Having now gotten two different responses that both missed the point I thought I was making, I'm just going to acknowledge that I must have done a bad job expressing it and start over.
I would hope (perhaps this is mind projection -- given that I would never be inclined to beat someone for fidgeting either) that the driving sentiment behind the desire to "cure" autism is not about eliminating alternative perceptual paradigms, unusually strong predispositions to literalism and consequentialism, and the like, but rather about enabling the ability to communicate effectively with other humans.
Obviously, if I am wrong about that, then that would just be horrifying. But I'd like to give the average parent of an autistic child a little more credit.
I agree, that would be a lovely thing. Actually, this interchange alerts me to the possibility that NT parents of autistic children might often be taking this stance, which is muddled sometimes by certain factors such as Autism Speaks being the largest autism-related not for profit in the US; them having huge frustration over parenthood which is hard in the first place; technology like AAC being a Scary Outside Thing and teaching your child how to be nice and say I Love You being well-approved parenting tactics, as well as heartwarming.
Sometimes, the world...
I ran across this article that I think is interesting. It suggests that type 2 diabetes and the increase in autism may have a common link
http://www.frontiersin.org/Cellular_Endocrinology/10.3389/fendo.2011.00054/full