Age Appropriate

Age appropriate is one of those phrases I've got a complicated relationship with.

On the one hand, I'm an educator (I teach math both online and offline, working with students from about 4th grade through college. I've had 8-9 year old students and I've had students older than me. Plenty of expectations I have for my college students are not age appropriate for my 8-9 year old students. I'm not going to expect 8 and 9 (or really 10  or 11) year old students to sit in one place and focus for 90 minutes straight with little to no humor. (I don't think it's a great idea with the college students either, but I think they are more likely to be capable of it.)

Because of that, I think the concept of age appropriateness can be useful for defending children from unreasonable expectations.

On another hand, I'm Autistic, and I interact with other Autistic people. I know how "age appropriate" can be used as a weapon against us, and there are a couple ways this happens.

Way the first: The concept of age appropriate is used to control what we are "allowed" to show interest in. That is, when an autistic teen or adult shows interest in something aimed at younger children, we might get "redirected" to a more "age appropriate" interest, which is one more piece of the pattern where we're not really allowed to like things, at least not safely. (Other pieces of that pattern are having everything we admit to liking used as a reward for acting more neurotypical or taken away when we act autistic/do something the staff doesn't like.)

This can also go in the other direction, where a person is told they aren't old enough for whatever they're interested in. (I had a teacher who was very concerned that I had the math interest and ability to be using exponents and roots in first grade, and there were attempts by the school to get me to stop doing math that was too advanced to be "age appropriate." I don't think this direction (alone, at least) is as common as the other, but it exists.

Way the second: The concept of age appropriate is used to "show" that we have a "mental age" corresponding to whatever interest of ours has the youngest target audience. Here, the interest of the teen or adult in the (usually) "younger" topic is used as evidence against their competence. Rather than being a teen or adult with an interest (like how the graduate supervisor at the technology help desk really liked My Little Pony and was also known to be a graduate student who knew how to solve computer and internet problems), they are treated as children in a teen or adults body. It's a pretty gross concept. (Even if you're working with the tools typical of a younger person, you've got more experience working with them -- see this crayon art as an example!)

These two problems get combined as well. There are two steps here. First, an interest that's more common among younger people is used as evidence of "mental age." Then, this arbitrary mental age/developmental level is used to restrict what else the person is allowed to show interest in, or what else they are exposed to. An example of this would be a student who enjoys Blues Clues not getting access to the general curriculum for their age, because someone who likes Blues Clues must actually be on level with a pre-schoooler.  I use Blues Clues as my example because I liked the show well into middle school, and no that did not make me secretly a five year old in a middle schooler's body. This also gets used as justification for not providing education on sexual or reproductive topics, since an actual 3-5 year old shouldn't need to know that stuff yet.

The "ages" chosen for this purpose are arbitrary. Remember that interests have ranges of ages where they are more common, and remember that a person can have multiple interests, with different intended audiences between them -- whichever age is most convenient to use can probably be "justified" in this manner. Besides, "uneven" development, in comparison to the order skills and interests usually develop for neurotypical people, is pretty much a hallmark of autism. I haven't had a single coherent (neuronormative!) developmental level since I was about 6 months old, and I don't think that's unusual! That means we're essentially using a trait of autistic development, that we don't follow the same paths or patterns neurotypical people do, in order to show that we're actually small children. (Ever notice that they don't do this with the (neuronormatively) most advanced of our skills? Anyone argue I was really older because I could do more advanced mathematics? Nope!)

But back to something like the first hand, the idea of things being age appropriate or not can be used as a defense against unreasonable expectations for disabled kids, and as a defense against inappropriate therapies. For example, intensive behavioral intervention (IBI) and things based on applied behavioral analysis (ABA) often expect 40 hours a week of just the one therapy out of kids who are 2-5 years old. That's not age appropriate. Sometimes, pointing out that it's not age appropriate to expect any kid that young to manage such a schedule gets people to think about their expectations.

When I hear age appropriate in the context of autism or general disability, I don't expect that it's going to be used as a defense against ableism. Usually it's going to be the ableism (control of interests, evidence of mental age, and combinations of the two.) But I think it's important to remember that (and how) we can turn the concept around to defend ourselves from the ableist nonsense it usually justifies. 

神经多样性及跨文化交际 (Neurodiversity and Cross-Cultural Communication)

Written in April 2014 and then not published because ??? I think I wanted to work on this more but it's been sitting so here it is.

So I found out that on Wednesday a professor from Beijing's Foreign Language University is coming to talk to us about cross-cultural communication. And I just finished reading Thomas Orwen's thesis which suggests cross-cultural communication as a good approach for interactions between autistic people and allistic people (non-autistic people, though he uses "neurotypicals" for this meaning.) So I wrote a thing. Poke me and maybe I'll even remember to translate it into English.

人们一听到跨文化交际就会想到不同民族的跨文化交际，而不是只有民族才有文化区别。残疾人有残疾人文化（奚）。个别残疾也会有自己的文化，即聋文化（沈; Ladd），盲文化（French），聋盲文化（Saeed et al）,及自闭症者文化（Davidson; Robertson及Ne'eman）。每一种残疾人文化都有自己的特点：聋哑人有自己的语言，从语言对思想的深刻影响可以意识到手语在聋哑人文化的核心性。盲目人在沟通中注重非可视的信息。聋盲文化把聋文化及盲文化的一些特点混在一起，也有自己的特色。

自闭症者文化呢？自闭症者使用语言的方式跟神经正常的人使用语言的方式有区。我们的感觉统合及风格也跟神经正常的人有区别（Baggs）。这样的特征感知也不是自闭症者特有的区别：自闭症成年人提出的神经多样性(Singer)表明：公众对世界、自己的环境的感知不同，学习风格（思想风格）有很多种（胡)。自闭症者之间的沟通及特有的神经共同当自闭症者文化的来源，从文化的来源可以开始理解文化的特征（奚）。具体地谈，自闭症者的文化比神经正常支配性社会愿意接受重复行为，即扑棱手；也更愿意接受沟通的不同方式，即打字、选图片、和打说手语。而且，自闭症文化更注重认知通达性，为了提高通达性愿意把要求介绍的过具体和少用比喻或者介绍所有用上的比喻。面对面交流的时候，自闭症者注意：如果认识一个人，千万不应该把“肢体语言”的信息放在话的上面。这样的思路跟神经正常社会的思路差不多是反响的：人们说自己从别人的肢体语言意识到了谎话是平常发现的情况，而自闭症者没有说谎话的时候容易被这样认为。另外，在自闭症者文化里，话不一定有别的意思：“我现在不想跟你说话”没有“我不喜欢你”的意思。我们明白：对自闭症者来说，交流需要华很多能力，有时候不想跟别人说话。用目光接触没有的问题也不表明尊重情况：只有必着别人用目光接触才算是不尊重别人(Orwen; Davidson; Robertson及Ne'eman)。

在这样的背景下，容易问：跨文化交际的方式在神经正常的人跟神经岔开的人交流有没有效(Orwen)？至少，在神经多样性的问题上跨文化交际的思路值得考虑。

奚从清， 林清和， 沈赓方.残疾人社会学. 华夏出版社, 1993.

沈玉林. "论聋文化与聋教育."现代特殊教育1 (2002): 1-9.

胡壮麟. "从多元符号学到多元智能." 外语与翻译 14.4 (2008): 1-8.

Davidson, Joyce. "Autistic culture online: virtual communication and cultural expression on the spectrum." Social & Cultural Geography 9.7 (2008): 791-806.

French, Sally. "The wind gets in my way." Disability discourse (1999): 21-27.

Ladd, Paddy. Understanding deaf culture: In search of deafhood. Multilingual Matters, 2003.

Orwen, Thomas. "Autreat and Autscape: Informing and Challenging the Neurotypical Will and Ability to Include." Thesis. Bergen University College, 2013.

Robertson, Scott M.,及 Ari D. Ne'eman. "Autistic Acceptance, the College Campus, and Technology: Growth of Neurodiversity in Society and Academia."Disability Studies Quarterly 28.4 (2008).

Saeed, Shakeel R., Richard T. Ramsden, and Patrick R. Axon. "Cochlear implantation in the deaf-blind." Otology & Neurotology 19.6 (1998): 774-777.

Singer, Judy. Odd People In: The Birth of Community Amongst People On the "Autism Spectrum" Diss. University of Technology, 1998.

注释：神经多样性(neurodiversity)的思想里的两个单词词是我自己翻译的，不一定是完美的翻译：“神经正常（的）”(neurotypical)和“神经岔开（的）”(neurodivergent)。

自闭症者文化的一些内容也是从自己的经历而学的。

Representation, Freedom of Speech, and Patterns

Warning: suicide (mostly in fiction but with discussion of real life effects)

The example of the moment is Me Before You. It's yet another example of a movie where the disabled person is cured, dies, or is sent away (often institutionalized, see Rain Man) and this is part of a "happy" ending. In this case, we've got suicide because the quadriplegic guy doesn't want to be a burden on his girlfriend, and this is noble of him somehow.

(Seriously why is it noble for a disabled person to kill themself, but nondisabled people have so much to live for?)

I say example of the moment because there are a lot of movies where the disabled person dies and this is apparently a good thing, because they aren't suffering anymore. And the people around them? Despite any insistence they may have given at the time that the disabled person wasn't a burden... they are now free to do all kinds of things they would never have done before and apparently the person totally is being shown as having been a burden.

As in, story arcs of this type are a pattern.

When we point this out, we get told how this is "just a movie." (False, by the way: it's one movie in a pattern of fiction killing off its disabled characters. Not isolated.) We get told that the directors are free to make movies about whatever they want. (True. By the same token, we're free to tell the world that this type of arc is overdone, and that it reveals some problems when suicide is a happy ending...)

These are also patterns.

The free speech pattern applies to a whole lot of things. A person says something that is punching down. It gets pointed out. "But freedom of speech!" Yes. Freedom of speech. As Randall Munroe shared (but did not come up with -- he's not sure who did,) citing free speech is conceding that your best defense of what you just said is that it's not literally illegal to say it. Plus freedom of speech also means we can share our opinion that your speech was pretty bad.

People generally don't like having it pointed out that criticism is an expression of free speech. Again, patterns.

And here's the thing: the prevalence of fictional arcs of this type, where the disabled character dies (and ones where the character is cured, and the ones where the character is sent away) are super common. If disabled activists were actually censoring this sort of story, don't you think there'd be fewer of them around?

And yes, folks responding to "so this really common trope is pretty terrible" with cries of censorship, even though the prevalence of the trope suggests that it is clearly not being censored, is also a pattern.

Between the Lines/Communication Theory and Practice

I think it's fairly common that people read "between the lines" as part of communication. Understanding that this is a thing which happens is definitely part of my skill set. Knowing what information people are pulling from words left unsaid . . .  not so much.

(Similarly, I don't usually get what folks are hoping I'll understand from between their lines.)

I'm not always sure how to handle this, because there are a few dimensions to this problem.

Piece the first: My communication style generally involves giving lots of information. If I know that a thing I want to do (even, and perhaps especially, if I'm excited about the thing, because then I'll have thought about it more) has some tricky bits, and you ask me about the thing, I am going to tell you lots. This includes telling you where I think the tricky bits are going to be. This does not mean I don't want to do the thing.

This is one of my communication quirks where I have some idea who is going to be confused, and how they are going to be confused: anyone from a culture where pointing out how something is "inconvenient" or similar is an (unspoken) no is going to think I'm saying no, I don't want to do the thing, when actually I'm probably working through how to do the thing. (Yes, this caused a lot of problems when I was in China.)

Dealing with the mismatch is a bit trickier than understanding it exists, though. I can give overall less information under some circumstances, but it's not going to work when I'm looking for advice (because then whoever I'm asking needs to have enough information to give helpful advice), when I'm tired (because then I tend to revert to my natural communication patterns), or when it's literally my job to provide information. Other people can learn how my communication actually works, but this is really only practical for people who interact with me frequently. (Ex: Most of the professors I've had for smaller classes have a good idea how my communication works, as do my teammates for frisbee an most of my classmates. However, the other instructors for the class I taught this semester, who I really only interacted with at instructors meetings, don't.)

Piece the second: Silence, or not responding, is taken as having meaning in face-to-face conversations, generally beyond "I'm still thinking about what you just said" or "I'm not actually capable of speech right now." What extra meanings there are depends a bit on the context, but even among people who know my ability to speak can give out, very few will guess that as a reason for silence. (One professor who I've had for five classes does. I think he's it, though.)

I'm not entirely sure how to deal with this one, either. The ways people react to me definitely change with the order that they get information in: as far as being considered competent goes, it's in my best interest to keep the fact that I lose speech sometimes private until it's relevant (meaning until speech actually gives out on me.) I don't always do that, because that's not my only concern and because there are other ways I can signal competence (plus when you're a graduate student it tends to be assumed.) So I can tell people that speech giving out is a thing that happens, and that it's not a big deal, and that if I'm not answering them verbally that's quite possibly what's going on. There are some risks involved in doing so, but I can do it. That doesn't mean it avoids the communication issues: plenty of people know I can't always speak. Most of them still attach the context-typical meanings to my silence, which means my disclosure isn't very effective.

Those are the pieces that are at the tips of my fingers right now, but there's definitely more. I still remember (and laugh about) the time that a friend of mine took "I'd love to but I'm not sure I can because I've got a presentation that afternoon" to mean "I don't want to join you for lunch [that afternoon when you're on campus]" and was therefore really confused when 1) the presentation got cancelled and 2) I still wanted to join him for lunch. Oops.

Q is for Quirky

I originally wrote Q is for Quirky for the A-Z of Neurodiversity at Un-Boxed Brain. I definitely suggest the rest of the series!

I've got a really complicated relationship with the word "Quirky." I think many of us (neurodivergent people) do, and often for reasons that are ... also complicated, and often highly personal.

Thought the first: Quirky is true. I know you should never let the dictionary be your entire thoughts on a word, because there is connotation on top of denotation, and there are cultural (and subcultural) meanings that are not always captured. Dictionaries are written by people, and they generally reinforce whatever norms are already in place. That said, this first thought starts with the dictionary.

Oxford English Dictionary tells me that Quirky means:

Characterized by peculiar or unexpected traits.

Cambridge English Dictionary says:

 Unusual in an attractive or interesting way.

Merriam-Webster gives me:

 Different from the ordinary in a way that causes curiosity or suspicion.

Before questioning what traits are expected vs. unexpected, before questioning what ordinary is and isn't, before questioning how subjective these definitions really are, I have to admit it: By mainstream subjectivity, I'm all these things.


Thought the second: Question everything. Question the assumptions behind those definitions. What is peculiar? What is unexpected? What is expected? What kinds of differences do we think of as attractive or interesting? What kinds of differences lead to curiosity or suspicion? Why are those differences in particular attractive, interesting, curious, or suspicious? And why does one dictionary note only that the traits are atypical, while the other two give (slightly conflicting) information on how others react to those differences?

I don't have full answers to all those questions, by the way. I'd be interested to read what some of you think. (All of us together know more and speculate better than any one of us can alone.)


Thought the third: Just like the term "self-advocate," yes, "quirky" is true, but incomplete. It doesn't tell the whole story. (How often can one word tell the whole story?) Quirky doesn't tell you that I didn't figure out intentional disobediance was an option until a special education aide (not officially there for me, but still) told me so. Quirky doesn't tell you why we rock or flap or generally act as neurodivergent as we are.


Thought the fourth: Quirky is "safe." No one tells me "quiet hands" when I am just quirky (I have to partially quiet hands myself to continue to pass for merely quirky/weird, though.) No one tries to prevent me from going on a study abroad trip when I am just quirky. No administrators make multiple attempts to have me sent home from study abroad when I am just quirky, because "people like that shouldn't be in college."

Sometimes, being seen as purposefully weird is often safer or otherwise "better" than being unintentionally or involuntarily weird. Sometimes, we figure this out without even knowing we've figured it out, and so we get called on our (more) intentional weirdness rather than our (more) directly autistic traits. Sometimes this works. (Sometimes not.) It wasn't the main point, really, but Mel writes about this some in sier BADD post from a while back.

That's why I have typically let my students think I'm "just weird." I mean, weird (quirky) is a true statement, and it's a safer statement. (Isn't there a stereotype that college professors are eccentric? Ever wonder why that is?) If I'm going to spend 2.5 hours per week (either 3 meetings of 50 minutes or 2 meetings of 75 minutes) in front of a classroom, teaching in a primarily spoken format (still a good bit of writing on the board), telling my students that I'm disabled and that my neurodivergence especially affects communication, language, and specifically speech is a risk. Yes, there are disability laws that theoretically protect me, but being open does mean more scrutiny in ways I don't really want. When you're "just quirky," some communication ... quirks are going to be more accepted than they are when you're openly disabled, and it's not about the particular differences. Same person, same communication patterns, different responses based on the label, and that's why quirky can be safer.


Thought the fifth: Quirky is erasure. (There's quite a few kinds of erasure, and this is definitely the point to plug Neurodivergent K's post on erasure from earlier in this series.) Quirky isn't quite assimilation, but it's not not assimilation either. Quirky is when we're implicitly expected to be weird, but not too weird, and not blatantly and explicitly neurodivegent. It's what we get when we make euphemisms and talk about the (shinier) ways that someone is neurodivergent, disabled, without saying those words. It's a bit like "differently abled" that way, though less condescending because there isn't necessarily a specific disability label we're avoiding when we say someone is "quirky." Or maybe there is, and we just don't know which one.

Quirky is erasure when it is avoiding calling me autistic because I'm "not like that" (I'm more like that than you want to admit.) Quirky is erasure and dodging responsibility for properly portraying disability in fiction when you draw the quirks from neurodivergence but refuse to address the neurodivergence behind the eccentricity. Quirky is erasure of other personality traits when the oddity is all your attention is drawn to, both in fiction and in real life. And Quirky is erasure when it's given as the only vocabulary we have to discuss our differences, ignoring our disabilities. (How can you talk or write about an issue when you literally don't have the words to do so? Sometimes I suspect keeping those words from us is done intentionally to keep us from communicating frankly and openly about disability and ableism.)

And if to be safe, we have to erase ourselves, are we really safe at all?