Battling for the Disabled With Cesar Chavez in Mind : Youth Opinion: A young woman with autism finds a model for her effort to organize against ‘aversive therapies.’

I am a teen-ager with autism, an incurable lifelong condition I was born with. It affects my speech, which consists mostly of nonsense sounds; my ability to form friendships because my face doesn’t smile when I want it to, and my ability to please people around me because I often scare them with loud noises and explosive movements. And I absolutely dislike being in a crowded room because the noise and activity are overwhelming.

I am fortunate because I can communicate through my typing. I am a student at Whittier High living quite a normal life: I am enrolled in honors English, advanced placement history, dance, journalism and Spanish, and have a 3.84 grade point average. I use a TDD device so I can telephone friends and family members, and I use e-mail to correspond with autistic friends back East.

But if I were a student in one East Coast school, I could have been strapped down and sprayed with water for several minutes at a time or been forced to inhale ammonia for such minor infractions as grunting or looking away from a task.

According to a recent article in the Boston Herald, this same school, the Behavior Research Institute, recently renamed the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center, used electroshock 5,300 times in a single day on one client. At a hearing, a state legislator tried the device on himself and jumped out of his chair in pain. The state of Massachusetts has since barred the use of that therapy there.

That school may be the best-known user of such aversive measures (physically or emotionally painful stimuli intended to stop undesired behavior), but it is not alone. Similar abuses have been detailed in the newsletter of the Assn. for Persons with Severe Handicaps, based in Baltimore. And a report submitted to Amnesty International is filled with examples of awful abuse done to people with autism and mental retardation as a method to teach skills or modify behavior.

Proponents of this inhumanity say they must use it to stop life-threatening behavior. This is not true. Positive interventions are, in fact, more successful because they find out why the person is doing the behavior and teach alternatives.

So despite my disability, I have begun to advocate for people with autism, about halfof whom have no effective means of communication. They are at the mercy of care providers and, unfortunately, are often abused.

I am using Cesar Chavez as my model. Chavez organized farm workers and advocated for higher wages and humane treatment of the laborers. Abusive agribusiness practices included making workers use chemicals that poisoned them. poisoning workers with chemicals. Chavez brought this to the attention of the public, which had been complacent about substandard wages but became incensed at this abuse.

Using aversives is as much an assault on humanity as was the poisoning of farm workers. That is why I look to Chavez for inspiration. Like him, I want to organize autistic people to bring abusive situations to light and gain the support of the general public, who are unaware of these outrages.

Chavez’ struggle taught me how advocates must speak out against injustices and do something about them. He also knew there is strength in numbers and spent his life uniting people.

I hope to reach people by using my computer and sneaking the subject into presentations about my method of typing that I give at special education conferences and college classes. While at a conference in Syracuse, N. Y., last month, I discovered the Autism Network International, whose members communicate by e-mail. I have contacted them and hope that we can, together, encourage legislators to pass laws against abuse used in the name of treatment.

I have also decided to work with the Pennsylvania-based Autism National Committee, which has taken a stand against such abuse. Locally, the Los Angeles chapter of the Autism Society of America is trying to persuade the national organization to let members vote on a policy statement against the use of aversives. I hope that my efforts can make a difference and be an inspiration to other disabled people, as Cesar Chavez was to me.