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.