The Need for Acceptance in China

 TW: Ableism, suicide

In the last couple weeks, there have been THREE articles over at ThAutcast about autism-related incidents in China. (1,2,3)
The first was about something pretty good- the Shenzhen Autism Society arranged for autistic kids to learn how to make moon cakes. I mean, the article still has the grandmother of one of these kids talking about trying to cure said kid. "If he is older, 7 or 8, and still acts like this, there will be no hope of a cure," she said. That's problematic for several reasons:

1. Trying to cure him.
2. Thinking that he won't improve past age 6 or so.
3. Thinking that acting less autistic=cured.

But it was a step towards inclusion. It was some progress, at least.

The next was highly problematic. It's still Shenzhen, where we just had the mooncakes story, parents essentially forced an autistic boy out of his class. Apparently he tried very  hard to stay- he slipped in and found a desk in the back, then he stood when they took his desk. But they were determined not to let the autistic boy be in the classroom, and he was eventually removed.

And the last is the worst. In yet another city, parents are trying to get an autistic child removed from his class. They cite that he takes up more of the teachers time (Get him an aide! It's not unusual to get aides for autistic people.) and that he has apparently thrown a chair on two occasions. It seems to me that he most likely isn't getting the supports he needs, but that if given those supports, such as an aide, he would most likely be fine in the classroom. However, the parents simply want him removed. And at the bottom, we find out that the boy from Shenzhen whose expulsion we found out about in the second article killed himself by jumping off a balcony. We know that this kind of exclusion hurts people, and it doesn't stop. When will it stop?