Is It Ableism? Part 7: Infantilization

Links to previous installments in this series:

Part 1: Revisiting the Dark Ages

Part 2: Obvious Definitions of Ableism

Part 3: Defining Disability

Part 4: Internalized Ableism

Part 5: Is "Overcoming" Worth It?

Part 6: Accommodation 

Names of people and places changed, as always.

In the last post, I discussed the importance of accommodating people with invisible disabilities, and how that such accommodation has been a long time coming for autistic people. Parents, teachers, camp counselors, friends, and employers need to put out the equivalent of a wheelchair ramp for us, and for me that proverbial wheelchair ramp is largely in the form of direct, transparent communication. Unfortunately, there have been many times when people were direct with me but in an infantilizing manner.

It's one thing to be talked to like a child when you are in elementary or even middle school. It's another to be talked to that way when you're high school aged or older. It was around that time in my life when I really started to feel like certain people were treating me in an infantilizing manner. I'm immediately brought back to a day on the ropes course at Camp Negev in the summer of 1998, when I was in the CIT program. While one of the counselors was explaining the instructions for the ropes course element (either the giant ladder or the zip line), I jumped on one of the hanging tires on the tire swing course nearby. My intent was to sit on the tire to listen, but I guess the counselor thought that I was just goofing off. Instead of saying, "Come on, I need you to come over here to listen," which would have been a gentle reminder that was accommodating, she said, "Julie, that's not what we're doing right now," like I was a ten-year-old child who needed to be reprimanded. I remember feeling ashamed and slightly humiliated. The implication of her statement was that she perceived me as someone who needed to be talked to in a way appropriate for a little kid rather than a seventeen-year-old whose brain just happened to be all over the map sometimes. 

I can recall a number of times when I complained to my brother about one person or another constantly talking to me in ways similar to the aforementioned. His response was always, "Well, then it's obviously something you're doing" or "Are you sure it's not something you're doing?" With a 21st-century understanding of autism, today such a response might be categorized as ableist, and I think rightly so. Before you object, hear me out with this analogy: A kid with a disability that makes math hard for them keeps flunking one test after another. The teacher writes on their test: "We went over this OVER AND OVER AND OVER again in class! This is not how you do math!! You just don't get it!!!" It would be humiliating for that kid, who had put in countless hours of studying all week. It would also be ableist because it wouldn't be acknowledging and accepting the kid's disability and providing accommodations (such as offering extra help). And imagine how ludicrous it would be to tell the kid, "Well it's obviously something you're doing," when they complain about the teacher's comments.

There is also a fine line between accommodation and infantilization. In Part 6, I talked about my friend Chuck acknowledging and understanding my need for direct communication, to have certain things about our friendship spelled out for me so that I knew we were on the same page. He also said he is giving me more time than most of his other friends, not out of "throwing me a bone" but out of empathy and understanding; that is, he ultimately does it because he wants to. "Throwing me a bone" would be a form of infantilization, something one would do out of pity for the poor, innocent childlike autistic person who can't be expected to have an adult mentality. I would have found that kind of behavior not accommodating, but insulting. 

Unfortunately, there is a stereotype that we on the spectrum-- even as adults-- have a childlike innocence and naiveté, and that we're so clueless that we have no idea what's going on around us. At best, we need to be "thrown bones" out of pity, and at worst we need to be talked down to. I feel that requests for accommodation that aren't obvious, such as a wheelchair ramp, are seen as the demands of a needy child who can't just "deal with it."

For example, one of my friends on the spectrum (they/them) is unable to drive due to poor gross motor skills and reaction time. They have their license, but they totaled their car during their first time out on the road. Driving carries some inherent risk, but for my friend it carries monumental risk and so it is not worth it for them to "keep trying" (unless they want to, of course) but rather accept that this is something that they cannot do. In fact, many people on the spectrum either (like me) take a very long time to learn to drive or (like my friend) are never able to learn. Because driving is seen as a rite of passage to adulthood, not being able to drive due to an "invisible" disability is seen by many as a mark of immaturity, as failure to grow up and take responsibility, as refusal to even try. To my knowledge, there are only special transportation services for people with obvious physical disabilities, such as blindness. Such a service, however, would be very beneficial to people like my friend.

What about people on the spectrum who have sensory sensitivities? While this was never an issue for me, some of us need to be given a separate work environment, away from florescent lights and loud sounds. "Oh, but it's not fair to the others." Like Richard Lavoie said in the video that I cited in Part 6, it has nothing to do with the others. Maybe others would prefer to work in a separate room, but someone with sensory issues has to work in a separate room. Unfortunately, I feel that people who need this type of accommodation are often seen as picky, needy children who can't just suck it up like everyone else apparently is (when the reality is "everyone else" simply doesn't have sensory sensitivities and so there is nothing for them to "suck up"). 

The aforementioned types of infantilization, even well-intended bone-throwing, are beyond humiliating. Unfortunately, I feel that society at large sees us as children in adult bodies, children who are just beyond clueless. We are often stamped with a word I am so fucking sick to death of, and it's worth having a discussion as to whether this word is ableist. 

That word is "immature." 

Stay tuned.

Frustration, Anxiety, and Tension Part 1: You're Not Trying

On YouTube I found an illuminating interview with special-needs educator Richard Lavoie. He recalls a time in the 1970s in which he was working as a teacher at a boarding school where he also tutored a fourteen-year-old boy named Craig who had severe learning disabilities involving reading and writing. One day, Lavoie asked Craig to write a story about his dog for a homework assignment. Craig turned in the essay the next day, and the day after he showed up early to his class to wait for Lavoie. He had worked so hard, spending the evening meticulously proofreading his work while his classmates were out playing basketball, that he was sure it was “perfect” and that his teacher’s feedback would reflect that. 

But Craig’s essay was so rife with spelling and grammatical errors that there was more of Lavoie’s writing—in red pencil—than Craig’s. 

I can completely relate to the unbelievable pain, disappointment, and frustration that Craig must have felt when Lavoie handed the essay back to him. Not because of any verbal learning difficulty I had—teachers often were impressed with my writing abilities—but because of the sheer agony I often felt when I worked hard to overcome an issue that was related to then-undiagnosed autism. Often, parents, teachers, and peers would identify a social faux pas that I continually exhibited. I would work on it, feel immensely proud of myself when I thought that I had overcome it, and then find out that something I did had pissed off everybody in the room. Sometimes what I had done was related to whatever issue I had been working on. Sometimes it was something completely different that would never have occurred to me would be seen as problematic. I felt like that no matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried, it was not good enough, that there was always something I was missing—and that I had nobody to blame but myself. 

Fortunately, Craig’s learning disability was well-understood by some educators in the 1970s; at the very least, Lavoie was one of them, and he knew better than to tell Craig, “You’re not trying” and realized that Craig’s struggles were largely beyond his control. Unfortunately, in the 1980s, 1990s, and well into the 2000s, autism—and the social disabilities that come with it—were not understood at all. Autism as a “spectrum” was largely unknown in those days and not something one would dream of diagnosing an honors student—let alone a female honors student—with. Any social faux pas that I committed was potentially seen as intentional, indicative of poor upbringing, my resistance to learn from mistakes, and sometimes even that I was a bad person.

Often, it was my own parents who told me “You’re not trying.” This is not reflective of them being ignorant about “invisible” disabilities in general but rather the prevailing ignorance about social disabilities—autism—throughout the era I grew up in. I struggled with math, and almost every night my father had to help me with my homework. Dad never would have dreamed of telling me, “I don’t see you trying” in that context. He and Mom, however, sometimes said that exact same thing when I made a social mistake. If I told them I was trying, they said, “You need to try harder.”

They had no idea how hard I was trying. 

One time, during my senior year of high school, Dad even said, “You’re not done” in relation to my efforts to improve myself, further cementing my perception that no matter what I did I would miss the mark. Additionally, I felt that missing the mark was the result of not just a failing on my part, but a moral failing. There were many times in my life where I hated myself, where I felt I was a horrible person who violated other people in egregious ways, rather than that I was just socially awkward. 

Lavoie’s experience with Craig inspired him to do a workshop for teachers, using techniques that convincingly simulated the learning disabled-experience for them. In 1988, at the time that it was made, there were still teachers accusing kids of not trying and telling them to “try harder.” There was even the ignorant perception that these kids were deliberately making the teachers’ lives difficult, just like many people in my life thought I was deliberately making their lives difficult. I can only imagine what kids with severe academic learning disabilities thought of themselves if they grew up in an era in which their needs were not understood. 

I will say this though—never ever tell someone, kid or adult, that they are “not trying.” Just listen. And while you’re listening, don’t tell them that you know exactly how they feel unless you truly have had a comparable experience. Lavoie told Craig, “I know exactly how you feel” after Craig cried over his failed essay—and he admitted it was the stupidest thing he could have said to him. I also realize that I might be guilty of doing the same thing when I compare my feelings of inadequacy to Craig’s. I want to clarify by saying that I relate in terms of that the emotions are similar. But just like I’ll never truly understand what it’s like to have severe writing problems, Craig will probably never truly understand what it’s like to be autistic. 

Neither did a particular teacher I had in high school. Stay tuned.