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Differences (moving past a deficit-based model of Autism)

I’ve been doing some reading, on Amanda Baggs’ site, various articles linked to from Neurodiversity, and other random internet ramblings. I’ve been trying to give my internet explorations some ... [Read More]

on 07/15/10 | No Comments | Read More

Morning Symphony

The vertical blinds that cover my kitchen’s sliding glass door are closed against the glare to the east. On this clear July morning, the heat already has started to build. The air conditioner ... [Read More]

on 07/14/10 | 2 Comments | Read More

Shrink on the Box

When Lili Marlene finds time to watch the tube in the daytime, she doesn’t waste a moment on tripe like Oprah or Dr. Phil or that other rot on the commercial stations. I tuned in to the National Pr... [Read More]

on 07/13/10 | 1 Comment | Read More

No More Disorders: Debriefing from DSM Diagnoses

Over the past few months, I’ve found myself moving further and further away from the mental health profession and its view of the world. It’s always difficult to know how these things begin, espe... [Read More]

on 07/12/10 | 1 Comment | Read More

Big Trucks and the Work that Needs Doing

Years ago, before the coming of the cell phone, I was the driver of a Freightliner FLD 120, an imposing, long-nosed boat of a semi tractor that crisscrossed the United States and parts of Canada with ... [Read More]

on 07/9/10 | 2 Comments | Read More

Alexithymia, Autism, and the Many Pagan Deities in the Details

One trait commonly associated with autism in the research literature is alexithymia, which refers to difficulty expressing feelings in words. Although many people have had occasional experiences of n... [Read More]

on 07/7/10 | 4 Comments | Read More

“But You Seem So Normal!”

If there’s one statement that makes my head hurt and my skin feel weird, it’s this: I say something along the lines of, “By the way, I have Asperger’s Syndrome.” They say, “Really? I can�... [Read More]

on 07/5/10 | No Comments | Read More

Color, Space, and Spectrum

The ridiculously named and sublimely informative BoingBoing last Sunday posted an article about the interplay of language and visual perception as it affects how we see and speak about color and spa... [Read More]

on 07/2/10 | No Comments | Read More

Seeking Familiar Comforts

My teenage daughter, who likes to plan ahead, has decided to pick out my next new car. She insists that a GMC Terrain would be just right for me because it has plenty of space like an SUV, but it get... [Read More]

on 06/30/10 | No Comments | Read More

Theorem of Compassion

The old trope that autistic people are so withdrawn that they cannot connect to the world, and thus they are inherently selfish and disconnected from people … they cannot empathize with people &... [Read More]

on 06/28/10 | No Comments | Read More

The Unbroken Spectrum: Stockholm Syndrome

This series of entries on the“unbroken spectrum” began as an effort to outline just a couple mechanisms which work to obscure the demographic where paler shades of the autistic spectrum shade ove... [Read More]

on 06/25/10 | 5 Comments | Read More

Telling Ourselves New Stories

Tattoos, like other forms of art within our society, are a way of making connections with others and statements about personal identity. When gang members go straight, they often have one or more tat... [Read More]

on 06/23/10 | No Comments | Read More

Independence and Supports

I am not interested, in this particular post, in explaining why assistance technology and supported daily lives do not detract from independence, or why independence is not necessarily a goal, or why ... [Read More]

on 06/21/10 | No Comments | Read More

Children of Lilith (autism contemplated from a silent and considerable height)

“Longevity, like intelligence or good looks, is largely a matter of heredity,” writer Edward Abbey noted, adding, “Choose your parents with care.” Our parents also pass on to us their stories... [Read More]

on 06/18/10 | 4 Comments | Read More

Monks, Mystics, and Mindfulness

Before the modern era, an autistic child born into a family of peasants would have been put to work on the farm, where there was no need to develop fluent speech or to understand complex patterns of s... [Read More]

on 06/16/10 | 2 Comments | Read More

On Brain Transplants

Usually I can go a long and happy time without needing to think about the hypothetical “cure” question. But I’ve had a few disparate thoughts lately, probably because I’ve been taking a class ... [Read More]

on 06/14/10 | No Comments | Read More

Autism and the Enlightenment: Sleeping Dogs And Sleeping Giants

I don’t expect that Shift Journal is unique in pursuing this line of thought, but it strikes me that three contributors have now seen fit to comment on the relationship of autistics and “belief.�... [Read More]

on 06/11/10 | 4 Comments | Read More

Robots for Therapy and the Lack of Empathy Myth

The idea that autistics lack empathy is one of the more pervasive myths out there, shared by some parents, far too many professionals and the general public, and it’s dead wrong. What some autistic... [Read More]

on 06/10/10 | 2 Comments | Read More

Knowing the Mind of God

Theory of mind, which is a social reasoning process that involves drawing conclusions about the thoughts underlying others’ acts, includes the tendency of many people to attribute intent and pur... [Read More]

on 06/9/10 | 7 Comments | Read More

A Neat Verbal Write-Off

So we’re reading The Speed Of Dark in my sci-fi class next week, and I’m going to be sharing some information about autism. Yays. I’m still scripting various things out, but right now I’m w... [Read More]

on 06/7/10 | No Comments | Read More

The Unbroken Spectrum: Self-Hatred

A couple weeks ago I sat down to sketch out two mechanisms which serve to obscure the reality that there is no clear dividing line between autistic people and the larger population. What was to be a ... [Read More]

on 06/4/10 | 8 Comments | Read More

More Doing, Less Empathizing

Today’s college students scored 40 percent lower on a measure of empathy than students a generation ago, according to a review study that was presented last week at the annual meeting of the Associa... [Read More]

on 06/2/10 | 1 Comment | Read More

The Last of the Wild Autistics

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — my generation is the last of the wild autistics. Many of us were never given any autism-related diagnosis as children. Those of us who did recieve c... [Read More]

on 05/31/10 | 2 Comments | Read More

The Unbroken Spectrum: Projection

Years ago, long before I had any familiarity with psychological jargon, I remember running across the phrase “egodystonic homosexuality” and being highly amused at what an absurdly clinical term i... [Read More]

on 05/28/10 | 5 Comments | Read More

Staring Diversity in the Eye

The French Parliament has passed a resolution condemning the wearing of veils, as reported by feminist blogger Aimee Sea in an article pointing out the tremendous irony in the idea that women must be ... [Read More]

on 05/26/10 | 2 Comments | Read More

The Unbroken Spectrum: Ridicule

Having come full circle back to the assertion that there is no clear dividing line between the autistic population and the “non”-autistic population, this seems like an apt time to have a closer l... [Read More]

on 05/24/10 | 1 Comment | Read More

Randall Munroe Gets It

Minutes before I was going to post what I’d had prepared for this morning, I ran across today’s xkcd web comic, and will likely not be able to get to sleep without writing about it. It features t... [Read More]

on 05/21/10 | 1 Comment | Read More

The Post-Consumer Workforce

As the free sharing of information and creative endeavors on the Internet moves the economy away from a focus on consumerism, we can expect that the careers of the future will differ in many ways from... [Read More]

on 05/19/10 | 1 Comment | Read More

The Post-Consumer Age

As economist Tyler Cowen discusses in his book Create Your Own Economy, today’s digital media are causing society to develop in what he characterizes as a more autistic direction. Instead of pa... [Read More]

on 05/17/10 | No Comments | Read More

See Seven States!

There’s an implicit perspective behind most of what I write here at Shift, and I think behind much of what others contribute, a perspective that’s not exactly a secret, but one that I don’t thin... [Read More]

on 05/14/10 | 1 Comment | Read More

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