The Socialist 9 February 2011

Big Society? Big Con!

Big society? ... big con!

Fight the cuts - whoever makes them

Ditch the library cuts

Hands off our forests!

Campaigners reject maternity unit cuts

Billy Bragg helps raise Exeter Anti-Cuts funds

Institute of Directors, bosses' organisation, bares its teeth at unions

Solidarity with the Egyptian masses

Uprising in Egypt - Socialist Party public meetings

EDL racists terrorise Luton

Fast news

National education shutdown needed

PCS young members' network conference

Yorkshire: organising the student movement

Demonstrating against cuts in Grimsby

Volunteering 'plaster' for unemployment

Egypt: Is revolution derailed?

Economic crisis in Greece: Immigrants made scapegoats

Solidarity messages needed for US prison reform activist

Southampton campaigners march in defence of jobs and services

Jobs massacre at Pfizer

Striking against health job cuts

Scottish Unison members oppose leadership's sell-out

Leicester Unison members rally against all cuts

March against the job losses in Greenwich

Unite anti-cuts conference

Woody Sez

Life on the autistic spectrum

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Readers' comments

Life on the autistic spectrum

AUTISM IS a neurological condition that was first identified in the 1940s. It statistically affects about one in 100 people in the UK alone (although I believe there are more autistics who haven't been diagnosed).

Lucy Stokes

The traits that autistics can have include finding that socialising doesn't come naturally, having a delay in learning how to talk (I couldn't talk until I was five or six), needing a regular routine, needing new things to be planned in advance, getting stressed easily by a disruption in routine and taking things too literally.

Other traits can be, hyper/hyposensitivity to things such as touch and taste (that's why I'm teetotal), finding eye contact very discomforting, being brutally honest and having difficulty in expressing emotions.

Autistics can have obsessions whether it is art, science or a TV show. No two autistics are the same though, this is why it's called the Autistic Spectrum Disorder (I prefer condition as there's nothing wrong with us).

Unfortunately services for adults on the autistic spectrum are minimal, close to none in fact. It seems as if you are no longer autistic once you reach 18 and counselling for autistics who suffer, for example, from depression is virtually non-existent for adults.

There are some organisations such as Autism Speaks, a "charity" which claims that autism is a terrible disease, worse than AIDS and an epidemic. Autistics and their relatives can be fooled into supporting what they're saying.

They are taking advantage of the fact that there are virtually no services whatsoever, largely so the top figures can pay themselves an inflated salary.

I blame this on capitalist society that only cares about profit, not people's needs. We are expected to conform to society and autistics can easily get discriminated against in work and education, and are more likely to be bullied.

In a socialist society, services would be accessible. Life would be less stressful as things are more likely to be planned and autistics will have more of a say in how things are run in services we rely on.

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Socialist Party news and analysis

Big society? ... big con!