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Quiet Desperation and the Larger Picture

It’s an odd business, blogging for a constituency that’s not only unaware that you exist and are writing for and about them, but also unaware that they exist and are many enough to make up a const... [Read More]

on 03/19/10 | 4 Comments | Read More

Melting Down an Autism Stereotype

By now, I expect we’ve all seen plenty of articles, books, and other media depicting the “autistic meltdown,” wherein a slight change in routine supposedly triggers some kind of mass... [Read More]

on 03/18/10 | 2 Comments | Read More

Language, Rhetoric, and Expression: There’s Power There

Recently, Kowalski posed the question, “So you really think you’re smarter than Jenny McCarthy?” in response to some parents venting on a facebook thread about the McCarthy article over at Huff.... [Read More]

on 03/17/10 | 2 Comments | Read More

Who ARE You, Really?

Mark Stairwalt, one of the editors over at Shift Journal wrote an article (about me, or a previous post of mine), and brought up something I’ve been meaning to write about. He writes: ̶... [Read More]

on 03/15/10 | 4 Comments | Read More

When You’re Up to Your A** in Alligators …

One thing I’ve kept an eye on over the six months since Shift Journal launched has been, “What can we be doing here that isn’t already being done well elsewhere?” Last weekend KWombles and I e... [Read More]

on 03/12/10 | 2 Comments | Read More

Performance

I am fascinated by the relationship the autistic have with music and rhythm. There is evidence that when language is tied to melody, it is easier for many with autism to absorb the words. The autist... [Read More]

on 03/10/10 | 1 Comment | Read More

Theory of Mind and Self

I’d been studying Asperger’s and autism in connection to human evolution for maybe ten years before it dawned on me, after reading Michael Fitzgerald’s Autism and Creativity, that Asperger’s w... [Read More]

on 03/8/10 | 4 Comments | Read More

++ungood

Sometimes I ask for feedback on pieces I’ve written before I post them, and sometimes I’m lucky enough to get a reply that’s in itself more compelling than what I’d intended to post in the fir... [Read More]

on 03/5/10 | 2 Comments | Read More

Diversity and Inclusion: How Society Fails Us All, How We Fail Ourselves

Leave aside for the moment your immediate foray into divisions, into the ideas of a neurodiversity movement. Leave aside for a moment the split into camps of curing and not curing, the false dichotom... [Read More]

on 03/3/10 | 3 Comments | Read More

The Perils of Normalization

How far would you be willing to go for a more attractive and socially pleasing look? Would you choose to sacrifice part of your cognitive functioning, leaving your brain less able to process verbal a... [Read More]

on 03/1/10 | No Comments | Read More

Cost Accounting

Fellow contributor Clay is happily bemused this week over at Comet’s Corner, reflecting on his recent release from some of the lifelong difficulties that finally led to his late-life diagnosis of au... [Read More]

on 02/26/10 | 7 Comments | Read More

Uncharted Territory of Autism

We all do it, to some extent anyway. Whether we’re neurotypical or neurodiverse, we find it easier to say things that we’ve already said. When President Obama gives a speech, I’m s... [Read More]

on 02/25/10 | 1 Comment | Read More

Speed of Information

Light moves at a speed of 186,000 miles per second. Speed as a concept is also integral to biology. I hypothesize that the speed with which information passes between the two cerebral hemispheres im... [Read More]

on 02/24/10 | 3 Comments | Read More

Lifting Veils

There is this thesis that I’ve been playing with. Like the experience physics theorists have described, it seems too beautiful to not be true. Nevertheless, Stephen J. Gould has described the trap... [Read More]

on 02/22/10 | No Comments | Read More

Covert Ops in Autistic Self-Advocacy

Pandemic autism that’s hidden in plain sight, an autistic spectrum populated overwhelmingly by undiagnosed fellow travelers and autistics-in-hiding—if this is an accurate description of autism’s... [Read More]

on 02/19/10 | 5 Comments | Read More

Autism, Diet and Sexual Hormones

I’m still trying to grasp the concept that testosterone and estrogen and their associated hormones are together managing ontological, social and biological evolution by adjusting to changes in the e... [Read More]

on 02/18/10 | No Comments | Read More

Autism and Societal Individualism

There is a paradox I’m trying to tease out here having to do with raising a child when we as a species were still largely lodged in primary process, the way an unconscious or dream self thinks, ... [Read More]

on 02/17/10 | No Comments | Read More

What Darwin Never Knew

Here’s a link to an excellent PBS Nova show I saw the other night. It’s nearly 2 hours long, 1 hr 51 min, but I hope those who are interested will find time today or over the long weekend... [Read More]

on 02/15/10 | No Comments | Read More

Meeting the Extended Family

I’ve never been able to take in the big picture at family reunions. Between the carnival of overstimulation that comes with all that social interaction, and being the odd neurology out as an adopte... [Read More]

on 02/12/10 | 1 Comment | Read More

Creoles, Aboriginal Identity and Autism

… I might suggest that particularly ancient aboriginal societies, matrifocal cultures, for example, might display earlier stages of biological/neurological/hormonal evolution. If those particul... [Read More]

on 02/11/10 | No Comments | Read More

Hybrid Vigor and Autism

On page 575 of the May 1 issue of Science there is an article, “Africans’ Deep Genetic roots Reveal Their Evolutionary Story.” Examining the blood of 3,194 Africans from 113 populations, researc... [Read More]

on 02/9/10 | 2 Comments | Read More

Open Letter to Joel Johnson (Gizmodo)

Hi Joel – I’ve waited twelve years now to see the word “autistic” begin to come out of the closet in the tech world, but your otherwise dead-on post the other day about “iPad Snivelers” wa... [Read More]

on 02/6/10 | No Comments | Read More

Rich Shull: HBO Temple Grandin Special

Rich Shull writes with an intensity that befits a man struggling to whittle a rapid-fire slide show of thousand-word pictures down to a sentence or two at a time. Mr. Shull is a part of a longstanding... [Read More]

on 02/5/10 | 3 Comments | Read More

Corpus Callosums, Autism & Aboriginals

Regarding autism, I’ve hypothesized that the autistic brain is an ancient brain primed for aesthetic manipulation/appreciation with a larger brain size and larger hemispheric bridge having evolved a... [Read More]

on 02/3/10 | No Comments | Read More

Autism, Asperger’s, and Chicken Broth

Anyone who has been in the online “autism community” for any length of time, whether they’re autistics or parents, knows that there is a sort of person who trolls autistic advocates&... [Read More]

on 02/2/10 | No Comments | Read More

Emergence of a Universal Language

There is a phenomenon in linguistics where language complexity is directly related to how isolated a particular language is from its neighbors. A new language is difficult to learn for adults. When ... [Read More]

on 02/1/10 | 1 Comment | Read More

Mashup: Time, Death, and Ballastexistenz

There have been two significant deaths to me recently. My grandfather died just before Christmas. And Judi Chamberlin … died this weekend. And yet again I am coming up against my instinctive respo... [Read More]

on 01/29/10 | 2 Comments | Read More

Becoming Human…

The other day, on “Cat in a Dog’s World”, Sarah takes to task the originator of “The Neanderthal Theory”, Leif Ekblad. His theory is the result of his desire to justify ... [Read More]

on 01/27/10 | 7 Comments | Read More

Ghost Dance

The Native American tribes of the Northern Plains, forced onto reservations and near starving in 1890, were drawn in large numbers to a new religion called the Ghost Dance. Led by the shaman Wovoka, t... [Read More]

on 01/25/10 | No Comments | Read More

Autism and the Hacker Manifesto

Late last year I posted an entry which included a quick list of people and ideas my wife and I found heartening or helpful back before we fell out of active involvement with autism as a topic of publi... [Read More]

on 01/22/10 | 2 Comments | Read More

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