Neurodiversity and social change
your dreams will be reduced down to breathing, and you will be grateful
The thing about not-being-a-person is: They will say those people and the price of being a person is to nod and agree that yes, those people aren’t people at all. They will have no idea who they are talking to. You yourself will start to forget, too. They will say a million small things that sow the seeds for violence done against you, and you will smile and let them. You will do math, constantly. How much do I want to be a person today? How much do I want this project to succeed? How much honesty can I afford? How much dishonesty will kill me? What is the cost of coming out? Is there a way to delay, soften, transmute? How long can I survive as half a person? Ever since the world ended ... I don't go out as much. People that I once befriended, just don't bother to stay in touch. Things that used to seem so splendid, don't really matter today. It's just as well the world ended -- it wasn't working anyway. Your dreams will be reduced down to breathing. [Read More]
Julia Bascom on 03/5/12 | 2 Comments | Read More
Can One Assign the Wrong Intentions to Triangles?
I’ve recently run across two studies in which an ability to impute mental states and empathize with others was measured by having the research participants look at inanimate objects moving across a ...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 01/16/12 | 6 Comments | Read More
Saving a Theory, Dismissing its Subjects
I’ve been spending the weekend putting together my preliminary research questions and a working bibliography for my graduate program. To my great surprise, I’ve actually been able to read some of ...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 01/3/12 | 1 Comment | Read More
These past few days, I’ve been realizing that, from the time I was small, I’ve lived with an odd kind of bifurcated consciousness about myself. On the one hand, I was The Child Destined to Do Gr...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 12/23/11 | 3 Comments | Read More
Why do you stay in the marriage? An acquaintance recently asked my husband this question. He asked it not because my husband had expressed any unhappiness with our marriage, but because I have As...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 12/9/11 | No Comments | Read More
Navigating Competing Worlds: The Elusive Ideal of Normalcy
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been very busy with my job and with getting acclimated to the routine of my graduate program. I’ve formed a great connection with the little guy I care for, and in ...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 10/28/11 | 2 Comments | Read More
Unwarranted Conclusions and the Potential for Harm: My Reply to Simon Baron-Cohen
I want to thank Simon Baron-Cohen for taking the time to respond, in his September 10th post on the Autism Blogs Directory, to one of my early pieces on autism and empathy. I am very gratified that h...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 09/21/11 | 9 Comments | Read More
Thoughts on Visual Thinking and Empathy
A comment left on one of my posts a few weeks back got me wondering about the connection between visual thinking and empathic response. About the idiom “It’s raining cats and dogs,” Lauren wro...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 09/15/11 | 1 Comment | Read More
On September 16, my daughter will fly to California to begin life at UC Santa Cruz. These days, I find myself reliving much of her childhood in my memory: The rainy winter night we brought her home ...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 09/15/11 | No Comments | Read More
The Empathy Issue Is a Human Rights Issue
Empathy. For most people, the word is synonymous with humanity. The American Psychological Association calls empathy “the trait that makes us human.” 1 According to author D.H. Pink, empathy i...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 09/9/11 | 3 Comments | Read More
A Critique of the Empathy Quotient (EQ) Test: Conclusion
When I first began writing this critique, I tried to take the EQ test, and I found myself so stymied by it that I gave up. As a person who arrives at the “big picture” by putting together all th...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 09/2/11 | No Comments | Read More
A Critique of the Empathy Quotient (EQ) Test: Part 3
In Part 1 of this series, I outlined the basics of the EQ test, introduced the definition of cognitive empathy assumed by the authors of the test, and critiqued the statements on the EQ test that sp...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 09/1/11 | No Comments | Read More
A Critique of the Empathy Quotient (EQ) Test: Part 2
In Part 1 of this series, I outlined the basics of the EQ test, introduced the definition of cognitive empathy assumed by the authors of the test, and critiqued the statements on the EQ that speak t...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 08/31/11 | No Comments | Read More
A Critique of the Empathy Quotient (EQ) Test: Introduction and Part 1
Introduction The Empathy Quotient (EQ) test was designed by Simon Baron-Cohen and Sally Wheelwright, and is included in their 2004 paper The Empathy Quotient: An Investigation of Adults with Asperger...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 08/30/11 | No Comments | Read More
I’m always very interested in the observations of parents regarding the literal nature of their autistic children’s thinking. I’ve read many tales of children who take idiomatic expressions ...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 07/8/11 | 13 Comments | Read More
Music and the Positive Side of Auditory Processing Disorder
Most of you know my challenges with my auditory processing condition: difficulties filtering sound, fatigue when trying to carry on a conversation with too much ambient noise, words getting jumbled...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 06/24/11 | 2 Comments | Read More
Neurodiversity, Grief, and the Normal Minority, Part Two
Leaving behind one’s own normality Having an autistic child means that an able-bodied parent can no longer lay claim to being normal. I don’t care if that autistic child grows up to win the...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 06/10/11 | 2 Comments | Read More
Neurodiversity, Grief, and the Normal Minority, Part One
“The worlds created by the human imagination are far more coherent and structured than the real social systems in which we live, and the mental constructs by which we make sense of society are only ...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 06/9/11 | No Comments | Read More
The “Intense World Syndrome” Theory of Autism
In an October, 2007 article, Henry Markram, Tania Rinaldi, and Kamila Markram of the Brain Mind Institute, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, posit a new theory about how ...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 06/3/11 | 7 Comments | Read More
Disorder in Society, Disorder in Self
Some years ago, I took a two-year training course in Jewish shamanic healing. I came away understanding a great deal about the many ways in which ancient Jewish culture was similar to many other i...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 05/27/11 | 2 Comments | Read More
Autism, Disability, and the Obligation to Get Well, Part Two
As a result, we find ourselves in the vortex of a great deal of distortion for wanting to simply be at peace with ourselves and carve out a meaningful life. It’s as though, having given up our “...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 05/13/11 | No Comments | Read More
Autism, Disability, and the Obligation to Get Well, Part One
I’ve recently begun reading Robert Murphy’s The Body Silent, one of the great books on the social and cultural context of disability. Murphy, a professor of anthropology at Columbia, became a qu...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 05/13/11 | No Comments | Read More
An Open Letter to Robert MacNeil Regarding PBS’ Autism Now Series
Dear Mr. MacNeil, It has come to my attention that you are spreading dehumanizing stereotypes about us. In an interview to promote your upcoming series, Autism Now (formerly Autism Today), you sa...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 04/18/11 | 7 Comments | Read More
Ableism on Display: The New York Times Review of Wretches and Jabberers
The March 31 issue of the New York Times includes a short review of the film Wretches and Jabberers, a documentary that details the work of two autistic men as they travel the world to change hearts...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 04/13/11 | No Comments | Read More
When Objects Resonate with Memory
Over at Kitaiska Sandwich, Sarah has a great post about the upset that her autistic son feels when things get broken or spilled. In reflecting upon the reasons for M’s upset, she finds that his ...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 03/31/11 | 1 Comment | Read More
The Misleading Nature of the Deficit Model
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music. —Angela Monet I’ve never been shy about my feelings concerning the deficit model of autism. I object ...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 03/4/11 | 2 Comments | Read More
Call for Submissions: An Anthology of Poetry and Prose by Autistics in Mid-Life (final call)
Statement of Purpose I plan to publish an anthology of poetry and prose by people on the autism spectrum, aged 35 and over. I welcome all pieces of writing about your feelings about being aut...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 02/28/11 | No Comments | Read More
One of the enduring patterns of my life is my on-again, off-again relationship with large, conventionally structured organizations of all kinds: corporate, political, and religious. In the on-again...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 02/10/11 | 1 Comment | Read More
Reclaiming Memory: Searching for Great-Aunt Sarah
In 2009, while searching Ancestry.com for new information to add to my family genealogy, I discovered the existence of a relative about whom no one in the family had ever spoken. She was my paternal g...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 01/7/11 | 5 Comments | Read More
I want to share a photo of my father. In the photo, he is about eight or nine years old, and he’s kneeling behind his younger twin siblings. Except for a photo taken of him as an infant, it’s ...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 12/17/10 | 2 Comments | Read More
I Am So Not Like the Other Soccer Moms!
Now that my daughter’s high school soccer career has drawn to a close, I’ve had some time to reflect upon the ways in which I fit in—and didn’t fit in—with the other parents. Of course, w...[Read More]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 12/9/10 | No Comments | Read More
Autism has been here all along.
Considered as an evolutionary condition with far-reaching social implications, its full presence and impact remain hidden in plain sight, unrecognized and uncredited.
Part neurological mystery, part social construct, and part secret society unbeknownst even to its own members, autism does not lend itself to explanation by those who hold it apart from society, from themselves, or from consciousness itself. Definitions are revised, overhauled, and abandoned all while efforts to explore and examine this condition on its own terms are only now gaining momentum.
Shift Journal aims to showcase and encourage such efforts. Entertaining the notion of autistic as a legitimate way to be in the world, from the crossroads of theory, society, and personal experience, Shift welcomes relevant contributions from all comers.
Mark Stairwalt
Editor and Publisher
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Shift Journal founder Andrew Lehman's groundbreaking cross-disciplinary work Evolution, Autism, and Social Change draws from evolutionary biology, neuro-psychology and related fields to outline an evolutionary process complementary to natural selection that may explain some forms of autism as well as -- and perhaps more importantly -- long-term shifts in large-scale social structure. Download or purchase Evolution, Autism, and Social Change here.
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In a world which relentlessly demands practical advice for day-to-day, Shift Journal remains focused on promoting reflection and discovery. Readers however who are seeking useful information and how-to guidance assembled by a down-to-earth, conscientious and scientifically literate crew who once sought such information themselves and found it difficult to come by may find The Thinking Person's Guide to Autism to be just what they are looking for:
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New or established writers wishing to contribute original or previously published posts may use the submissions page or contact us directly.
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Autism and Empathy Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism Neurodivergent Sexuality Just Stimming Autistic Passing Project