What if they're stimming with the device?

In response to the fact that it is not OK to take someone's communication device away, ever, apparently it is common to ask, what if the person is stimming and (we assume) that's interfering with communication.

There are a few points I want to make in response to that. Some I've seen elsewhere. Some, less so.

• What would you do if a kid was vocally stimming, with their natural voice, and you thought that was impeding their communication? Still not taking away their voice, right? Even if you think they're doing something noncommunicative with their voice, you're still taking their voice in that example. Never means never. (This is mentioned in the PrAACtical AAC post, but it was also my immediate gut reaction.)
  
• Or what would you do if you heard me stimming with my AAC device? Cause yeah, I'm an adult and you know I can communicate and all, but I do that sometimes. Would you consider taking my device? I'm kind of assuming it's a no there because the idea that you might try is a bit too scary for me to look at right now, but why wouldn't you do that to me, if you would to them? (This is somewhat an explanation to my immediate gut reaction.)
  
• Keep in mind that communicative echolalia is a thing. In my experience ... yeah, sometimes repeating words or sounds because it feels good is a thing but there's often a meaning. (pickles pickles pickles pickles pickles resulted in my getting pickles, in college. It was also stimmy, as a side bonus.) For those looking for citations on the communicative functions of echolalia, Barry Prizant did some work on that (Prizant & Duchan, 1981; Prizant & Rydell, 1984). I don't trust him on the whole, remember my reactions to Uniquely Human, but communicative functions of echolalia is a useful thing he did.
  
• Echolalia, repeating words and phrases is also how a lot of autistic people learn language in the first place. The thing that is how we learn language is not actually a barrier to communication and if this is what's going on, your assumption that this is a barrier to communication is just wrong. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.
  
• Also, is the babbling stage a thing with AAC use? Cause it usually is with oral speech and it's not successful communication yet but it has to happen in order to get to successful communication later. Exploring language and using it in unexpected ways is part of learning language. (This shows up in the PrAACtical AAC post.)
  
• Stimming is great. I am usually stimming in some way. It's not usually vocal because that's just not what tends to work for me, but I am usually stimming. Hence, fidget spinners and blanket pieces. The fact that a person is, in fact, stimming does not mean you should stop them from doing whatever it is they're doing to stim. Suggesting alternative ways of stimming can be OK under some circumstances, but seriously, "they're stimming" doesn't mean "they should stop." Similarly, "it's echolalia" doesn't mean "they should stop."

Academicy Citations

Prizant, B. M., & Duchan, J. F. (1981). The functions of immediate echolalia in autistic children. Journal of speech and hearing disorders, 46(3), 241-249.
Prizant, B. M., & Rydell, P. J. (1984). Analysis of functions of delayed echolalia in autistic children. Journal of speech and hearing research, 27(2), 183-192.

Growing up into an Autistic adult

This is in the Down Wit Dat August 2014 Blog Hop, BTW. The theme is about how disabilities and such are a natural part of life. 

Well, at this point I'm 21, almost 22, so I'm definitely already an adult. I've been working part-time in math education since I was 17, almost 18, and I've done some other kinds of work (research, information technology, physics lab TA.) Also I just read Mel Bagg's What Not Changing Us Means.

When we say we don’t want to change, we’re incorporating all four dimensions in life already. We’re incorporating growth through time into our concept of the thing we don’t want changed. We’re saying “We don’t want to be changed” in the same way that a cat, faced with becoming a dog, would say “I don’t want to be changed.” The cat isn’t denying the important passage from kittenhood to adulthood. The cat is saying I want to grow as a cat, not a dog.

Basically this. (I mean a lot of other things, too, I really do suggest that you read sier post in addition to mine, or even that you read sier post first since a lot of what I'm doing here is responding or building or putting on some of the specifics as it applies to my growing up into an autistic adult, rather than a non-autistic adult.)

But also the responses. A recent New York Times article that I am not going to give the honor of linking because it is terrible (it thinks early intervention leading to a child losing their diagnosis is 1) good, and 2) going to last.)

Basically, it works under the idea that an autistic child growing up into a non-autistic adult is a good thing, which is a social and cultural and otherwise made by non-autistic "experts" assumption about how autistic people should live sort of assumption. It also works under the idea that if you can reach this sort of indistinguishability once, it will last. That's not accurate, BTW. Neurodivergent K talks about that in The tyranny of indistinguishability: performance better than I could, the essential point is that as demands increase the effort needed to emulate them increases and gets even further from autistic needs.

But because autistic development and non-autistic development look different, are moving towards different... slightly closer to stable than in childhood but still always changing adult areas, and because people tend to expect non-autistic development of autistic people rather than admitting cluelessness, there's an idea that we will get less obvious as we grow up when the opposite is more likely to be true.

Back to Mel's words and the cat/dog metaphor for one way that it works:

Quite frequently when they say that they sneak in something about making us into dogs, only they call that part of the growth from kittenhood into adulthood. “Sure, learn about stalking mice and stuff, I’ll give you that, as compromise or something, but hey, wag your tail when you’re happy, not when you’re mad. That’s the right way after all. You can’t deny change. Didn’t I just talk about important skills of the adult dog… er… I mean cat?”

 Don't flap your hands, it's silly/childish. Make eye contact. Use oral speech. Sit still. These are things expected for non-autistic development in the culture of my particular bit of the USA. (Eye contact expectations are hugely variable with culture. Signed languages have a long history, and they have been an acceptable alternative that most people know in quite a few places, for quite a few reasons.)

Because of how widespread those expectations are, I actually did learn to do a lot of that (iffily, badly, actually pretty easy to distinguish from my peers even though I've always, always, even still meet the definition of indistinguishable that Lovaas and co use: placement in a general educational classroom and at least one non-disabled friend, and can we talk about how this definition depends on the person still being a student?)

But.
In growing up into an autistic adult, I've stopped doing some of those things. I've started using the skills that I need for navigating the world as I am, rather than for trying to navigate the world while pretending to be non-autistic. (By Mel's metaphor, I've started switching out "adult dog" skills taught to me as universal "adult" skills for "adult cat" skills that serve my actual needs.)

I carry an AAC device- in my case, either my laptop with eSpeak or my iPad with Proloquo2Text (or just a notepad application when I was in China because I never figured out a Chinese text to speech on the iPad.) I have one of these things and a pen and paper on my person pretty much all the time. A side effect of knowing that I'm covered even if oral speech does give out on me, funnily enough, is that I'm more likely to retain the ability to speak, but that's not actually the purpose of carrying the devices. The reason is that I'm not always able to speak orally, and it's important for me to have a way to be understood even when I can't. My autistic body language, while very communicative for people who understand it, isn't reliable for this because people tend not to understand it. Folks have a tendency not to realize I'm upset or uncomfortable until I've actually melted down, which is too late as far as I'm concerned.

I carry a stim toy, a fidget, whatever you want to call it. It's usually a Tangle, Buckyballs, or a square of satin-bound blanket. Any one of these can take care of my need to be not-still. I've also used knitting and making chain mail for this (the armor kind, not the junk mail kind.) When I'm taking care of my need to be not-still in one of these ways, I'm less likely to pick at my skin, which means my face itches less. That's actually a big enough thing that once I realized the effect was there, it got added to my list of purposes for carrying a stim toy. [As opposed to being more likely to retain speech, which I don't care all that much about.] The original reason was being better able to center myself and also better able to concentrate on whatever I want to concentrate on, which has tended to be school stuff.

I don't dress like most people. I tend to go for either T-shirts and athletic shorts (both out of the mens section) or homemade dresses and skirts. In the case of skirts, the shirt might be homemade too, or it might be a T-shirt. The common factor is comfort- I'm talking about cotton knit dresses, the kind of dress people think of as for kids because adults use more "mature" and not-stretchy fabrics that aren't as comfortable and harder to keep clean. Don't even get me started on stockings. I have refused to wear them for as long as I have been able to enforce this refusal. Actually longer but until I turned 18 I could sometimes be overruled by a parent and that was terrible.

I flap and rock and spin and jump more openly now at 21 than I did at 12. At 12, I was still simultaneously trying to get my weirds read as deliberate and trying to be more typical, more indistinguishable, than is anywhere near sustainable for me to be. At 21, I know that while the "make it look like deliberate weirdness" carries some benefits, it also means people are better able to ask me to change it, which doesn't go well because I really can't. Not sustainably, anyways. I also know that trying to act like a non-autistic adult super-duper not sustainable. That's kind of the reason behind "I really can't" on the changing said weirdnesses.

People tend not to read me as autistic anyways, because autistic... adult? Does not compute. Autistic person with college degree? Does not compute. Autistic person... as the teacher? Computes even less. Autistic person... read as woman? What? That can't be a thing. And yet... here I am. Here we are, I should say, because it's not all that unusual. Fairly sure all those things apply to Neurodivergent K, for one example. Melanie Yeargeau for another. Ibby Grace, too.

But people not attaching the word autistic to the pretty noticeable differences?

1) Doesn't make the differences stop being a thing. I jump, rock, flap, spin, openly stim, etc. I've had at least three broken bones, none of which got diagnosed at the time and one of which was very explicitly a non-diagnosis due to my not acting like I was in enough pain- I went hiking on a broken foot without realizing it was broken. I use language weirdly. I ran a 5k barefoot once. My records are fairly littered with autistic traits that didn't get called that, which means that I had the differences and that they got noticed.

2) Doesn't mean they didn't notice the differences.  R****d was my bullies insult of choice fairly often, and definitely the one they went for when I was jumping and flapping my hands. Crazy and weird were the two "negative" words that anyone had to say about me in high school. One of my college professors commented that I speak in a "unique" way. Chad Stokes (State Radio, Dispatch) still remembers me as the person who ran the 5k barefoot.

3) Definitely doesn't make me somehow not autistic. Seriously, I have no idea how the idea of "If we don't say the word then she doesn't have it" is supposed to work, but something along those lines seems to have been the philosophy that made it take so long for me to get diagnosed. But yeah. In terms of stuff I do in my life, both online and off, I probably do count as that ideal result because I'm in general education classrooms and have friends. The reason I can do those things is that I don't try to act like I'm non-autistic. My classmates and teachers from my year in Tianjin can totally attest to just how obviously autistic I am. So calling "doing stuff as an adult" the same as "not autistic anymore" (in metaphor, calling "adult" the same as "adult dog") makes zero sense. Actually negative sense.

I'm an Autistic adult doing things. Not a magically-not-autistic-anymore adult because I am doing things. Seriously. Should. Not. Be. That. Hard. To. Accept.

The Point of Hillary and Rose

I wrote introductions of two 20-year old Autistic people, Hillary and Rose. Before reading this post, I suggest you read those.

I wanted you to think about these two people.
Remember what you thought?

They're the same person. They're both me. I just selectively decided on different bits of my life to give you in each. The book I'm already in is Loud Hands: Autistic People Speaking, and the piece in it is "I Hid." The single-author book is one on Neurodiversity and Tamora Pierce. The piece that's going into another book is sort of an introduction to the Neurodiversity and Tamora Pierce one, and it's going into FYTortall's book.
I chew on my hands sometimes. I really do. I don't chew hard enough to actually hurt myself, but yeah. Chewing on my hands is a thing I do. My teachers have had pretty varied reactions to my inability to sit still. (I'd fail special needs kindergarten, not even joking.) I've had people completely fail to care, and that's been great. Those are the classes where you'd see me sewing or making chainmail or knitting in class, and I'd be doing really well. Those were the classes I was most likely to get an A in. Not because it was easy and I didn't need to pay attention: because that's what I need to do in order to pay attention. This was AP chemistry. This was AP biology. This was Honors economics in college. I've also had people try to stop me from fidgeting. Those were the classes I didn't do so great in. Often "easier" classes- Hebrew school, middle school unleveled science classes, middle school history classes.
That's the thing. People have mixes of traits. When I taught an autism 101 class at MIT's Splash, I had short, 1 paragraph bios of people and the students were supposed to guess if the people were autistic or not. People guessed that Amy Sequenzia was not autistic. It's possible to manipulate the picture that much. Which was among the points I was trying to make.
So, do you really trust the people who use functioning levels as a reason a person should be ignored?

Note: This is apparently my 500th post. WOOT.

Answering Questions

Trigger Warning: References to murder of people with disabilities, presumptions of incompetence

The questions are in a comment on Mama Be Good.

What Does The Neurodiversity Movement Want?

And the Sue Rubins, Tracy Threshers, Larry Bissonetes...are they the exception rather than the rule? Since Tracy and Larry still use FC, does that diminish what they say?I studied under Doug Biklen and others at Syracuse University, but still could not believe that inside each and every person with autism was an 'intact brain' that could read and write.

So do the neurodiveristy people want those of us who are educators to leave the very impaired young people alone, to 'be' who they are, and support their very substantial needs?
So that leave me as an educator and therapist confused about what to do in my role in the schools.... reduce stimming? Support stimming?

(This isn't the whole comment. I just pulled questions out, mostly.)

Without people actually presuming competence and trying to teach everybody, you'll never get an answer. The results of folks actually trying this stuff suggests that they are actually the rule, not the exception, but if you act like it's an exception and don't try they're going to look like an exception. (No one needed to try to do what I did, because they couldn't.)
There are some people who can't use language. Amanda Baggs has written about them some. She's actually one of the people where I'd suggest reading her whole blog, even though I haven't finished doing so yet myself.
There are people FC doesn't work for, because they don't use language. (I think Amanda talked about that on her Tumblr, not her Wordpress.) They aren't having great successes with it, though. Because they don't use language. This is a thing that exists. It's not the same as not speaking, and it's not the same as not being able to start typing independently straight off, and it's definitely not the same thing as non-speaking, trained cat to facilitate typing at need, so without trying, it's not safe to assume that it won't work, that the person can't learn to type. (If you can control what a person types by putting your hand on the small of their back, please, do tell- this is not a thing that makes half as much sense as "the person can type and has movement issues" but it's a thing that some people like to say sometimes.)
So, no, not every autistic person can learn to read and write because of the whole not everyone uses language thing that Amanda likes to point out, but trying to see if they can? Kind of important. Trying all the ways? Kind of important.
Now.
I can't speak for every neurodiversity activist, but these are some guesses I can make. I am a neurodiversity activist and I want these things, and I know other neurodiversity activists wanting those things too, generally. Assume that I have left out a bunch of stuff, though I think that "want people to be accepted as people" should get most of those things to logically follow.
Neurodiversity activists want you to stop making false binaries.

• Leaving people alone and trying to force them to be normal are not the only choices, and if you've ever raised or taught a weird but presumably NT kid, you already know that. It still applies- there are more than two options.
• High functioning/low functioning aren't lines you can really draw well, and trying to say who is and isn't OK based on those attempted lines? Not good.

Neurodiversity activists want people to be accepted as people, regardless of what their abilities seem to be and/or turn out to actually be once you try teaching them/seeing them as people. This includes people who don't use language.
Neurodiversity activists want you to realize that advocacy is for everyone, and it doesn't always look like your picture of it. I want you to read Amanda Baggs piece on this in Loud Hands: Autistic People Speaking as well, FYI. I can't link it because I don't remember if/where it can be found online.
Neurodiversity activists want to be a part of the broader disability rights movement. We think getting excluded from a disability rights movement because of our disabilities is pretty ironic, FYI.
Neurodiversity activists want people to quit using evolution arguments in eugenicist ways. I'm going to put on my scientist hat and say that those people are doing science wrong. Evolution isn't stepwise, so calling autism the next step in human evolution is just silly. Diversity is a thing that nature has been "willing" to pay a pretty high price for, since environments change and therefore the most advantageous traits to have will change- and so will the most advantageous ratios of different kinds of traits, since having one species that does all the things isn't actually how this works. Ecosystems have niches, filled by different species that do different things. Human societies have niches too, best filled by different people with different things they can do. And when times change, the different kinds of niches change in number. Keeping as many traits around as possible is evolutionarily advantageous, and yes, that means heritable disabilities, and yes, that means heritable mental differences. I should not need to explain the exact use of every single possible difference because neither I nor anyone else can be reasonably expected to know all of those answers.
Neurodiversity activists want you to realize that a person's education does not require that they be "table-ready." Sometimes, it depends on remaining table-unready: mine continues to. [That's a big loud NO to suppress stimming. Go ahead and help a student find substitute stims, working with them on this, not saying which ones must work or anything, should there be one or two that really do cause problems in the classroom, but also be accepting of the fact that the substitute stim will probably look weird too, and of the fact that sometimes they really are just going to need to step out/to the back for that stim.]
And what might be the biggest thing of all:
Neurodiversity activists want you to quit murdering us, and to quit calling it mercy or making excuses for other folks who do it.

What Does The Neurodiversity Movement Want?

What Does The Neurodiversity Movement Want?

Meet Two People

I'm introducing two Autistic people to you today. They get psudonyms. I'll call them Rose and Hillary.

Hillary is currently living with her parents. She is sometimes able to speak and sometimes unable to speak, and even when she can speak, typing is often easier. She often carries a blanket with satin binding with which to stim. While she is usually able to look at people, she does not make eye contact. She is completely unable to keep her space organized, so someone else has to keep her organized. She will refuse to eat certain foods, such as prepared eggs and anything which contains mint, and can not be convinced to eat a typical breakfast. She is hypersensitive to many kinds of sound, and does not tolerate flashing lights. When upset or overloaded, she has been known to chew on her hands. In the classroom, she has consistently fidgeted, with varying educator reactions. Several have tried and failed to stop this self-stimulating behavior.

Rose is preparing for a year abroad in China, where she will be taking advanced Chinese language courses along with one or two direct enrollment courses conducted in Chinese. Graph theory is almost certain, and she is attempting to find an appropriate engineering course. She generally does well in school, balancing school life with activist life. She has presented at Debilitating Queerness and the Society for Disability Studies, and her work has been featured in a book. She also has an accepted article in an upcoming book, and is working on a single-author work of her own related to neurodiversity in the works of a specific author. While keeping organized is a challenge, she has learned to get things done anyways, and she has accommodations in place for herself that allow her to accomplish most of what she wants to do. (She's not convinced that neurotypicality would let her get the rest done, either.)

Now. What do you think of Hillary and Rose?
I'll wait. I'd actually really love it if you wrote down what you think of each of them from this, see what kinds of assumptions you made, maybe commented with them.
No, really. I'll wait. You're not finding out the point of this today. :p


Once I reveal the point, this sentence will be a link to the post where I do so.
Well, it's already a link. Because I already wrote it. But it won't go anywhere.

Accommodating Ourselves

Another one for Autism NOW, I actually wrote it a while ago. I haven't had language thoughts between then and now this time, though, I think it's mostly fine. 

One of the skills I have found most valuable is being able to accommodate myself in most environments. See, there is an unfortunate tendency to discriminate against people with all sorts of disabilities, regardless of what the ADA might say. However, when I can make the needed changes myself without having to explain that I'm autistic, no one really cares. It's usually OK to be "just weird."
So these are some things I have come up with that we can sometimes do to accommodate ourselves, often without needing to bring up the fact that we are autistic.

• Noise-canceling headphones are growing more accepted in office environments. Get a good pair and carry them with you everywhere! When it gets too loud, bring them out!
  
• Also carry some earplugs if you can wear them. There are plenty of earplugs that just take everything down ~10dB, which can make the difference between an acceptable level of noise and being overloaded. This is what I do at some concerts, since I like live music, but the volume is usually too high. This can be done anywhere that visible noise-cancellation would be a problem, but the volume needs reducing.
  
• Always have a ready excuse to leave social events early. Events can lead to overload, but if you have a reason that you need to leave early, you can get out and decompress.
  
• Know where the quiet areas are in any building that you spend significant time in. You can usually manage to get away for a few minutes without attracting notice, and that time to decompress can make a huge difference.
  
• Carry a stim toy that you can play with discretely. Stimming in public might not be socially accepted yet, but they can't yell at you for what they can't see!
  
• Also bring a favorite stim toy, even if it's not discrete. As long as it's in your bag, you can bring it when you go to that quiet area that you found. Or you can spin/flap/rock there. Whatever you need to do, find somewhere that you can.
  
• If losing speech happens, get a text-to-speech program for your computer. Lie about the reason if you have to ("After that time when I lost my voice on the day of my big presentation, I've made sure I always have a computer with text-to-speech and my whole presentation typed out, just in case!" might be a decent one.) Then bring that computer with you everywhere.
  
• If phones are a problem, don't give out the number/tell people to text you. Nowadays, if you say text, most people will. And of course, if it's outside work hours, you can happen to have stepped away from the phone.
  
• Especially for bigger presentations: If it's causing sensory overload, leave. Presenters mostly won't notice, and attendance, if taken, is usually taken early on.
  
• If possible, find work that won't cause overload. It's much easier to accommodate yourself in a situation that isn't going to cause major problems anyways.
  
• College: Don't be afraid to drop a class if the teacher has a problem with this. With the exception of small schools, there are very few classes that the same teacher always gets, and if you need to wait until someone else teaches it, that's what you do.
  
• Sometimes there will be one person there who you feel comfortable telling. If there is one, tell them, and that person can often make small accommodations in meeting design and activities for anything they are running and provide excuses for you to leave early/arrive late at things that are going to be problematic for you. This does require finding someone trustworthy, though.
  

It is, of course, easier to get full accommodation when you are open about your disability, but there are some things you can still do while passing for merely odd.

To You, the Children

You're not wrong. You're not bad. You're different, and you're disabled, but you are not broken or wrong or less and you don't have to be indistinguishable from your peers. You can flap. You can rock. You can write or type instead of speaking, even if you can (usually, sometimes, with more effort than you ever dared admit) speak. You can even admit to how much effort it takes, to how slow speaking really is. And that's OK. Impairments are much less disabling when you accommodate for them, and you can't accommodate for something you can't admit you have. You can admit it. You can bring a pen and paper out with your friends, just in case. You can bring an iPad out with your friends, just in case. If they are really your friends, they will be fine with it. Curious, perhaps, maybe confused, but they won't make a fuss. Because you're just doing what you need to do in order to enjoy your time with them. 

There may be people who bully you, who make fun of you, who beat you up. They might call you horrible things (or things they think are horrible but really aren't if you think about it.) They might tell you it's because of the ways you are different. They are either confused or lying. The bullies who tell you that's why are probably lying. The adults who tell you that it's your fault and that it would stop if you just stopped acting so autistic are probably confused. That doesn't mean you need to be confused. It also doesn't mean that you have to act less autistic. Or that you can't act less autistic, if you think it is worth trying. It might even work, if you can stick out less. (I was never able to- I could get rid of a lot of the more obvious things, but I always stuck out as somehow different.) It might even be worth it, as long as you recognize it for what it is. (It's not you being weak, by the way. It's staying safe in whatever way you can. It's also doing something that you shouldn't have to do, because the way you are is not wrong.) 

The bullying isn't about the specific ways that you are different. It's about people going after anyone who doesn't fit and trying to make them fit, and it's about power, and it's about people who want to hurt others choosing victims they think they can blame for their own victimization. It's about patterns in society that need to be changed, but that doesn't mean you have to change them in elementary school or middle school or high school. (No arguments if you think you can, but you should know that the bullying will get worse before it gets better if you do it that way, and your teachers might well join the bullies rather than simply ignoring them if you try. I had teachers among my bullies.)

No. The important thing is that you know what it is really about. Biding your time until you have a chance to make the changes you want by being the wonderful person you are reasonably safely (never perfectly safe, but worth the risk) might not look much different than hiding because you think they're right and because you agree that you are broken, but it is different. It's very different.

This post has been added to the Down Wit Dat October 2014 Blog Hop.

Completely making up which day goes with which NaPoWriMo poem

Working with the assumption that these are 25-27. Even though I'm pretty sure Ocean was actually 29 because I wrote it on the bus to get my passport application in and I think that was on the 29th.

Ocean

Salty air.

Waves.

A lighthouse.

White where a motor churned sky into sea,

Rainbow films above the white,

Darkening as sky returns to sky,

As white fades back to sea.

Happy

She is happy, they say.

They imitate a smile, a flap.

They do not know why.

Perhaps they do not care.

Perhaps they do not need to know.

The meaning is clear,

And that is enough.

Naming

Naming colors,

Naming color schemes,

Naming designs.

How?

It is abstract.

It is not of a thing,

It is not of an idea,

It is not of a meaning,

It is not of an emotion.

What can it be called?

Yes, That Too Celebrates 1000 Ausome Things #AutismPositivity2013

AutismPositivity is back!
I was pretty new to the blogging thing when it came around last time, but I did find out about it and write a thing. And some of the stuff I talked about then still fits now!
So in list format, cause I like lists, have ten of my Ausome things:

1. As long as speech is working and I know the topic, I can do some serious damage in a debate. Like there was that time that I showed up to a debate in my Honors communication class not having done any of the research, not having any evidence to cite, nothing. I won that debate. I did so by explaining why every piece of evidence my opponent brought actually supported my opinion. I am not even joking, this is a thing that happened. When I got the rubric back, my opponent had more evidence, better evidence, was better prepared, but I still won the debate. That's what the teacher's grading said.
2. Stimming is THE BEST THING EVER. It can just be made of awesome (ausome) or it can be a coping mechanism so I can manage even when everything else is made of bad. Either way, useful. Silky blankets are a really good example of this, since they can do both of these at the same time. Same goes for olives. The sensory processing differences that make certain sensations horrible are frustrating, but I wouldn't get rid of them if it meant losing the differences that let me stim. Sorry, no, stimming is too awesome (ausome.)
3. Special interest, Autistic Obsession, whatever you want to call it. It's a hug for my brain. So math spent a long time as a hug for my brain, and I was able to get really good at it, too. Like, I'm twenty and I've already got a bachelors in math, I'm a first semester masters student in that major now. (Still an undergrad in mechanical engineering and Chinese, my other two majors. I didn't quite break eCampus, I just have two records in it both connecting to one account and confusing my advisers.)
4. Pattern recognition! I find all the four leaf clovers, all the five leaf clovers, and some of the six leaf clovers. I also found a seven leaf and an eight leaf, but only one of each. It's quite awesome (ausome.) I actually think in patterns, but through language. If that makes sense? I don't know, it's how my brain works, which is kind of weird and kind of awesome (ausome.) Which finds me four leaf clovers, which is probably responsible for a good bit of my math ability, which is probably also relevant to my sewing ability. (I can't read a sewing pattern, but I can make clothes that fit me and look good.)
5. Pattern making! That's where Because Patterns came from, after all! (BTW, ONE LAST PLUG FOR THE GIVEAWAY. Today is the last day you can enter and vote on entries. It's on Facebook, it's for an artist proof of my Autism Acceptance design, entry requires liking Because Patterns on Facebook and answering what Autism Acceptance means to you. Yes, you can hang a proof up. It's like a print in almost every way- same size, still signed. Coloration could be a little different, it says proof where the number would be. That's it.) Anyways, have a pattern! Because patterns are one of many Ausome things about my autism, and they are a pretty cool looking one too. I think that this pattern would totally be modifiable to make an infinite tessellation, too, which is a thing I've been getting into making mode of. Those ones work for fabric, after all.
   
6. I can listen to the same song on repeat for weeks and not get sick of it. Talk about patience! Recently, it was Knights of Bostonia.That one started about a week before Patriot's Day, and I only switched to Amy MacDonald songs this past Saturday.
7. I can eat the same food for years and not get sick of it. No, really, I brought the same lunch to school from fifth grade through tenth grade every day except Passover and some field trips and it was fine. I took a bagel with lox (lots of lox, it was almost like a roast beef sandwich amount of lox I am not even joking,) an apple or two, and a big thermos of milk to school for lunch basically every day. The thermos was 16.9 oz, and my cross country coach was annoyed that I still drank milk on meet days instead of switching to water, but switching my diet would mess with me more than milk that I am used to having in my system possibly could. Also, this was the same coach who thought that you shouldn't drink too much right before the meet because then you would get cramps. Which can be caused by dehydration... Anyways, I can eat the same food for a long time and it's fine. Which is useful when on a budget, since buying in bulk is cheaper. It's also useful because it means I don't need to remember as many recipes.
8. My brain works really fast sometimes. That's what covered me for all my years of executive dysfunction, which is the same as all my years. Sure, I might not remember I had homework due first period until I was on the bus, but I could still get it done by then. I think my record was having something due in all five of my academic classes and drama (seven period day that day,) starting on the bus to school, and turning in everything on time. I can be that fast. I was close to that fast on a regular basis throughout middle and high school. I wrote a paper on 1984 in about 4 hours once, including the research for it. It's on my blog, somewhere, and it gets me hits from people looking for essays about 1984 every so often. 
9. My writing is proof of "You can totally write good poetry without much of any metaphor." Because I don't metaphor much, but people still like my poetry. I won't claim all of it is good, but certainly some of it is. One of my poem-ish things is actually published in the Loud Hands anthology, which I'd say is a sign of some sort of good. I'd say making (one of many) proofs of this concept is pretty awesome (ausome.)
10. I'm immune to culture shock. See, so far as I can tell, culture shock is "Everyone is doing stuff that doesn't make sense!" combined with "I feel like a foreigner!" and possibly a dose of homesick. I'm not sure why I don't really get homesick, but when the first two things are just a part of every day life, they can't really cause a shock. So I get to China, or I get to India. Sure, people are doing a different set of things that don't make sense, but it's not like it makes less sense or anything. I just need to learn this set of rules. It's nothing special, nothing particularly scary, nothing shocking. So I am immune so culture shock, and autism totally gets the credit for that. It's pretty awesome (ausome.)

Laaaaaadle

Ladle is a fun word, have some echolalia mixed with ladles. Also known as "Alyssa is echolalic sometimes, and mixed echoladling (echolalia of ladle) with songs sometimes."

I have a little ladle,
I made it out of steel,
I have a little ladle,
It needs to help me deal!


I have a little ladle,
I made it out of dreidles,
And when it's dry and ready,
Oh dreidle I shall ladle.


I'm a laaaaadle to you,
I laaaaaaadle to you,
Yes I'm a ladle to you.


Do rhymes with clue!
Do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue do clue....
(My friend who was watching as I rocked, flapped, and repeated do clue probably about that many times maybe more, commented that we should record that and inform every parent who wanted a gifted kid that this is what they were volunteering for. Which is amusing. And kind of true, since they only specified gifted, not that the kid had to be just gifted and nothing else.)


Some things are meant to ladle,
Some things mean more than they ladled to meee
Last year was incomplete,
This game will end the same unless I ladle,
Found the ladle frame,
No ladles there just a lonely spoon,
If I still felt the same it'd be a ladle....


None of the songs I modified are originally mine. Two are old PONS songs (like, from when their website was on mypodcast.com kind of old,) two are variations of the dreidle song. 

Your Next Installment of... NaPoWriMo Poems!

April 16-18


Flap

Large hands, loud hands,
Flappy flappy happy hands,
Spread arms, flapping arms,
Telling the world of my joy.
An obsessive joy, you say?
Perhaps.
But JOY.
Do not begrudge my happiness.
Do not prevent its expression.
I will flap.



Tianjin

A place I have not yet been.
A place I have not yet seen.
I will be a foreigner,
But not alone,
No more than I am here.
Not isolated,
No more than I am here.
There will be no culture shock.
Just the realization:
For once, I should feel like a foreigner.


 If Only/But Really

If only we could be ourselves.

But really we are afraid.

If only we had the nerve,

But really we are cowards.

If only, if only, the woodpecker sighs,

But really, the world is as it is.

If only is all well and good,

But really is life.

(I took creative writing three times in high school, and this was a pattern that we played around with for poetry on occasion.)

And Yet Three More Poems

April 13-15


Rebellion

Rebellion opens with a single flap.
A refusal to look you in the eye.
An iPad used for AAC,
Rather than pretending I am just quiet today.
It says that I am what I am.
Asserts that I'm a who, if I'm lucky.
That I am not ashamed.
I reject your ideals and substitute my own.


Do you see what I see?

Do you see things others do not see?
What do you mean by that?
I see things others do not see.
But if I point them out, others see.
What I see is there.
They look.
Their eyes take in the same things mine do.
And yet.
Do you see what I see?
No.
I'm not sure I want to.


Rainbows

One Ausome Thing.
AutismPositivity.
AutismUpside.
Autism Acceptance.
Loud Hands.
Do you hear my Loud Hands?
Do you hear me tell you I'm fine?
Will you listen?
Because I am.
I'm fine.
Different, certainly.
Not better, not worse,
Not more, not less.
Not all sunshine and rainbows,
Not all doom and gloom.
But today?
Today I speak of sunshine,
Today I speak of rainbows.
You can't forget the rainbows are there.
I won't let you forget.

Sensory Processing Disorder-Autism Parenting

Autism Parenting Magazine is now a thing- it's available on the iPad (yay, I got one of those for graduation.) Of course, it is heavily from the perspective of parents, since it is a parenting magazine. As such, I'm not going to fault it for the fact that the articles are all directed at parents. I will, however, be reading every article from at least the first two issues that I can get for free and possibly continuing past that point. At $2.99/month, I think I can find out what it is that parents are being told they should do and explain why it's wrong. (Yes, Autism Parenting Magazine, you're going to be wrong about many things. Just looking at your cover tells me that.) Every article is getting, shall we say, corrected.

I begin with the first article. It starts on page four of the December 2012 issue, the first ever, and its title is "Sensory Processing Disorder."

The first thing they did wrong is make an article in Autism Parenting claim to be just about Asperger's when it is really about the whole Autistic spectrum and some people who aren't even on the spectrum. Something like 80% of Autistic people have sensory processing disorder (SPD), and that holds across all of the subsets.

The initial description of SPD is reasonable, though the anxiety, depression, and school failure described as being possible results "if the disorder is not treated effectively" are quite easily results of many of the therapies used to "treat" SPD as well as possible problems that people with SPD can face. Be very wary of most treatments, as the most effective thing to do is generally to try to avoid sensory triggers. Occupational therapy can be helpful in some cases, but finding ways to avoid triggers (some of which were listed, and those methods are good) is often the better choice. Additionally, while hypersensitivity and hyposensitivity are, in fact, common issues, many sensory processing differences are not as simple as hyper and hyposensitivity. There is also sensory seeking and sensory avoidance, which may or may not match up along the hyper and hyposensitivity lines that you might expect. A person can, in fact, be sensory seeking for something they are hypersensitive to because the sensation is just that good. It can also be more complicated than simple hypersensitivity and hyposensitivity for senses as a whole by way of being more or less sensitive to single sensations, such as my hypersensitivity to mint and hyposensitivity to spices. Both are oral sensations, so calling me simply orally hypersensitive or orally hyposensitive would be incomplete.

As a first introduction to sensory processing disorder, this article is fairly good, though it should make it more clear that this is an autism issue in general as opposed to being just an Asperger's issue and put more emphasis on finding ways to avoid triggers rather than occupational therapy, which often involves forcing triggers onto people while they melt down until it doesn't make them melt down anymore, as in the case of brushing. Some people with sensory processing disorder may, in fact, like brushing, but if it is painful, it is painful and is not acceptable to do to a child.

And finally, here are a few tricks for SPD that I think are important but were not mentioned in the article:

• Mint is actually a pretty common issue. It's a strong sensation, and people either love it or hate it, and a lot of people with SPD fall into the "hate it" camp. Toothpastes that are not mint flavored may be harder to find, but if mint is an issue, this is more than worth the time. Flosses that are not minty may also be a good idea.
• Sometimes knowing that a sensation that triggers sensory issues is coming ahead of time can help. If so, having "gets advanced notice of fire drills" or "is seated facing the clock" as accommodations can help.
• Try all different kinds of toothbrushes. Electric ones are actually worse than manual ones for me, something about the vibration.
• Bring snacks with you, so you can still eat even if all the food you are provided with contains sensory badness.
• Carbonated beverages can be painful. If they are for you or for your kid, bring water or something else you can drink. You have no idea how many times I have gone to social events only to find that every beverage they offer is carbonated, and I can't drink them. Even shaking and stirring to try to make them go "flat" isn't enough.
• If hairbrushing is an issue, get a haircut. Comfort is more important than looks, and anyone who tells you different is to be laughed out the door.
• Certain fabrics can be problems. Which ones will vary from person to person, but don't try to make someone wear a fabric that is a sensory issue. Finding different clothes is worth it.
• Strobe lights can be extremely disorienting, even for those of us who are not officially considered photosensitive. It's not the same level of big deal for us as for a person with photosensitive epilepsy unless we actually have photosensitive epilepsy, but it's still good to avoid. Turn flash off if this is an issue.
• Unscented soaps and deodorants are your friend.
• Tight clothing may be a problem. If so, do not force your kid to wear stockings, leggings, or other tight clothing. Comfort is a prerequisite to being able to function, and it's still more important than looks.
• Footwear can also be interesting. Many people do best with crocs, some with sandals, some barefoot. Try different things if shoes are a problem.
• Along the lines of footwear, some people just can't wear socks. If this is you or your kid, choose shoes accordingly so that you don't get blisters.

• Short of legal regulations such as requiring shirt and shoes to be served and the issue of indecent exposure, all dress codes can be modified for disability. It's no different from the person who has a doctors note saying that they have to wear sneakers instead of dress shoes.
• Carry a stim toy, always. By stim toy I mean something you can use to get a sensation for which you are sensory seeking. Maybe carry multiple. Certainly have one that can be used discretely.
• Puberty doesn't make SPD go away. Whatever the requirements for clothing may have been, expect it to continue, and expect either the same requirements or stricter ones to apply to any new undergarments.

Autistic Emily?

I read Questionable Content, and today I want to talk about a character from there who I think might be autistic. Unless the Questionable Content universe is a lot better about autistic people than we are today, I doubt that she knows she's autistic, but I think she is.

No, this isn't about "being a jerk," like so many people use to armchair-diagnose people. She is socially clueless at times, but she is nice. See "socially inept and mean are two different things."

I'm pretty sure she's sensory seeking. She beat out dozens of other applicants for an apparently competitive library internship so she could sniff old books, and admitted as much pretty openly (2207.) She has also played with both Martin's (2320) and Claire's hair (2360.)

She also has some echolalic tendencies, repeating the word "muskrat" over and over on one occasion (2302) and repeating "fluffy" during her sensory seeking with Claire's hair (2360.) She has also repeated Tai verbatim (2317*.) One of the earlier clues, though, was that the highlight of her first day was the banana smoothie, and she said so using just the noun, "Banana smoothie" (2213.) She does the same when she is excited about the banana smoothie being brought to her (2282,) and the illustration suggests that she was clapping in anticipation.

Also in the area of language, she seems to take things literally and have some possible difficulty telling when people are joking (2253.) Her sense of humor also seems to include a very active imagination (2361) and puns based on literal interpretations, such as "arms races" (2368.)

There are other comics she appears in where her behavior may or may not fall under the umbrella of stimming, and it would take the ability to ask her questions directly to be sure about this. These include her poking Momo's belly button to cause her hair to change color (2250.)

Beyond simple stimming, there is some Autistic body language, such as continuing to use clapping to mean happiness into adulthood, outside the context of applause (2282, 2288,2295, 2329) and what might be lifting her arms to flap as she begins to laugh (2368.)

Finally, while many autistic people can and do lie, Emily does have the specific kind of honesty I have noticed to be very common in autistic people- correcting people on their "white lies" (2242) and admitting to reasoning behind decisions that most neurotypicals consider best left unmentioned (2207.)

And I won't deny it- she can be clueless and weird, and she apparently does have social troubles outside the rather accepting bunch forming Questionable Content's main circle (2298.) In the first strip where we meet her, on her first day of work, she asks for permission to goof off with the boss (2203.) She was also very excited to have a banana smoothie that was just a banana smashed with a hammer (2210) and seems to make a habit of having this sort of smoothie (2241, 2273,2282). She also suggested using a fellow library employee (robot) as a battering ram (2237) and asks her some... interesting questions (2238, 2250,2251, 2283, 2284, 2315*.) Her first instinct upon meeting Pintsize was to punch him, denting his head and injuring her hand (2340.) She is also either deadpan enough with her sarcasm to fool her coworkers or unaware of just how weird she is (2371.)

However, I also hold that if people view autism in the Questionable Content universe the same way it is viewed here, or even in a similar way, Emily most likely does now know that she is, in fact, Autistic. While she is aware of having some social difficulty and of her lack of friends from outside her work (2298,) she seems more than willing to be her own strange self around these friends she has made. I see no evidence of her making any effort to hide any of her more Autistic tendencies, nor do I see her apologizing for these tendencies. At the very least, that means that if she ever did receive the sorts of therapies that are typical for autistic children today. The type of Autistic person who is as open as she is and as confident as she seems to act is usually open about the fact that they are, in fact, Autistic, so it seems most likely that she doesn't know her neurological status. If she does, either the politics around autism is completely different from the way it is here or we would probably know it by now. Therefore, I propose that Emily from Questionable Content is autistic but is not currently aware of this fact.

*Guest comic, may or may not be considered canon.

Finding Home at the Gala

The other of two things I wrote for the ASAN November Newsletter. 

On November 14, I also went to the ASAN second annual gala. I was almost an hour late, having gotten stuck in traffic on the way from the Disability and Inclusion in the Humanities panel to the gala with the organizer of the panel and a few of the panelists who were also attending the gala, but what I arrived to was more than worth the wait. When I arrived, it was to…Autistic space!
Autistic space is not like neurotypical space. In Autistic space, stim toys are readily available, such as the blue ASAN Tangles at every seat, and carrying them with us to fidget with when talking to other attendees was completely normal. Instead of the loud clapping applause normally used, we use jazz hands or flapping at the end of speeches or anywhere that clapping would normally be appropriate. That the inability to use spoken language and having nothing to say are two completely different things is accepted as a fact, and is not an issue that leads to continuously needing to prove and re-prove competence. If and when a topic is difficult or triggering, it’s considered acceptable to step outside. There is no need to apologize for acting visibly autistic or for the “forgetting” of faces that can come from face-blindness or from simply not looking at people. Sure, this was a gala at the National Press Conference, but that didn’t mean that we suddenly needed to act like neurotypical adults at their most formal–the social rules common to the outside world need significant modification for use in Autistic space, including a requirement of being as direct and clear in communication as possible given current language abilities and a complete suspension of asking for eye contact. That’s what I found at the gala. I found people talking about important things in language I could understand and being OK with the people fidgeting and flapping and looking off in a completely different direction than the speaker, knowing that this was simply our natural way of being, not some attempt at disrespect.
I heard about self-advocacy and including people in communities, about the importance of Alternative and Augmentative Communication, and about needing to stand together. I heard about not letting the world isolate and mistreat any group that they were somehow convinced was really the group to isolate, no matter how much “but this time we’re sure!” we might hear. They’re never as sure as they think they are, not with Autistic people and not with anyone else. I heard more about the Loud Hands Project, which I submitted a semi-poem to, and finally got to see the video used for fundraising for it. All things affirming the acceptance of autism as a difference that is a disability not in need of elimination or cure, but simply support for a different way of being, were to be found at the gala–it was one of few spaces where I felt completely safe.
Kassiane wrote after Autreat that she had found her family, that it was the Autistic community, and after traveling to Washington, DC for the annual gala, I have to say the same. The Autistic community is another family for me, one that makes sense and that understands both the advantages I have and the difficulties I face. The Autistic community understands that this is who we are, for better or for worse. The gala itself may have only been two hours out of a busy day, but in a world that is not yet designed for people with brains like ours, it meant family and it meant home.

I guess I stim a lot...

Until I started paying attention, I thought I didn't stim much. Then I payed attention. I flap and rock and fidget a lot. Huh. And I spend a lot of time playing with silky stuff, too. Huh. Maybe I do stim a decent bit.
Then a friend of mine started asking, "Is X stimming?" He didn't care which way the answer was, and it wasn't like he was trying to get me to stop or anything, so I thought about it. Usually, the answer was yes. Apparently, I have a LOT of stims, and I stim almost constantly.

• Flapping
• Rocking
• Tapping on tables
• Playing with hammers
• Playing with doors
• Playing with silky fabric
• Doodling
• Pacing
• Jiggling my leg
• Picking at plastic tablecloths
• Humming
• Singing
• Tapping on tables
• Jumping up and down

And that's OK. I stim almost constantly, and because I am perceived as merely weird, nothing is done about it. Because no one spends time trying to get me to stop, it's a non-issue. That's true of pretty much any non-dangerous stim. It's only an issue if people decide that it is, and when people decide that it isn't, there really is no problem. (I made chainmail out on my desk in AP Biology and AP Chemistry my senior year of high school and it wasn't a problem because the teachers decided that as long as I got my work done as well, participated in class discussions, and wasn't distracting the other students, it was OK. There was no formal accommodation involved in this. As far as I know, they don't even know that I'm autistic. It was just a non-issue because no one made it an issue.)
Besides the fact that it's really only an issue if people decide to make it one, there are reasons that allowing stimming really is the way to go:

• Stimming can make the difference between melting down and not. I prefer not.
• Stimming can help me calm down when I am stressed.
• Not stimming takes thought and energy, and even then, it's not always going to work. I have better things to do with my time than worry about stimming, and so does pretty much every autistic person ever.
• I shouldn't need to justify using my body in a way that comes naturally and doesn't hurt anyone.