So let’s talk about the two, interconnected, obligatory buzzwords in the “autistic community” today: “neurodiversity”, and “cure”-specifically, a “cure” for autism. Also a[Read More]
Julia Bascom on 07/19/10 | 3 Comments | Read More
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 …
...[Read More]Julia Bascom on 03/5/12 | 2 Comments | Read More
First, obsessions. Dr. Michael Burry, according to the profile of him woven into Michael Lewis’ The Big Short, is a man of serial obsessions. His Aspergers diagnosis was arrived at during the cour[Read More]
Mark Stairwalt on 07/16/10 | 5 Comments | Read More
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]
Julia Bascom on 07/15/10 | No Comments | Read More
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]
Gwen McKay on 07/14/10 | 2 Comments | Read More
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]
Lili Marlene 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]
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg 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]
Mark Stairwalt 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]
Gwen McKay on 07/7/10 | 4 Comments | Read More
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]
Julia Bascom on 07/5/10 | No Comments | Read More
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]
Mark Stairwalt on 07/2/10 | No Comments | Read More
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]
Gwen McKay on 06/30/10 | No Comments | Read More
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]
Guest 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]
Mark Stairwalt on 06/25/10 | 5 Comments | Read More
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]
Gwen McKay on 06/23/10 | No Comments | Read More
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]
Julia Bascom 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]
Mark Stairwalt 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]
Gwen McKay on 06/16/10 | 2 Comments | Read More
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]
Julia Bascom 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]
Mark Stairwalt 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]
KWombles on 06/10/10 | 2 Comments | Read More
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]
Gwen McKay on 06/9/10 | 7 Comments | Read More
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]
Julia Bascom 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]
Mark Stairwalt on 06/4/10 | 8 Comments | Read More
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]
Gwen McKay 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]
Lili Marlene 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]
Mark Stairwalt on 05/28/10 | 5 Comments | Read More
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]
Gwen McKay 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]
Mark Stairwalt on 05/24/10 | 1 Comment | Read More
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]
Mark Stairwalt on 05/21/10 | 1 Comment | Read More
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]
Gwen McKay on 05/19/10 | 1 Comment | Read More
