Talk:Next for Autism

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Criticism section inaccurate / out of date?

Latest comment: 2 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hello there,

Complete Wikipedia layperson here, leaving this post here for a more experienced editor to take a look at for an edit, since I don't know how / don't have the time to leave an accurate enough edit to do this justice.

So it looks like around 2021 - 2022, there was a bit of an editing frenzy over the content of the article in regards to criticism of the organisation. This seems due, since their organization received a larger than normal volume of attention from Jimmy Kimmel / Mark Rober.

The criticism component has bounced back and forth from a moderately sized paragraph, down to a sentence, back up to a paragraph, and it was even removed at one point. The current sentence which represents the criticism portion (As of July 2024) is:

The organization has received criticism for its endorsement of Autism Speaks and applied behavior analysis.

My issue is, this statement is:

1) factually incorrect based off the organizations own published viewpoints :

https://nextforautism.org/about/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240601091202/https://nextforautism.org/about/ (most current wayback machine link for posterity)

Regarding autism speaks, while this page does list engagements they had with the organization, they list quite clearly at the bottom that: "We are not currently engaged with Autism Speaks."

As well, for applied behaviour analysis, there is no mention of explicit support in the about page.

2) has a dead link in the citation

https://roguerocket.com/2021/04/20/mark-rober-faces-backlash/ -this link is dead

In my opinion, this section could stand be more verbose, but for objectivities sake, the writing here, at the very least should match the actual views of the organization. Morrigannon (talk) 07:11, 12 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Category:Mental health organizations based in New York (state)

Latest comment: 1 year ago3 comments2 people in discussion

I've restored Category:Mental health organizations based in New York (state) (which was removed by DoItFastDoItUrgent. Autism is a "mental health issue" (not a "mental illness", as implied by DoItFastDoItUrgent's edit summary), as is clearly obvious from the Autism article, and the supercategories of Category:Autism and Category:Autism-related organizations based in the United States. Mitch Ames (talk) 02:13, 5 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

In what way is declaring autism a "mental health issue" different than declaring everyone who is autistic mentally ill or unhealthy? If one holds that autism detracts from one's mental health, then one also must hold that autistic people are mentally unhealthy. There's no way to state the former without indirectly stating the latter (or vice-versa).

Also, regarding Next for Autism specifically, what mental-health services do they provide or promote? I don't see any mentioned in the article. Opening a charter school has nothing directly to do with mental health. A program to help teenagers transition from school to work has nothing directly to do with mental health. The claim that the organization "opened" the Center for Autism and the Developing Brain failed verification (they don't own or operate the center). Is it the most recently reached consensus on Wikipedia to declare any organization whose primary focus is on autistic people to be a "mental health organization" without any examination of the types or goods or services they provide or promote? If so, perhaps it's time to re-open that discussion. DoItFastDoItUrgent (talk) 02:26, 6 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

what mental-health services do they provide or promote? — They provide Grants "Promoting access to ... mental health support".

I don't see any mentioned in the article. — added

Mitch Ames (talk) 11:47, 6 October 2025 (UTC)Reply