[wizzwizz4]

> for example in a classroom setting, where any autistic kid will take more than their fair share of the teacher's attention.

Ah yes, the classroom environment, where children are not treated like people. Woe betide somebody objects to that!

“Mental disorder” – how is that defined? Saying “mental disorders are bad, autism is a mental disorder, therefore autism is bad” is the non-central fallacy, so obviously you must have a better argument (and I just can't see it). But remember: homosexuality used to be considered a “mental disorder”, as did women wanting the vote (I'm not joking!).

I posit: “mental disorder” is just a word for people who diverge from what society considers typical (or, cynically, acceptable) variation in what people are like. Some of that variation is bad, I won't argue with that. Most of that variation is absolutely fine.

The way society is means that any atypical variation is bad, because society punishes it. If not for that punishment, much variation would be a non-issue.

[AllegedAlec]

> Ah yes, the classroom environment, where children are not treated like people. Woe betide somebody objects to that!

They don't object. They throw tantrums because they didn't get a 2 week advance warning of something happening.

> “Mental disorder” – how is that defined?

DSM-V: a syndrome characterized by *clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior* that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning.

Mental disorders are bad by definition. Psychologists don't put behaviours in their diagnostic manuals for nothing. Autism is in there for a reason. At its mild end it's a hurdle. At its severe end it's absolutely debilitating for the sufferer and their entire network.

> I posit: “mental disorder” is just a word for people who diverge from what society considers typical (or, cynically, acceptable) variation in what people are like. Some of that variation is bad, I won't argue with that. Most of that variation is absolutely fine.

I suggest you go read through the DSM. A major criterium for each mental illness is that the personis hampered in their function by it.

[wizzwizz4]

> They don't object. They throw tantrums because they didn't get a 2 week advance warning of something happening.

“Something happening”… or “adults deciding things while ignoring the needs and desires of the children”? Most of these situations follow a pattern, in my experience:

• Society decides what things may matter and what things may not.

• Adult unilaterally changes things that It Is Unreasonable To Care About.

• Child is not allowed to care about them.

• Child is not allowed to object.

• Child is not allowed to be distracted by the change from What The Child Must Pay Attention To.

• Child must pay attention, immediately, and cease this ridiculous behaviour.

• Child “has a tantrum” (a word that does not distinguish between “deliberate disruption as a protest / spiteful action”, “inability to contain frustration / anger” and “meltdown”).

> Mental disorders are bad by definition. Psychologists don't put behaviours in their diagnostic manuals for nothing.

I never claimed that they did, and you're not addressing what I've said.

> I suggest you go read through the DSM.

I suggest you have a little look at DSM II's “302” section.

> This category is for individuals whose sexual interests are directed primarily toward objects other than people of the opposite sex,

“hampered in their function” requires you to define “function”, and that's usually defined as “ability to fit into society's little box”. While we've made the box a bit bigger (when we don't have to put much effort into it), plenty of benign-of-themselves variations in what people are like are still outside that box, and still punished unnecessarily.

If cyanide was a regular ingredient in food, people with normal levels of mitochondrial rhodanese would be “hampered in their function” – they wouldn't be able to eat even a tenth of the cyanide-containing food a normal person could eat without straight-up dying! You or I would therefore have a disability that just doesn't exist in our society, without any change having occurred to us.

[AllegedAlec]

> “Something happening”… or “adults deciding things while ignoring the needs and desires of the children”? Most of these situations follow a pattern, in my experience:

See my comment towards the other reply. The school thing was an example. Please don't get stuck upon that. You seem to have beef with the entire school system. Fair, maybe, but besides the point.

> If cyanide was a regular ingredient in food, people with normal levels of mitochondrial rhodanese would be “hampered in their function” – they wouldn't be able to eat even a tenth of the cyanide-containing food a normal person could eat without straight-up dying! You or I would therefore have a disability that just doesn't exist in our society, without any change having occurred to us.

So you're argument is "it's not they who don't fit, it's society who doesn't fit them", which may be true, but it extremely unhelpful and a pipe dream. It's all well and good to say "society should change to include people who don't fit", but we've been a social species with complex social interactions for over 20 kiloyears. Asking to change that because of a very small percentage is both inpractical and quite self-centered.

[wizzwizz4]

> You seem to have beef with the entire school system.

It's not just the school system. It's the entire way adults treat children (and, to a lesser extent, the way adults treat adults). Ever wondered why autistic adults rarely have “tantrums” in (say) an office environment? There's the “older and more experienced”, sure, but they're allowed to have boundaries – something that most adults deny to most children.

People (usually) afford adults the basic decency they would afford another person, and suddenly the disability is less severe. Funny, that.

> which may be true, but it extremely unhelpful and a pipe dream.

We can change society. We should.

> but we've been a social species with complex social interactions for over 20 kiloyears

That's not what I'm suggesting should change. Rather, we should change some pretty minor aspects of those interactions, if your standard is “having complex social interactions at all”.

This is stuff like making computers have audio-only interfaces, or making it possible for wheelchair-users to get on trains on their own. Small things, all things considered.

[zozbot234]

Temper tantrums are in fact quite common in the office. It's just that most people sensibly regard them as a form of emotional abuse, which is to say a gross violation of any bystanders' boundaries, as well as of basic decency. It's not clear why we should focus on a supposed violation of the kid's boundaries, when the kid's own transgression is so much more readily apparent.

[wizzwizz4]

> It's not clear why we should focus on a supposed violation of the kid's boundaries, when the kid's own transgression is so much more readily apparent.

Do you want to stop the disruption? Or do you want to punish children for a perceived violation of your authority?

There is no violation of the kid's boundaries, because the kid does not have boundaries, because the kid has not been allowed to have boundaries. There is precious little that the kid can actually control… often, not even who's allowed to touch them. This is not okay.

> Once in a hotel dining-room I said, rather too loudly, ‘I loathe prunes.’ ‘So do I,’ came an unexpected six-year-old voice from another table. Sympathy was instantaneous. Neither of us thought it funny. We both knew that prunes are far too nasty to be funny. That is the proper meeting between man and child as independent personalities.

— C. S. Lewis, Letters to Children

[hnbad]

The funny thing about "classroom environments" is that a good deal of what happens even down to the kindergarten level falls under the exact definition of psychological child abuse. Heck, even a lot of "traditional parenting" does too. I'd say any child is more likely to have some form of emotional trauma or another by the time they come of age than not.