning autism
Schafer has publicly claimed [4] that "there is no clinical definition for the lay term 'high functioning autism' which is an oxymoron." He has used this premise to argue that anyone "high functioning" enough to speak for themselves is by definition not autistic.
[edit] Response from the autism rights movement
Autism rights activists have responded to Schafer by stating that Schafer has not met them and they don't believe Schafer can diagnose them as "Asperger's" instead of "autistic" over the Internet. Some activists believe the differences between Asperger's and autism are not significant enough and that those who are diagnosed as "Asperger's" can still claim to be autistic. There are also some activists who believe that autism and Asperger's don't have any differences at all. Most autism rights activists believe Schafer is only trying to use the word "Asperger's" as an excuse to ignore the viewpoints of autistics he doesn't agree with. They also believe that Schafer's request for documentation of an autism diagnosis is an unreasonable privacy violation. Autistics.org wrote a parody of Schafer's request for proof of diagnosis in a piece entitled Attention Parents
Kathleen Seidel of Neurodiversity.com has published a rebuttal, Lenny Schafer's Inquisition, in response to Schafer's "Somewhere Over the Spectrum" commentary. The letter points out that Schafer has published incorrect information about the distinction between autism and Asperger's and that Schafer appears to be attempting to dismiss the viewpoints of autistic people whose opinions he disagrees with in order to prevent them from entering public dialogue about autism. Seidel also refutes Schafer's claim that pro-cure views need to be represented by pointing out that thousands of articles have been published with the pro-cure viewpoint and that the autistic viewpoint is almost always ignored. She also points out that, despite Schafer's claim to the contrary, autism rights activists have given suggestions to many parents for helping their autistic children.
