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Voices of autism 'silenced' by charity

By Celeste Biever

30 January 2008

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

An extraordinary dispute has broken out between people with autism and a charity that aims to help them. At stake is how such people are perceived by the general public.

Like many people with autism, an autistic blogger who goes by the screen name “Abscout” is angry about the way the condition is portrayed by some charities. To try and paint a different picture, Abscout set up a spoof website called NTSpeaks.org, a parody of the site of the New York-based charity Autism Speaks. The NT stands for neurotypical, a term sometimes used by people with autism to describe…

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