conuly

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/grandfathers-age-linked-to-autism/

Not much to say here.

PSA: Your Default Narrative Settings Are Not Apolitical

http://fozmeadows.wordpress.com/2012/12/08/psa-your-default-narrative-settings-are-not-apolitical/


An Asperger's Guide to Neurotypicals

http://feng-shui-house.dreamwidth.org/722472.html


And a DW friending meme. I've been making a concerted effort to read my reading page there lately, that's an improvement. You know how slow I can be about change.

http://kouredios.dreamwidth.org/226094.html


As a bonus, I also have this Cracked.com link, 6 Ridiculous Lies You Believe About The Founding Of This Country.

http://www.cracked.com/article_19864_6-ridiculous-lies-you-believe-about-founding-america.html

Some autistic brains really are wired differently

What child prodigies and autistic people have in common

This latter is not all that well written, I think. Of course, I'm inclined to find the "all aspies are brilliant!!!" meme truly irritating, so "all brilliant people are autistic!!!" isn't much better.

Two of the top-level comments, so far, are the sort that ignore everything said in the article and only go nattering on and on about person-first language. One of them, upon being corrected, still goes "Oh, but, you know, not all people with autism will ever be able to talk!" And if they did, they'd automatically agree with her? The arrogance there is astounding, and far more annoying than the original "person first language totally rocks!!!" comments.

I'm thinking I'd be far less annoyed by the whole concept if the people insistent on it would ever, ever say something of content instead of their vapid, sanctimonious little comments.

http://juststimming.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/quiet-hands/

I never had to deal with that from teachers nor, for the most part, family. The only thing similar is my mother's complaints that when I spun a mardi gras necklace on my arm, I made her dizzy - but even then, she didn't care so long as she didn't see me.

My mother's comment once, when I complained about the judgment inherent in saying autistic children don't "play properly" with toys but may "just" line them up was, before I could get to the point, a vehement interruption of "But that IS playing!" That's certainly how I played as a child much of the time.

Sometimes, I love my family very, very much.

that Arthur just had a show on Asperger's!

George meets a rabbit with Asperger's, and after a few rather pathetic comments about "the piece of the puzzle" the show goes on.

( Read more... )

There's also a "Word From Us Kids" that was edited from that episode, despite it being otherwise complete. You can see that clip at the end of the video here.

First, apparently the Theater Development Fund is running special Broadway performances for autistic children and adults (they said that specifically, with that wording) and their families.

It sounds like a really great program.

Now, you'll notice that in the list of organizations they thank, a prominent one isn't mentioned. YOU know which one. But I wouldn't expect them to be, first because this isn't really AS's thing, and second because, you know, they're evil. Or maybe they were deliberately excluded, a sign of good taste if you ask me.

And in the more awful news, here's a video of a bus driver and an aide beating up on an autistic student. They've been convicted but not sentenced. Why people who hate kids or just aren't good with them go into professions where they have to interact with children, I don't know.

DO NOT READ THE COMMENTS.

Half of them are "oh, that boy was violent, what do you expect them to do, he shouldn't be on the bus if his parents can't teach him to behave" and the other half are "oh, those terrible fatties from the ghetto should be shot". It's a sad day when both sides are obnoxious.

Could places like Silicon Valley be breeding a whole generation of kids with autism or Asperger's syndrome?

Because I distinctly remember talking this subject to death only about five years ago. And, uh, three years before that as well. And last year, maybe?

And yet, the comments (don't read the comments) are acting like this is a wildly new proposition, and as it is SOOOOOOO new they are deeply, deeply suspicious of it. (Especially because it doesn't mention vaccines at all, but that's all right, lots of people are willing to promulgate equally absurd non-vaccine hypotheses as well. Maybe people have too much sex! Maybe they use too many birth control pills! Maybe it's artificial sweeteners! Wait - could it be vaccines??? Or some sort of hormonal imbalance that I'm making up right now?

And there's always the eugenicists....

(Do NOT read the comments!)

As far as inheriting autism goes, I've said it before, but to recap:

I'm pretty sure both parents were/are what's called "the broader autistic phenotype". One day I have to explain how I grew up, our whole family functioning as a little self-contained unit that didn't particularly want or need anybody else. (This was actually a great way to grow up, but by my teens I could see that other people didn't live quite like that!) And I'm pretty sure both grandmothers were/are as well. And we ALL know my mother's father was autistic, that's not even a possibility that he wasn't.

Now, my mother swears that she knew about me from the time I was a baby. And I believe her - I remember being dragged around to doctors as they tried to get me diagnosed, to no avail. (Apparently, bright children who could talk just didn't get autism diagnoses back then. Remember this the next time somebody points to their bright, verbal child and says "This child is autistic because of vaccines, it's an EPIDEMIC!" Very often when people do, I reflect that the kid is no different than I was at that age.)

At the same time, when I started researching the subject (after I admitted it to her), she didn't want to talk about it for a while. She thought I outgrew it or it "wasn't that bad" or whatnot. How she could hold both views simultaneously I do NOT know, but there it is.

She's gotten better about it, and recently she randomly brought up that a friend had said that if I wasn't "so aspie" she'd think Jenn was on the spectrum. (I don't see it myself, but possibly for the same reason my mother... wait, I'll get to it.) And that brought up the whole issue, again, of who in the family might be anywhere near the spectrum at all, and my mother, at the end, scoffed "C'mon! If that's all your criteria, half the world must be autistic!"

And I think I finally figured out the issue here, and I pointed it out to her - if my idea is correct, and there's a heck of a lot of it floating around in her family and the people she's chosen to associate with (including, y'know, her husband my FATHER) - she doesn't know what normal is. She thinks her family is the epitome of normal, but you know, her cousin Frances thought Schlomo was a normal name! (And it is to some people, just like we're all normal to my mom.)

That's a tangent, but it's a bit more interesting I think than the link, which, y'know... isn't really news.

but apparently not, as this editorial on a business that hires autistics deliberately is only a few days old.

Weird how that happens. Nothing really new here, it's not saintly to hire disabled individuals - heck, it's probably the law where you are, if not to seek out disabled people to hire to at least not discriminate against them and to give reasonable accommodations.