Going Through Autism Eye

Trigger Warning for curebie nonsense.

Since I was able to get issue number 8 (that's Winter 2012 for reference) of Autism Eye for free off their website, I'm reading everything in it and providing a commentary, a review, corrections, whatever it is I think it needs, per article. It's actually a lot like what I'm doing with Autism Parenting Magazine, except I don't have any plans to repeat this with later issues since it looks really curebie and biomed heavy. (Autism Parenting Magazine reads to me more as a magazine that is trying to be good but has some work to do. They list Autistic parents as part of their target audience, which is a very strong sign that they are trying. Still going to be blunt about the ways they mess up, though, since if they are trying to be good they would logically want to know about that.)

Anyways, here's my reactions to the cover and the table of contents.

Good food to go nuts over seems OK at first glance. Dairy-free isn't a universal autistic need, and I don't know how common it is, but lactose intolerance, sensory issues, etc are all things. It worries me that this is what they are advertizing as a big important thing, because it suggests they might think it is a universal thing or that it will somehow make autistic people not be autistic any more. It's a flag that there will likely be more wrong, but it's not red alert on its own.

Christmas ideas doesn't look like it has anything to do with autism, but it seems OK from what it says on the cover.

Therapy with a touch of magic. That is a BIG freaking red flag. Alert, alert, this is actual curebie nonsense as opposed to a thing that is useful for some people and assuming use for everyone is the nonsense. It's also probably going to be racist, since we're talking about calling an Indian massage magical. Being massage, as long as we're not setting off sensory meltdowns this probably isn't going to hurt the kid, but again, not a good sign.

The cover image is a mother dragging a kid in a sled, and the headline is about embracing winter fun. That seems fine. No, really. That's typical parenting stuff, and the magazine says right on it that it's for parents and professionals, so typical parenting stuff is typical.

Primitive reflexes: a piece of the puzzle sounds pathologizing and is calling autism a puzzle, which I don't appreciate.

Spotting silent seizures is useful. If they conflate the seizures as being the same thing as the autism that's going to be bad. Autistic people also having seizures is a thing, though. It's pretty common, too, so learning to spot a seizure that isn't a Grand Mal is smart.

Now looking at the table of contents: The first article is talking about a problem that Autistic activists also talk about, restraint and seclusion being used and abused. I am cautiously hopeful about their ability to get a few things right in that piece. The subtitle on the seizure article doesn't look as good as the one on the cover, but it still has the potential to have some good information among the nonsense since seizures really are a thing.

Legal Eye could be anything, recipes still look like just recipes, the Christmas thing is apparently about finding therapy "toys" that can be given for Christmas. The reflexes thing is now very clearly about therapy, which isn't unexpected but isn't a good sign. Winter activities still looks like typical parenting. Computer stuff might reinforce the computer stereotype about autistic people, or it might talk about actual good access things that computers can do for us, and it looks like it's going to talk about ways that computers should be being used for education or therapy. Which could be very good, very bad, problematic packaging of reasonable things, or anywhere in between. The head massage looks just as bad as it sounded before. Floortime gets a mention, which I am cautiously hopeful about since most of what I've heard makes it sounds like playing with your kid. I'm not that hopeful, since anything can be messed up, but it has a hope of containing useful things among the nonsense. Library corner could be anything. 

(Having looked at it, the only book I recognize from Library corner is one that I liked. The rest I'm not familiar with.)