Neurodiversity

With a Little Help from My Friends

“The last question that many of you asked,” I said, “was my favorite question: How can I help? “I’ve already given you some ideas – talking slowly, giving Bud lots of time to answer questi[Read More]

Guest on 12/13/10 | No Comments | Read More

A Year Ago at Shift Journal

Nut grafs or otherwise relevant excerpts from entries which appeared last year at this time. • • • • • • • [Read More]

Mark Stairwalt on 12/13/10 | No Comments | Read More

Which War Are We In: Good vs. Evil, or The One vs. The Many?

Gwen McKay with what has become trademark optimism remarked in a comment the other day that “Right now I’d say that we are going through a long-term process of discarding our collective identity a[Read More]

Mark Stairwalt on 12/10/10 | 13 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, when[Read More]

Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 12/9/10 | No Comments | Read More

The Albatross

Because introverts spend many hours alone, they are often misconstrued as lacking, or having lesser capacity for friendship and love for their fellow human beings. Nothing could be further from the tr[Read More]

Zygmunt on 12/9/10 | 1 Comment | Read More

The Blank Exterior

“Don’t be so serious.” “You need to smile more.” Are some of the most annoying and most common admonishments an introvert receives in everyday life. Highly social persons mistake an introver[Read More]

Zygmunt on 12/9/10 | No Comments | Read More

Permanence

Although we tend to think of ourselves as separate individuals, all that we encounter while going through our lives becomes part of who we are, a process vividly set forth in Rachel Turiel’s art[Read More]

Gwen McKay on 12/8/10 | 4 Comments | Read More

I am made of books (and trillions of microorganisms)

Biologist Lynn Margulis was recently quoted in the New Yorker saying “there is no such thing as an individual. Humans are walking, talking microbial vats. Nearly all the DNA in our bodies belongs to[Read More]

Guest on 12/7/10 | No Comments | Read More

Different Like Me

“The next question that some of you asked,” I said, fast-tracking toward the finish line, “was ‘Does Bud know he’s different?’ “And the answer is: I think he does, but it doesn’t both[Read More]

Guest on 12/6/10 | No Comments | Read More

A Year Ago at Shift Journal

Nut grafs or otherwise relevant excerpts from entries which appeared last year at this time. • • • • • • • [Read More]

Mark Stairwalt on 12/6/10 | No Comments | Read More

Imagine a World Where Aspergers Was the Norm

Imagine a world where Aspergers was the norm, and non-autistics or neurotypicals were the minority. Let’s try it: Those who feel the need to constantly be with a variety of friends are considered f[Read More]

Rudy Simone on 12/3/10 | 1 Comment | Read More

The False Choice of Participation

In any given society, among the greatest of crimes and taboos is simply non-participation in the group’s sanctioned practices and customs. This is a reality to which the extrovert remains oblivious[Read More]

Zygmunt on 12/2/10 | No Comments | Read More

Changing Myths

As I’ve often noted, humans are a storytelling species. We grow and evolve as a society by developing new cultural narratives to explain our surroundings and the events of our lives. As we gai[Read More]

Gwen McKay on 12/1/10 | 2 Comments | Read More

Are All “Truths” Equally Valid? Comparing the AoAers to Kesey’s Cuckoo

It seems a silly question to ask, given the self-evident answer: we know that all beliefs and opinions are not equally valid. Obviously, it’s important to acknowledge that the person who believe som[Read More]

KWombles on 11/30/10 | 3 Comments | Read More

The “Correctness” of Extroversion

Extroverts frequently hold their way to be the “correct” way as their defining traits are considered desirable in Western society. However, this is an ad populum mindset. Their ways are [Read More]

Zygmunt on 11/30/10 | No Comments | Read More

Where Are We Headed?

I realized that we were nearing the end of the time we’d allotted for the classroom presentation. The boys who’d gone to recess had returned in the middle of the last question, and I knew I’d n[Read More]

Guest on 11/29/10 | No Comments | Read More

A Disturbance in the Family

Who are they? Where did they come from? Where did they go? Was there something not quite right about that level of involvement of siblings with each other’s lives? Did they find whatever it was that[Read More]

Lili Marlene on 11/29/10 | No Comments | Read More

A Year Ago at Shift Journal

Nut grafs or otherwise relevant excerpts from entries which appeared last year at this time. • • • • • • • [Read More]

Mark Stairwalt on 11/29/10 | No Comments | Read More

Alien Baby

… come back and look at your autistic child again, and say to yourself: “This is not my child that I expected and planned for. This is an alien child who landed in my life by accident. I don’t k[Read More]

Sarah Schneider on 11/26/10 | 2 Comments | Read More

If I Could Rewrite the DSM-IV Criteria for Autism (Part Two)

Part Two Diagnostic Criteria for 299.00 Autistic Disorder How to Tell Whether Someone is Awe-tistic, Period (I) A total of six (or more) items from (A), (B), and (C), with at least two from (A), and o[Read More]

Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 11/26/10 | No Comments | Read More

If I Could Rewrite the DSM-IV Criteria for Autism (Part One)

The very idea that autism appears in any book called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is deeply offensive to me. When I venture in and try to make sense of the current split b[Read More]

Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 11/26/10 | 1 Comment | Read More

The Long Hard Winter

My mother-in-law, who grew up in the rural American South in the wake of the Great Depression, has a lot of interesting expressions that she uses in conversation. For instance, if someone tells her t[Read More]

Gwen McKay on 11/24/10 | 4 Comments | Read More

Friendly Talk

I looked at the next question in my notes, then at the eager faces of Bud’s classmates, and I smiled. “The next questions you asked,” I said, “were ‘How can I be a better friend to Bud?’ a[Read More]

Guest on 11/22/10 | No Comments | Read More

A Year Ago at Shift Journal

Nut grafs or otherwise relevant excerpts from entries which appeared last year at this time. • • • • • • • [Read More]

Mark Stairwalt on 11/22/10 | No Comments | Read More

Forget False Dichotomies: The Bell Curve of the Autism Community

Diane Yapko writes an interesting piece at PsychCentral on neurodiversity, noting that the stark contrasts that many would place, neurodiversity versus cure, on the autism community, really don’t ex[Read More]

KWombles on 11/19/10 | 1 Comment | Read More

“Impaired” Theory of Whose Mind (ToWM)?

According to most scientific literature, an impaired Theory of Mind (ToM) is a core component of autism. In his 2001 paper Theory of mind in normal development and autism, Professor Simon Baron-Cohen[Read More]

Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg on 11/18/10 | 5 Comments | Read More

Talking to Ourselves

It’s not uncommon for autistics to talk out loud about things that come to mind. There are different situations in which this might happen. Sometimes it’s just a matter of echoing writte[Read More]

Gwen McKay on 11/17/10 | 2 Comments | Read More

Bullying (Part 8): Bullying Differences – The Solution

In my previous post, I discussed the problem. It is my opinion (it would by a hypothesis if I had the means and training to test it), that much of bullying based on prejudice stems from systemic flaw[Read More]

Stephanie Allen Crist on 11/16/10 | 1 Comment | Read More

Konnichiwa

“The next question that some of you asked,” I said, “was about why Bud misses me so much when he’s at school. And some of you asked why he gets so attached to some adults at school and always[Read More]

Guest on 11/15/10 | No Comments | Read More

The Politics of Autism: Finding a Cure vs. Neurodiversity

In a recent interview I did with Steve Silberman (The Well, Wired.com, Neurotribes and winner of the 2010 Kavli Science journalism award) he asked me what I thought about the “politics of autism” [Read More]

Rudy Simone on 11/15/10 | 2 Comments | Read More