Rescue Me: The NYU Child Study Center’s Ransom Notes Ad Campaign

by Kristina Chew, PhD on December 11th, 2007

Rescue me: That is the essence of the message of the “Ransom Notes” “public awareness campaign” that the New York University Child Study Center is launching. I’ve noted the use of shocking and alarmist language in the ads, which feature fictional “ransom notes,” with the captors being “untreated psychiatric disorders,” including autism, Asperger Syndrome, bulimia, depression, ADHD, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The image of these conditions as kidnappers, abductors, criminals—normal child snatchers—who have gotten hold of our children is troubling and, further, harmful and offensive—and many autistic self-advocates and parents have been blogging about why:

(If you have written a post about the Ransom Notes campaign that is not listed here, I’d appreciate it if you might leave a link in the comments section; thank you.)

My concern about the NYU Center’s Ransom Notes campaign is twofold. First, with its imagery of a child “captured” by some devious creature (autism, ADHD, etc.), the campaign revives outmoded ideas about these sorts of conditions.

The “Ransom Note” campaign draws in part on the myth of the changeling, in which a human child was said to have been snatched from its cradle by trolls and replaced with an ugly, deformed, creature. This troll-child, the changeling, is a disabled child. While I don’t think that parents today always knowingly invoke this folk story when they refer to their autistic child as once normal and now “lost”; references to autistic children as an “empty shell” do suggest this notion of the changeling, of a child stolen away and a deformed being left in her or his place.

Second, while there is no question that the NYU Center seeks to help and support children with issues that more than need addressing, and to assist their families, I as a parent of an autistic child, a disability rights advocate, and an educator and academic, am greatly concerned about the misconceptions, misunderstanding, and limited perspective that the “Ransom Notes” campaign promotes. The notion that a child’s true and actual, normal self has been stolen away by some disorder (autism) is harmful to how other people perceive and treat my autistic son. The image of autism promoted by the “Ransom Notes” campaign is purely negative and can only result in people seeing autism in general and my autistic son in particular in a highly negative light.

This is a “public awareness” campaign that makes the public aware only of one very dark aspect of being an autistic person and of raising an autistic child. Spend a day in our household and, while you will witness more than a few moments of anxiety, fretfulness, and a bit of noise, I hope you might most of all sense my son’s limitless desire to do his best, to struggle through his worries, and to smile and speak in half-echoed snatches of phrases—-his patience and his constant efforts to try and try harder. I hope you might most of all sense what Jim and I feel always for Charlie and our small family, unconditional love, faith in each other, and effervescent hope.

It is not a household that Charlie, or Jim or I, feel at all in need of being rescued from.

This is the full text of a letter by Ari Ne’eman, President of the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network. If you would like to add your name to the letter, please send an email to Ari Ne’eman.

To the NYU Child Study Center and the supporters of the “Ransom Notes” advertising campaign:

We, the undersigned organizations, are writing to you regarding your new ad campaign for the NYU Child Study Center: “Ransom Notes”. Our organizations represent people with a wide range of disabilities, including those portrayed in your campaign, as well as family members, professionals and others whose lives are affected by disabilities. As people who live and work with disability, we cannot help but be concerned by the way your campaign depicts individuals with disabilities. By choosing to portray people on the autism spectrum as well as those living with OCD, ADHD and other disabilities as kidnapped or possessed children, you have inadvertently reinforced many of the worst stereotypes that have prevented children and adults with disabilities from gaining inclusion, equality and full access to the services and supports they require.

While the “Ransom Notes” campaign was no doubt a well-intentioned effort to increase awareness and thus support for the disabilities it describes, the means through which it attempts this have the opposite effect. When a child with ADHD is described as “a detriment to himself and those around him,” it hurts the efforts of individuals, parents and families to ensure inclusion of students with learning disabilities in the same classrooms as their peers. When individuals with diagnoses of autism and Asperger’s Syndrome are told that their capacities for social interaction and independent living are completely destroyed, it deeply offends the many adults of these neurologies who have succeeded in living independent lives, forming social relationships and achieving personal, financial and social success. While it is true that there are many difficulties associated with the disabilities you describe, many individuals with those diagnostic categories do succeed – not necessarily by becoming indistinguishable from their non-disabled peers, but by finding ways to maximize their unique abilities and potential on their own terms.

It is important to point out that while the Center has promoted this campaign under the tag line, “Don’t let a psychiatric disorder take your child,” several of the disabilities described by the campaign are neurological rather than psychiatric. The implication that autism and Asperger’s Syndrome are psychiatric conditions rather than neurological ones, combined with the implicit threat that the kidnapping note sends to parents (“Ignore this and your kid will pay”), calls to mind the damaging “refrigerator mother” theory popularized by Dr. Bruno Bettelheim over thirty-five years ago. The stigma and misinformation that resulted from Dr. Bettelheim’s mistaken assertion that bad mothers were the cause of autism drove parents away from seeking diagnostic services and appropriate educational interventions for their children. Like Bettelheim, the “Ransom Notes” campaign places a stigma on both parents and children, thus discouraging them from pursuing a diagnosis that might have been helpful in gaining access to the appropriate services, supports and educational tools. The autism spectrum should be recognized for what it is: a lifelong neurological condition – not a kidnapper that steals children in the dead of the night.

Furthermore, the use of kidnapping as an analogy for any of the disabilities depicted in the campaign is highly inappropriate, regardless of the origin of the conditions involved. It is true that diagnoses of ADHD, autism, Asperger’s Syndrome and OCD often accompany great hardships for families. It is true that depression and bulimia are terrible disorders that require treatment. Yet, the way you choose to convey those messages is inappropriate and counterproductive. Individuals with disabilities are not replacements for normal children that are stolen away by the disability in question. They are whole people, deserving of the same rights, respect and dignity afforded their peers. Too often, the idea that children with disabilities are less than human lies at the heart of horrific crimes committed against them. The tragic instances of murder and infanticide against people on the autism spectrum and with other developmental disabilities are linked with the perception that these people are less than human. We – the adults, families, professionals and others affected by these conditions - assert that nothing could be further from the truth.

We are also concerned that the negative stereotypes the “Ransom Notes” campaign depicts could make it harder for the many people with disabilities and their family members who are working to ensure that students with disabilities have the right to be included in their home schools while still receiving all necessary services. Federal law mandates that students with disabilities have the right to a “free and appropriate public education” in the “least restrictive environment”. Your advertising campaign claims that children with disabilities could be a detriment to those around them and as a result hurts the efforts of parents working to secure the opportunity for their children to be included with their peers.

While we recognize and applaud the good intentions intended by this effort, we must urge you to withdraw this campaign immediately, as it threatens to harm the very people whom it seeks to benefit: people with disabilities, their families and their supporters. In the press release announcing this campaign, the Center gave as one of its goals “eliminating the stigma of being or having a child with a psychiatric disorder”. While we may disagree with the Center’s choice of labels, we are in full agreement with the goal of eliminating stigma against people with disabilities and their families. This campaign serves to increase that stigma rather than lessen it. We hope that you will heed our concerns and those of many other people with disabilities, family members, professionals and countless others and end the “Ransom Notes” advertising campaign.

Please do not to hesitate to contact any of the organizations listed as signatories to this letter in order to better solicit the opinions of the disability community prior to your next advertising campaign. We would be more than glad to help the Center to develop better strategies to achieve its excellent goals. The NYU Child Study Center has the potential to do enormous good for children and families affected by disability. By showing that the Center respects the views of people with disabilities, families and professionals, you can make that aspiration a reality.

Sincerely,

Ari Ne’eman
Founding President
The Autistic Self Advocacy Network

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Rescue Me: The NYU Child Study Center’s Ransom Notes Ad Campaign

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