About OA
Organiserade Aspergare (OA) is an interest group formed by and for autistic people, i.e. people who have or think they are likely to have a diagnosis on the autism spectrum. In OA, we don’t see our diagnoses as unpleasant impositions on our personalities, but as parts of them. Just like other characteristics individuals happen to have.
In the association we work on several levels. Above all, we meet to socialise, form friendships and by being a social support for each other. It will also provide an opportunity to discuss everyday autistic issues such as misunderstandings or conflicts with neurotypical people (NT) and sensory overload, as well as methods and coping strategies to manage and resolve them. Together we are strong and only our own imagination and commitment sets limits to what we can or should do.
The National Association for Organiserade Aspergare is located in Örebro and we have several local districts from Västra Götaland in the south to Västernorrland in the north. Are we not in your area? Contact us at info@aspergare.org, and we will help you get started.
We socialize and discuss with like-minded people.
In addition, we want to lobby at all levels, to influence the help our target group receives in society. We want support to be tailored to each individual’s needs and to aim for independence as far as possible. We participate in several local and national conferences each year and the work is progressing.
We stand for the perspective of neurodiversity and believe that neurological abnormalities are a natural part of normal human variation.
The four points of neurodiversity are:
- We are not to be “cured”.
- We will broaden the understanding of different personality types.
- We want to change the vocabulary, so that terms such as “disease” and “disorder” are not used for autism.
- We want control over care and treatment.
Independence
Because we want to work without the involvement of NT people, our association is aimed at relatively independent autistic people. That is, to be able to participate in the activities of the association and to speak for oneself and the association. NTs, people without a neuropsychiatric diagnosis, think differently and may therefore have difficulty understanding us. This can lead to them taking over and controlling the work of the association in different ways.
We also want to run the association without the involvement of people outside the autism spectrum, as there are already two broad organisations in the field, where these groups dominate to varying degrees. We need our very own association, where we can focus on expressing our views on issues affecting our group.
If we with our own diagnosis are only visible as members and possibly active in these broad organisations, where we have NT people at our side, there is a big risk that many people will think that we can only do that kind of association work. That’s why we think it’s important to have something of our own, where our commitment can really show the world what autistic people can actually do themselves.
Rather than a reassignment of all the tasks the person is deemed unable to perform, we believe that many aspergers and autistic people would benefit from:
Prejudice
Remarkably often, we are portrayed and perceived as being more low-functioning than many of us actually are. But we are not our diagnosis and it does not only imply a disability. On the contrary, there are many positive aspects, something that is rarely discussed in public debate.
Sometimes we are even portrayed as unresponsive or even dangerous, something we strongly oppose. Of course, norm-breaking or anti-social behaviour exists within our group as well. As with other groups, it is mainly due to bad environmental factors or personal shortcomings and of course it should be punished and treated in the same way as for these. However, autism should not be confused as a general explanatory model.
The strange thing is that the same people who express these views can also emphasise the obvious fact that we are different individuals. We are at least as different from each other as those who follow the norm enough to not qualify for a diagnosis on the autism spectrum. In addition, we have different strengths and weaknesses. We do not understand how the terms autistic and aspergers could mean the opposite. Therefore, we see no problem in using these terms about ourselves in a positive way.