Interactions

WrongPlanet.net

Fairfax

I feel compelled to register my anger and dismay. Let me tell you, as a parent, I am not in love with my son's label. And to assume that any parent "seeks" a diagnosis is ludicrous. We seek help for our children. As the mother of a 5-year-old son "labeled" PDD-NOS [Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified], I would truly rather be doing other things with my life, time and money than seeking labels. Articles like these paint us as hovering, spoiled parents who want a label so we can get insurance reimbursement, or because we are dissatisfied with our children's shortcomings. We already have enough trouble fighting the indifference and ignorance toward autism in the medical community without articles like this.

Julie Davisson

Falls Church

As I said to Maia Szalavitz [when she interviewed me for her story], it's not labels that are problematic, it's their baggage. Our society adopts the medical model of disability: something "broken" that prevents the individual from accomplishing goals the "normal" way. We don't deal very well with whatever we can't fix.

A better approach is the social model of disability, which distinguishes between impairment, the thing that's broken, and handicap, the inability to accomplish goals. This model urges us to find alternative ways of accomplishing the goals,to fix what we can both in the individual and in society.