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。

Things to Do

I have a lot of things that need doing. I'm hoping that if I write them down I will actually get them done.

First off, I need to caption this Youtube video and write a transcript for it, and soon. Because that's my presentation for Society for Disability Studies, and that means it needs to be accessible and that means captions and transcript. Probably transcript first, then caption. Right now you can't search Youtube to find the video, but I'll make it public (as opposed to unlisted) after it's captioned and SDS is over. So, you know. I totally want it shared all over the place, just not for another day or two.

I also need to write my math final- it's Differential Geometry, it's in Chinese, and it's takehome. It's also due in 9 hours. Erm. Better get writing.

I feel like I should get back into blogging more, so that's kind of what this is. I'm putting a thing on my blog, even if it's not super-relevant to autism or disability. But that's OK, because this is actually my personal blog and not an autism-specific blog or a disability-specific blog. (I have posting privileges on some blogs like that, such as We Are Like Your Child, this just isn't actually a blog like that.)

I'm apparently getting interviewed tomorrow related to activism and Autistic Pride Day. That'll be cool. I'll find a link once that exists, because yay things.

I've got a final paper about nanotechnology and society and China to write. In Chinese. I don't really want to write the paper that I'm supposed to be writing, though there's a paper kind of like it that I totally do want to write. We'll see which one actually comes out, depending on how well I manage to care what my teacher thinks of the paper. (Ehhh... considering that a C and an A transfer back to my home institution the same way, I'm probably not going to be able to make myself care that much. Which isn't great, but I'll live. And pass. And all that other good stuff. I have gotten really tired of this teacher telling me that I always speak and write too informally, especially since I am opposed to the idea that formal speech is inherently better. Technical terms are great because they're useful, big words for the sake of sounding smart annoy me, being told that I should use big words for the sake of sounding smart will just make me angry.)

I'm reading stuff about cross-cultural communication and disability, written by 王莉皓 and 李志远 (Wang Lihao and Li Zhiyuan.) There's two shorter journal articles, about 3 pages each, that are in Chinese, one of which I essentially liveblogged except it's not on my blog yet (if I put it up that goes towards the blogging thing so I probably will. There's also 李志远's masters thesis, which is in English. It's very Chinese-style English (No, I don't mean the accent that people like to make fun of; this is written work anyways. I mean a style of speaking and writing that I don't really know how to describe, but that you'll be familiar with if you spend time in China speaking English, or if you've read a lot of things written by Chinese people who've learned English mostly from other Chinese people. It's about word choice and sentence structure and the ideas that are being communicated and paragraph structure and just the whole thing.) Anyone who wants any of the articles can poke me, I do have PDFs.

In terms of people wanting the things: The title of the thesis (the only English article) is Intercultural Nonverbal Communication Between the Group of Disabled Co-Culture and the Group of Dominant Nondisabled Culture in China. The Chinese title is 中国残疾人共文化群体与主流非残疾人文化群体的跨文化非语言交际 (Zhongguo canjiren gongwenhua qunti yu zhuliu feicanjiren wenhua qunti de kuawenhua feiyuyan jiaoji.)

The Chinese articles, neither of which have English titles or abstracts (this is actually kind of unusual, but the fact that this is unusual is a sign of problems I'm not going to talk about right now,) are: 残疾人共文化群体求学过程中的交际障碍及应对策略 (Canjiren gongwenhua qunti qiuxue guochengzhong de jiaoji zhangai jiying dui celue; Disabled people co-cultural group [study results? in study? I'll fix it after I read the article for context] communication barriers and challenges) by 李志远 and 王莉皓 and 中国残疾人问题研究现状及应对策略——基于跨文化交际视角 (Zhongguo canjiren wenti yanjiu xiankuang jiying dui celue——jiyu kuawenhua jiaoji zhijiao; Chinese disability research problems, status, and challenges: The angle of cross-cultural communication) by 栾岚 and王莉皓.

I was able to track down 王莉皓's email address, and since one of the problems she mentioned in her work was that disability research is consistently done from the standpoint of nondisabled people, I figure there's at least a shot that she'd be willing to talk to a disabled disability scholar. Fingers crossed, though I want to read and liveblog-type respond to all three relevant articles (she was 李志远's advisor, so his thesis is relevant to her too) before I talk to her. I do my research!

Oh, and I probably could be convinced to translate the Chinese articles into English, but it'd probably need to be paid. But that's not really likely to happen, is it? /sigh.

Some Chinese stuff because yeah...

Have some stuff from Chinese.

First thing is a short essay about "So, culture changes with time and it can totally survive in the midst of some parts changing. This has actually been happening since forever." My examples were Ancient Greeks getting pissy about writing making it so people can read stories instead of having to listen to them but wait storytelling didn't actually die, USA people getting pissy about how newspapers mean you can read on the train instead of talking to people but hey people actually do sometimes talk to each other on trains, and modern Chinese young folks using the internet to send new years money to their friends as a thing that's happening in addition to the traditional way. 

有人说如果传统文化有改变，传统就不存在。不可否认的是，如果有改变，找跟以前完全一样的就会变难。但是，文化从旧一直在改变。（人们也一直在抱怨文化的降落。）拿古代的希腊来看：他们开始写字以前，人们都必须记住故事，不能读。他们开始写字后，很多专家抱怨，说人们都会忘记怎么讲故事，会忘记自己的文化。事实上，很多人开始读故事，也有很多人继续听别人讲故事。他们的文化在改变中还存在了。在拿报纸的例子来看。报纸变流行以前，人们在火车上都看窗户外的风景或者跟别人说话。报纸开始流行的时候，很多人抱怨：“人们都看报纸，停止跟别人说话！”事实上，在火车上看报纸的人不是从前说话的人，而是看风景的人。在火车文化在改变中存在了。最后，拿红包的例子来看。从前，人们送真正的红色的包，里面有钱。现在，父母送给孩子送的还是具体的包，而还有成年人送电子红包给朋友。文化改变了，而主要内容（父母送红包给孩子）存在。文化在改变中存在了。如果我们只看改变的部分，我们会以为文化就没了，而社会一直在改变，科技一直在进步，文化一直跟着社会和科技变化。如果我们说一点改变让我们的传统就没了，就是说谁都已经没有什么文化。

The second thing is me attempting to explain some confusion I was having with an assignment.

现在我要介绍一下我在什么方面糊涂了。（写的比较乱是因为思路也乱。如果我自己不糊涂，能写的清楚，就不需要帮助！）

周三是社会调查。（OK了，我知道是做跟社会调查由关系的。。。而根本是什么？-现在知道了，而知道真的是给我感知矛盾的答案不是解决矛盾。只告诉我“这一点不是解决矛盾的一点。”）这是因为：周三没有单班课，单班课的老师可以陪我们去问，所以去问的天不可能是星期三。而星期三是“社会调查”的天。矛盾。（感知矛盾是个问题。）

社会调查具体内容。背景调查：信息是从课的内容来的吗？就不算是调查。要搜索吗？不一定算是调查，而这样做过。为什么搜索已经写过的题目？是要在路上问别人？:( 如果这样的话，就面临下面的问题。我有三个不同的方式来明白这部分，三个方式都包括问题。

B。，C。部分明白了，就要记住这些问题，然后。。。去问别人。等一下，我应该在路上开始跟很多不认识的人开始谈自己介绍的题目，方式是开始问问题？！成绩的50%靠这个能力？！“囧”不够强。我就去桌子下躲起来。。。这部分是“我知道我要做什么，而不知道什么方式让我做得了。”

从自闭症走出来？无意义的概念。

Here, have a thing I wrote in Chinese. It came about partially from my thoughts still running around after my new tutor suggested that I'd "walked out of autism" (I think that's their equivalent of "emerged from autism") and partially from a new phrase we learned in class: 非此即彼=either/or, two choice.

(No, I have no clue how the tutor came up with the idea that I was somehow recovered or whatever, considering that I was not capable of speech at the time and therefore typing to him instead. But he didn't argue when I explained at the time why the idea made no sense and was a bad idea.)

I don't know if/when I'm going to translate this one into English, because I've said all the content before just maybe not in these exact words. If I do, I'll edit to link here. Title means "Walking out of autism? A meaningless concept."

我们为什么还在谈“从自闭症走出来”这样的话题？“自闭的”及“开心的”不是非此即彼的问题，自闭症者的开心不靠“从自闭症走出来”而需要了解自己的能力，对自己的能力和需要帮助的地方池接纳的态度。如果一个人是自闭地出生，让他像没有自闭症的一个人不是让他更开心，也不是让他更有成功，就是让他化居多能力做有悖于自然的事。而且，这些有悖于我们自然的事不一定有好处！为什么需要用口说出来？为什么不要打字？为什么要看着别人的眼睛？为什么不应该一边听，一边动来动去？

这样也不是说我们不需要教育，不是说我们不应该提高我们的能力。我谈的事教育的内容，也是态度。我是自闭症者。自闭症不是外壳，自闭症不是让我走不了的圈套。我不需要从（根本不存在的）“圈套”走出来，而要使用适合我自闭的大脑学新的事。我不需要改变自己的自然，而要使用我自然给出的优点做我要做的事。

在缺点呢？我肯定愿意承认自闭症有缺点。什么大脑（什么身体，什么人）的设计都有缺点，现代社会包括很多方式帮助大部分的人需要帮助的部分。我的区别不一定是更多地方需要帮助，而是不同的地方需要帮助。因为这些需要帮助的地方被称为“特殊”所以很多人认为不应该帮我，而应该“修”我。这就是我不同意的地方。人们都需要一些帮助。我需要帮助的事情跟很多别人的不一样，但是这不是好事或者坏事。这就是我的自然。我是自闭症者。就是这样。

Syllabus Standards (in English this time!)

I finally got around to it, here's the English version of my piece about syllabus standards that I wrote in Chinese. Between paragraphs I toss out some comments about "so... if I had the language to say this instead/in addition I totally would, remember that this is me trying to write quickly in a second language."

The whole world has been getting more global, and education needs to change to reflect that. The (dean? president? not sure which) of New York University said that students should be able to study at multiple places. He thinks the whole world's universities should adopt one set of course/curriculum standards.This is because all having one set of standards would let more students study at more places. No matter what major a student has, they'd be able to go to another university to study for a semester or a year.

Ok, so it's really just very privileged college students who have the opportunity to do study abroad/away most of the time. Just remember that. Making it available to more people is a thing that I like, but remember that this isn't the case. (Minor plug for the Gilman here, because while it's generally not going to pay for a program on it's own, it has making study abroad available to more people as a goal.)

Also, who's coming up with the one set of standards? If western colleges, hello more imperialism and hello more whitewashing of history. Who's deciding what majors are getting standards written for them?

But making all the colleges use the same set of course standards would hurt some students. Students with unusual majors. For example, not all mechanical engineering programs are identical.From professors to archtects, from mechatronics experts to nanotechnology researchers, mechanical engineers do different things. Even though these people can all be called mechanical engineers, their specialties are not the same. Since I do nanotechnology research, the curriculum that best suits me isn't the same as that of most of my fellow students. If all the course standards were the same, it would be very hard or impossible for students to study some of the more unusual/customized majors. Then all the mechanical engineers would be only prepared for the same things. But this isn't hard to solve: don't make the course standards the same, but make syllabus/course introduction standards. This way, all the colleges could have totally different classes, but students can still tell what they need to know using the syllabuses and course introductions. Some of the things students need to know are:

Yes, I used my major set as part of an example. Short time frame, during class, it's what I had. I have no illusions that mine is the hardest one to work with, and I think that engineers would probably actually get split up further to account for this. Nanotechnology is an extant undergraduate major at a couple places. Studying things related to activism and marginalized groups is probably in way more danger from this sort of thing than my majors are.

Along those lines: no, I should not be the sole person in charge of these standards for syllabi, I'm white and I'm from the USA. I also don't think those standards should be mandatory, but I do think they should exist so that schools that decide they want to be a part of this sort of idea can be. And finally, I don't know how to go about actually creating such standards without being oppressive in some way, probably imperialist. I can point out the things that I think would be useful though, which I will now do.

1) What will you learn by taking this course? Knowing the content helps a student figure out if the course is useful to them or not.
2) What majors can this course be taken for credit in. For unique majors, this might not be useful, but for common majors that most students are in, this is good to know.
3) What knowledge is needed before starting the class? Stating this might have the biggest change: right now, a lot of colleges use their own course numbers for that. This won't work: colleges would need to say what knowledge students need. Students could choose other classes or do independent study to prepare, they just need to know the prerequisite information and they should be fine.
4) What's the learning method? This part includes how the testing is done, homework, meeting days and times, if it's online or not, and more.

For #2, I figure a list of what majors it's been counted towards before would work. There might need to be some sort of standard about schools being consistent about counting stuff towards the same majors, but I don't know how to work that one out.

For #4 and online classes, the question of "do I need to get to campus for the final" is important, because if not, you might be able to take this class while physically at a different place depending on college policies. (I think they should be cool with this, logistics is another story.)

Writing syllabi this way, students could look at multiple universities courses and figure out what course program suits them best. They could plan out where to study when and go to multiple different schools: letting students do this is why he was saying to globalize. Different colleges having different courses isn't an obstacle, but rather a reason that a student would want to study at different schools. In my humble opinion, the best method for colleges isn't to make course standards the same, but to have syllabi written with the same methods/information.

So "in my humble opinion" was a language bit we were supposed to make sure to use in class.
I don't think there should be a requirement to translate the syllabus on the school or anything- it should probably be written in whatever language the class is being conducted in, because if you can't understand it in that language, you'd probably have an issue taking a class conducted in that language. But there also shouldn't be a rule against providing translations of the syllabus/course introduction/course description either. Up to the teacher if they want to make those.

My feelings on globalization are also kind of mixed. I see how some pieces of it could be really cool- more people knowing more languages means more opportunities for communication (but it shouldn't need to be an "everyone learns the same one," just a "more languages is useful.") But the way it actually seems to be turning out looks more like "international corporations have huge amounts of power" combined with "the folks who were already powerful got more powerful." I'd like to see a version of globalization that worked as an equalizing force, though.

If checking for boundary violations is crass...

I'll stay crass then.

Yes, this happened, pretty recently actually. I've been in groups that are supposed to be autistic-only before, and I'm well aware that parents will come in, feeling entitled to autistic space because they have an autistic kid. They also tend not to get that autistic adults exist and make our own spaces sometimes.

So there was someone (no names of people, no names of the group in question, etc but there was someone) who posted a pretty typical parent question about their kid, who's actually a legal adult himself. (Why parent is here and kid is not, when kid's in the typical Facebook generation and parent isn't, I am not sure.) Since every reaction of this person down the whole thread was very typical entitled paaaarent, I asked if they were themselves autistic.

No answer, but another group member told me it was a crass question. Which, um. The group description specifically says that members should be on the spectrum (not everyone there has the same language preferences.) In the ideal world, that means only autistic people would try to join. That's great. Problem is, we don't live in the ideal world, and for reasons that probably have a decent bit to do with the politics of parent-run groups and with the privileges abled parents get over disabled people, parents are constantly trying to join this sort of group. That's not unique to autistic-run groups, by the way.

At this point, I'm trying to check if this person who's acting like an entitled parent actually is one (or if they're just kind of a jerk, which is annoying but not a violation of the group boundaries.) If checking to see if a boundary is actually being violated is a crass thing to do, I'd like to know what the proper thing is.

Is it to check in a more indirect way? I don't actually know how to do that. Is it to give benefit of the doubt? We'll be overrun with parents pretty quickly that way, let's be realistic about the world we actually live in here. That looks a lot like "not defending boundaries." I really do think that "defending boundaries" is the thing that's being thought of as crass here, so can we think about what it means to declare it crass for a person to defend their boundaries? 

Education and services, by Autistic people, for Autistic people.

You can thank Emily's (Mosaic of Minds') recent tweet for inspiring this post. She asked about what autism education and services designed by autistic people would look like. I'm autistic, I have opinions on what parts of this should look like, and I'm answering!

The first bit I want to say is relevant to the tweet I made pretty much when I saw hers:

There'd be supports for executive functioning issues that also allow for the decision of "I'm not doing this right now."

That's got two main parts in it- executive functioning supports are important because a lot of autistic people have executive functioning issues. I know I have them. For me, it means I'm really bad at independently switching from one activity to another. If I'm writing, I'll probably be writing until interrupted or distracted by something. The same thing goes for browsing the internet, playing games, reading, and pretty much anything. An Alyssa in activity stays in activity until acted upon by an outside force. Noticing that I'm hungry or thirsty is less likely to happen during activity.

Given those issues, it's a really good idea to have someone who can help give me the push to switch to doing a different thing. This is where allowing for the decision of "I'm not doing this right now" gets important. Sometimes when I get interrupted, it's not actually a good idea to switch things. Maybe I'm in the middle of a breakthrough. Maybe I just don't want to do the other thing right now and know it can wait a bit longer. Maybe I don't have the energy to do it as well as it deserves to be done. Maybe I don't have the idea for the thing yet. There's a lot of reasons that I could not want to switch to a given activity right now, and while I need help initiating the switch, I also need to be able to say "I'm not switching right now" or "I'm not switching to that right now." That's both for practical reasons and for autonomy reasons. Disabled people should have the same autonomy as everyone else, which in the case of students generally means the ability to choose not to do the homework and take the consequences of that. It also means the ability to choose to talk in class/not pay attention and take the consequences of that.

Teachers would actually know that most autistic people have sensory processing issues. One of my aunts works in a classroom that has quite a few autistic kindergartners, and she didn't know that after working with a couple years of these kids. (Which kids changes every year, like usual kindergarten.) Um. How did no one tell you this? I'm not blaming her for not knowing, because you can't know stuff if you've never encountered it and no one teaches the teachers this stuff it seems, but, um, the fact that she didn't know is worrying. So: teachers should know that most of us have sensory processing issues and that most of us have some sort of movement/coordination issue.

They would also quit it with the idea of fading supports for its own sake. Some people need certain supports and fading the supports that allow us to do stuff for the sake of "independence" doesn't actually end with us being independent. It ends with us not being able to do the things. Along the same lines, they'd actually believe the words "I can't do this." I talked about this about a year and a half ago under the title "Presuming Competence." Neurodivergent K wrote about it too, with examples and everything. It's important. And like K and ischemgeek both, if it can be outstubborned, I'm probably going to outstubborn it. You might not even know that there was a problem, because I am very good at outstubborning things. I've gone to the ER with injuries where the doctors were talking about prescribing the higher-power opiate type pain-killers and left with only the antibiotics I needed for the fact that I got bitten by a pig. I then proceeded to go to an agricultural fair and walk around and go on rides. My teachers knew I got injured, but I didn't miss any school and I was never late to class and I actually started riding my bike to school again later that same week. I am very good at outstubborning things. But that doesn't change the fact that there are some things I can't do. I don't start asking for help until well past when I need it, because it's always this reaction that I should be able to do it, but no. It does not work like that. I ask for help because I need help.

And communication. I can usually do verbal/vocal language. That's different from being able to get my needs met that way. Teachers would be aware of the difference between "fluent in requesting" (thanks Julia for letting me know it just means the ability to use the "I want _____" structure, which I can do) and actually being able to ask for things that we want or need when we want or need to. Of course, if autistic people designed the system, we'd probably have given a different descriptor to the ability to use that linguistic structure because that's not what fluency generally means. Dump the terms that are kind of doublespeak. There's already far too many of them in disability/autism services/care type stuff. 

Also along the lines of communication, alternative and augmentative communication is really important. That's things like picture cards, text-to-speech, eye-gaze tracking, typing, and more kinds of things than I could pretend to know about. For me, typing on a typical keyboard and then having a text-to-speech function is enough. But for some students, it takes a lot of trying different things, and it takes knowing that even if the skills we think of as prerequisites aren't there communication can still happen. (A lot of the stuff people think of as prerequisites for communication devices are actually learned really well by trying to use the devices.) Pretty sure the writer of this wasn't autistic, but it's a good post and makes the points I want to about choosing types of AAC.

The other AAC thing, which ties back in with "knowing the structure doesn't imply always being able to communicate the thing," is that even people with oral speech can benefit from AAC. Speech goes kaput on me sometimes. Other times speech is mostly working but it's hard enough to initiate the interaction that way or ask for what I need that way that it's really a much better idea to type. Certain kinds of thinking I can't keep up while also saying the words I'm thinking of in real time, but I can sometimes type the words in almost real time. I'm actually a really good example of someone with lots and lots of communicative oral speech who still needs AAC because I can't do all the things I need to orally.

I'm sure there are more things I'd think of given time, but my brain is tired now and this is long enough for one post I think. So here, a start on "how one autistic person would design/change autism supports and services."

A Language Thought From the Semester

I never thought I'd wind up going "oh god how do I say this in English." But it happened. Apparently that's what happens when I go in expecting to give a presentation in Chinese, my powerpoint is in Chinese, and then as I'm standing at the front of the room the teacher tells me I'm presenting in English.

The article I wrote was also in Chinese. I think that surprised the teacher a bit- I'd asked him if I could use articles written in English as sources and he'd said yes, but I never said else. He assumed I was using English, probably because that's my first language. Since he's the teacher, what he wanted won, and I gave the presentation in English. (Really, really conversational English.)

Anyways, the topic was quantum-dot sensitized solar cells. I've got my article that I wrote saved somewhere and yes, I will be putting it up here on the off chance anyone wants to try to read it.

But that's not actually the thing I want to talk about. I want to talk about the language thought. It was weird thinking "how do I say this in English?" I think it happened because I'd been listening in Chinese in class, and because two of the sources I used were in Chinese. (I used four sources: two English, two Chinese.) I especially think so because I've since had my final for Graph Theory and I had similar thoughts while I was studying, after the teacher told me I could write my answers in English if I wanted to. (I blanked on how to write a couple characters so I put in pinyin and English for those characters but I pretty much wrote the exam in Chinese.)

It was actually an even bigger "how do I say this in English?" issue for Graph Theory, because my textbook was also in Chinese. The thing I was studying from was in Chinese, and yes I understood it, but the characters I remember how to write is a smaller set than the characters I can read and understand. (This seems to be true of Chinese people as well, especially with the spread of typing. Watching my teachers forget how to write a character every so often makes me feel a little bit better about the fact that I forget kind of a lot.)

So I got to thinking, and maybe the way that foreign languages are working here is similar to the way that styles of language have worked for me in the past: whichever language (style) I used to learn the thing is the one that I will remember better and default to when talking about the thing. In this case, that means graph theory and quantum dot sensitized solar cells are both in Chinese. That's going to be fun when I get back to the United States, I bet. (Professor, how do I say 完美匹配 in English?) [Wan mei pi pei, perfect matching. I've forgotten this one before, but at the moment, I do know it.]

Oh, and here's a link to a post I wrote about language stuff earlier and then didn't manage to post it until Monday. :/

Language Relations

Written in December during my time of not really getting anything up here. I have since found out that my math teacher's English is not, in fact, good, and that he doesn't use it because he's not good with it.

Thinking about China stuff. I've got very different relationships with different people I've met here. I've got a couple classmates in my materials science (semiconductors, metals, and some applications) who I eat dinner with after class every Tuesday and Wednesday. My math teacher (graph theory) lives practically next door to me, and we both take the subway home after class on Tuesday nights, so we tend to walk/ride together and talk.

There wasn't even a big event that got me thinking about this. It was a small event. Really tiny. I was walking from dinner with my classmates from materials science, heading towards math. Math teacher sees me, I see him, I'm like "Hi!" I say that I'm like instead of I said because this is all happening in Chinese. I believe I actually said 老师好, which is a greeting for a teacher. Yay cultural and language differences.

He (teacher) talks to me at a pretty normal speed. He's going to get dinner, so he might get to the classroom a bit later than usual (he's usually there about half an hour early, no, really) and can I stick his bag in the room? I say sure, he hands me the bag, he keeps walking, and so do I.

My classmates from materials science spend a good two or three minutes testing me on what the teacher said because they have a hard time believing I actually understood. Apparently the teacher was talking fast? At which point they are impressed, because yes, I do in fact speak Chinese and I understood the conversation I just had with my teacher.

Since stuff related to my math teacher is already on-topic, I mention that we talk on the way to the subway and on the subway, since we're basically neighbors.
Here's the thing that made me think.

The initial reaction my classmates had to this? "Your teacher's English must be very good."
I mean, I assume my teacher's English is, in fact, pretty good. He says that this is the first time he's used our current text to teach graph theory, and the one he used to use is in English. It's also the first time the class has been for undergrads. I think those two statements are related. So at the very least, I know he can read English stuff in his specialty. I may have tried to say major there, since the same word in Chinese works for both- 专业. But here's the thing: I've never actually heard him speak English. If I don't understand a word, he'll explain in Chinese. My materials science classmates explain in English. Often they need to pull out their phones and look up the word to do it, but they tell me in English.

I just thought that was interesting. It seems to be a bit of a pattern: Everyone requires proof that I do, in fact, understand Chinese so long as they realize I'm not Chinese (mixed results with the folks who think I'm half Han, yes, that's happened.) Young folks are quicker to speak English when I don't get something, and they probably want to practice their English anyways. So they don't see me handling everything in Chinese the same way most older folks do. Older folks tend to be glad I speak Chinese, and since they're not trying to English at me they get a quicker idea of how much Chinese I can actually use.

In this specific case of math teacher vs materials science classmates, it might also make a difference that my math teacher occasionally asks the class a question and I tend to be willing and able to answer. Yes, in Chinese. There's actually a decent number of math terms where I know the concepts and I know the words to explain the concepts in Chinese, but I don't know the English. Considering that my first language is English, this is really weird for me.

（匹配，最大匹配，最优匹配，交错路，可扩路 are all words where I don't actually know the English. I may have partially forgotten 边 as well, which is awkward because that's a really basic part of a graph. It's the thing connecting the vertices.)

Internet and Disability Notes

I was looking at a call for papers/chapters that I missed about internet and disability stuff, and when I thought I might submit something I did some research and took some notes, which are below. No, the notes aren't all that organized, but if they help anyone then yay.

(The idea I had was about disabled people using the internet to create access for each other, because I know that's a thing. It's not good that we wind up needing to because the rest of society isn't, but it's awesome when we do it and in disabled-run spaces it is, in fact, disabled people's responsibility to make things accessible.)

Per DOI 10.1300/J113v21n01_04:

By 2002, legal scholarship began predicting that commercial web sites would fit under Title 3 of the ADA and therefore require reasonable access for people with disabilities.

Access includes, but is not limited to: text labels for graphics and for all functions to be activateable with the keyboard.

Check their source#7 for 98% of websites inaccessible to the disabled.

Java script and other graphic-based writing are typically inaccessible to those using screen-readers.

Section 508, which amended the Rehabilitation Act of 1793, requires federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible, including websites.

Per source 19, Department of Justice argued that the ADA applies to non-physical accommodations, including web sites during the Clinton Administration.

Limiting places of public accommodation to physical structures negates significant portions of the protections provided by the ADA to those with mental disability, which the District Court of Minnesota has used to argue the ADA would be meant to apply to non-physical entities.

If you sue under Section 508 and win, they'll pay your attorneys fees.

ADA is required to be interpreted as providing at least as much protection as the Rehabilitation Act
Enforcing ADA requirements on the web would require more resources than the government is likely able (willing) to provide. [What, they could totally steal it from military, our military does not need as much money as we currently give it.]


Cite the ADA:

As the ADA's purpose is to "address the major areas of discrimination faced day-to-day by people with disabilities" and to "provide a clear and comprehensive mandate for the elimination of discrimination against individuals with Disabilities," the spirit of the legislation should include web sites, which have become a part of daily life.

Discrimination includes "a failure to make reasonable accommodations in policies, practices, or procedures, when such modifications are necessary to afford such goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations to individuals with disabilities."

Look up Access Board, EITAAC, accessibility standards for electronic and information technology covered by Section 508.
World Wide Web Consortium's Accessibility Guidelines
San Jose Web Page Disability Access Design Standard

The Saturday Nights

They are friends of mine. They do music. They've been doing music for a while, actually- they've done stuff under the name High Tide and under the name PONS as well.

I've talked about their lyrics twice before- once on the idea that if we're going down anyways, well, we might as well go down fighting. ("Can we wait? Does it help if our cause is lost? I won't give a second thought, the solution is to trouble the waters my friend. You'd rather watch than sink or swim?")

The other time was about being seen as a failure no matter what you do.

Yeah, heavy stuff, I know. Point is, they have new music and a new page and I'm putting that in your face today. It'd be cool if you checked them out, and yes, they are good at making music.

So here's their new Bandcamp page with an EP you can listen to for free. I might have it on repeat. Maybe. (And that might be a change from having People of the Sun on repeat, that's another of theirs.)
Warning for "insane" used in the song "Gone."
They've also got a Facebook page.

I think I'm out of things to say for the moment.

Alignments and Houses

I was thinking a bit about Hogwarts Houses and about Dungeons and Dragons alignments, and now I'm going through the alignments to see if there are any Houses I think they would either disproportionately wind up in or not wind up in. [In case anyone is curious, I sort Gryffindor, and I seem to be Neutral Good, leaning more Chaotic Good than Lawful Good if I really had to go one way or the other.] Before I start, let me point out that while these kinds of alignments can be a useful tool, no, they're not going to tell you everything about a person or character. Also, all 36 combinations will exist and I'm just thinking about which ones I feel would be more common. [I like to Sort my original characters and I always know what their alignments are.]

So. Lawful Good: I feel like they'd wind up in Hufflepuff fairly often, because goodness and loyalty and friendship are big Hufflepuff things. I'd be really interested to write a Lawful Good Slytherin sometime, I feel like there wouldn't be a ton of them but yeah they'd exist. Major possitive correlation with Hufflepuff, minor negative correlation with Slytherin for Lawful Good.

Now Lawful Neutral: Lots of Ravenclaw, lots of Slytherin. I feel like there would be very few Gryffindors here, since their thing is being kind of foolhardy about what they believe in, not so much being “rules are rules” and following everything to a tee.

Lawful Evil: HUGELY NOT HUFFLEPUFFS. Seriously, this is not a Hufflepuff. Feels rather Slytherin, using the law to your own not so good ends. I think a lot of these folk would wind up in Slytherin. Umbridge, for example, I think is Lawful Evil Slytherin. (Did we ever find out where she was sorted?)

Neutral Good: Very Hufflepuff, very Gryffindor. Which one depends on how you show your goodness. Between Ravenclaw and Slytherin I don't think there'd be much difference in how often they go there, and it's not so much a negative relationship as “well there's a big positive relationship with someone who's not me.”

True Neutral: “I want to know about all the things, good and bad!” Sounds rather Ravenclaw, doesn't it? There would be a decent number of Ravenclaws here. I'm not convinced there would be any House that's specifically more likely to get folks of this alignment, really. Peter Pettigrew probably goes here- doesn't seem to care as much about what's good or bad, legal or illegal, just about protecting himself. Maybe a negative correlation with Hufflepuff? Not nessesarily though, since you can be true neutral by way of not caring what effects it has on anyone else or how it relates to the law- if it's what needs to be done to be loyal to friends/family, you'll do it. I think True Neutral is... kind of neutral.

Neutral Evil: No specific correlations, I don't think. It'd depend rather heavily on traits that are outside of their alignment. The Hufflepuffs here would have wound up here because Helga really was willing to teach everyone the same, and probably hate it. But canonically, Hufflepuff had the fewest Dark Wizards and Slytherin the most, so I guess they mostly went Slytherin in the books. I think that's more because people got kind of scared of Slytherin early on (the legend about the Chamber of Secrets, anyone?) and so people with choices didn't really want to go there, hence any evil alignment that didn't have any strong directionality towards another House would wind up in Slytherin because they'd be least worried about the reputation. That's different from saying they actually go there when the Hat doesn't need to worry about making the numbers about even, which it seems like it tries to do.

Chaotic Good: They tend to be Gryffindor or Slytherin. Gryffindor for the ones who blatantly go chaotic and openly break all the rules when breaking the rules is the only way to do the right thing, Slytherin for the ones who ignore laws sneakily, rely on connections to get away with it, maybe use the system to show how messed up the system is and therefore dismantle it, that sort of thing. Chaotic Good Gryffindors get caught. A lot. Chaotic Good Slytherins are a lot better at not getting caught. Fred and George totally strike me as Chaotic Good Gryffindors.

Chaotic Neutral: The first thing coming to my head is “I'd be unstoppable if it weren't for law enforcement and gravity.” Thanks to magic, gravity isn't much of a concern, so it's anti-law now. Negative correlation with Hufflepuff, but that's about it, I think.

Chaotic Evil: No traits specific to the alignment make me think of any specific House. In the world of Harry Potter, numbers and the image Slytherin has gotten means they'll overwhelmingly get Sorted Slytherin, but in terms of just the traits that make a person Chaotic Evil? Meh, I don't think they're actually any more likely to belong in Slytherin than anywhere else. 

New Years In China

Today was the start of the Chinese new year. That's on a lunar calendar, for anyone who's interested in that sort of thing. Main point of today's post is pretty much a description of how I spent the day, though, which is ending for me as it's starting for you. Time zones are cool like that.

I had a slow morning. I had food in the fridge, which I heated up and ate for breakfast. I hung out in the morning, attempting to get Skype to work so I could get in contact with someone from my home university. They wanted me to do that because the residence director is back in the USA over break and the academic director is in Beijing, so they wanted someone to check in with me. (I totally get that, I had fairly major meltdowns a couple times during the semester where I actually needed help getting food. They don't have enough experience with my particular set of issues to get why I'd be in much better shape over break, and I didn't really expect them to. With the level of understanding they had, I think they expected break to be an utter nightmare, honestly.)

But it was telephone (Skype) tag again today. It's been that for a few days actually. Fail. I go do other stuff, mostly puttering around my room, figuring if she tries to call me I'll hear it. Apparently not, because I had some missed calls on my Skype that I found checking in the evening.

Morning passes, I go out to find lunch. Since it's new years, most things are closed, but the western brand restaurants are still open and there's a KFC in walking distance. I go there, I eat, then I take the subway to the local park. I could walk there, but I didn't really feel like it at the time. It was impressively quiet, like everything was deserted or close to it. Everyone who doesn't have to work is with family, and the subways were the quietest I'd ever seen them here. I walk around the park for a while, but there's really nothing going on so I walk home. (It is walking distance, after all! It's also almost exactly two subway stops, or one from the KFC to the main entrance. There's another entrance that uses the same stop as the KFC, close to a "dumpling" place they took us to near the start of the year. SO MANY different things get translated to dumpling...)

At 5pm, almost exactly, it's like a switch flipped. There are now all of the fireworks/firecrackers going off. I think this is what my residence director was worried about, because she'd seen my reactions to random firecrackers during the semester. Thing is, there's a difference between an unexpected single loud noise (what drove me up a wall during the semester and was the final straw on one of the meltdowns) and a constant nearly omnidirectional thing that almost sounds like thunder. That's how many firecrackers there are tonight, and that's something I'm... actually totally OK with. Thunder is fine, I sleep through thunderstorms and everything. I didn't when I was really little (and people were very confused by the fact that I understood the science of why it was the lightning that was dangerous and was still very clear that it was the thunder I didn't like,) but I've been able to for a while.

I went down to the park again at this point. It's not what I'd been imagining when I said I wanted to spend the new year in China, but it was still really cool. I sat by the lake starting a bit after sundown and just watched. I was surrounded by this thunder-type sound, and I could see the sky lighting up from all the fireworks and firecrackers, and I was positioned so that I could see a lot of the (presumably illicit, definitely unofficial) displays over the lake. Most of the ones I could see were pretty short, but the fireworks used were really nice.

Eventually I got cold and took the subway back home. Then I wrote this. Now I'm tired and thinking that I'm going to have some tea and go to sleep. It was a good day. Definitely an atypical way to spend the Chinese new year, but a good one. It worked well with how my brain works, and I enjoyed it. 

T-21 Blog Hop: Social Justice

IRONY UPDATE: One of the things that inspired this post was an Autism Speaks fail that I thought was over and taken care of. The day after writing this, I find out it's not actually over and that Autism Speaks are white-texting liars and also put the white-texted toolkit back up. Story here.

Today, I'm talking about a social justice issue that probably a lot of you don't think of as social justice or as related to disability. But it is. I'd describe it as "cite your sources," but it's not a full MLA or APA or Chicago citation that we necessarily need as a justice thing. Frankly, making my own citations of those kinds is a cognitive access issue for me, so I either use an automatic generator or get someone else to do my citations. But the idea of saying where you got the ideas you're using and building on? Yes, that is a social justice issue.

So. Here's the part where I talk about why.

Advocacy comes with innovation. People need to figure out what it is in their situation that needs to change, and they need to figure out how to change it. People are coming up with new ideas- that's what innovation is. When people neglect to list where they got these ideas from as they build on them, there's a few things that happen. (Links Democratizing Innovation and my post about the book, because relevant.)

First, people tend to forget where the ideas actually came from. When we're talking about technology stuff like in Democratizing Innovation, that means corporations don't know which customers came up with the ideas.

Then they forget that it even was customer who came up with the ideas. They think they came up with the ideas themselves.

Now the big group probably has control over the idea and thinks they came up with it, but they didn't!

This applies with advocacy things too, sending credit for ideas up the power gradient- how did Queer Rights stuff start up in the USA? It wasn't about marriage for people of the same gender. Trans women of color started that up, predominantly Black trans women. Today the face of this sort of advocacy is white gay men, and the T for trans that started this movement tend to get ignored. There are people in those movements who legitimately think it was white gay people who started it.

In disability stuff, parents of kids with disabilities generally have more power than people with disabilities do themselves. (Less so if the parents are also disabled, even less if they're openly so, and there are some organizations that make sure to give their power to Disabled people to try to combat this, but overwhelmingly it's parents who get listened to. Check the readership on blogs if you don't believe me.) Within disability, the image we have is usually a young white boy with whatever the disability in question is. Sometimes it's not, but that's the usual. A white man with the disability is probably going to get listened to more than someone who isn't a white man and has the same disability, or than someone who has multiple disabilities. There are a lot of power differentials. Access to academia is one of them.

When we fail to cite/link/acknowledge where our ideas are coming from, we wind up erasing our sources. This can cost them opportunities for authorship and scholarship and other things that can help with being not impoverished. Poverty is a big issue for marginalized groups, like, you know, people with disabilities. People also sometimes act like a group doesn't really exist, which can get into an ugly cycle with this: the idea can't have come from them because they don't exist, and we know they don't exist because they don't come up with ideas! So we ignore the ideas they came up with (or pretend they came from someone else), maybe we'll come up with the idea that they can't think. Wait, that's already a disability stereotype. It'll just get worse.

So yes, if you're building off an idea someone else wrote about, say so. Give enough information that people can find what the person wrote. Since this is the internet and most of us are bloggers reading other bloggers, link it! Links are good! They drive traffic to the people you linked, which is good for plenty of reasons, including social justice type reasons when you're linking disabled bloggers. Boosting the voices of people from the groups you want to help is a big part of how you do allyship.

Oh, and a note for the folks who think citations and copyright law and such are evil and bad: that's great, if you want to tell the world that they don't need to cite you go ahead and do that, but if you enforce that "no citations" rule on others, that's not OK. You might be couching it in the language of justice, but if you're erasing the marginalized folks who came up with these ideas, it's still helping oppressors. And yes, this applies to ethnographic stuff and sociological stuff, if you're talking to members of a marginalized group about their experiences and one of them tells you they don't want to be anonymous, you listen. Enforced anonymity erases scholars who are members of the groups being studied, and that's unacceptable. (Offering anonymity is still important- it's enforcing anonymity that's a problem.)

Also, creative commons is kinda cool and probably has a license that will keep some big corporation from taking your work and making it proprietary like happened to the work of a bunch of MIT coders and which still lets people use your work in the ways you want them to be able to use it.

This was for the Down Wit Dat T-21 Blog Hop.

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Backish

This is me pretending I'm back. Maybe if I pretend hard enough I'll actually be back.

It was a tough semester. It was also a longer semester than I'm used to, since China ended at mid-January, not mid-December. I've got a nice long break now- I've been on break for about a week and a half, and I've got a bit more than a month left. So that's something.

Anyways.

There's a survey for parents to help create some sort of community support thing. I think it's meant to be an alternative to the Autism Speaks First 100 Days thing, except actually autistic-friendly, accepting, not fearmongering... you know, all the things that are going to make life miserable because you're being told that if your kid stays autistic then life will be, and thus you make yourself miserable trying to change your kid's neurology. Which doesn't work, and oh hey this looks like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Realize that "good life" and "autistic" can go together, and it looks a lot less bleak. At least, I think that's the idea. So you should go take that survey if you've got an autistic kid and you're able to survey. Sharing it all over the place is also a good idea. https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8C7XZZY is the link.

Also, the T-21 blog hop is on. It's already open for putting posts in, theme is social justice, and the runner says all disabilities are welcome. The link to the hop is here. As part of my pretending to be back, I will try and get a thing in for that tomorrow. Woo writing. http://downwitdat.blogspot.ca/p/t-21-blog-hop.html if you want to share that link, too.

I went to Beijing with some people from my university, since they ran a winter China trip for mostly sophomores and they spent the last two days in Beijing. That's really close to Tianjin, so I hung out with them for a couple days. We went to the Summer Palace, the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, and the Temple of Heaven. We also ate food that's more varied than what I usually eat. I'll happily eat the same thing for days, them not so much.

That's pretty much my story. 

Down Wit Dat's T-21 Blog Hop: December

Wooo blog hops! I should maybe make a blog hop tag. *makes tag.* Now I need to write something don't I?

I crashed pretty hard after my class trip to Jingdezhen (景德镇) back in November. I've been pretty iffy on writing since. I haven't done much of any leadership type stuff or even fully knowing what's going on in advocacy stuff since. I've been aware enough of Boycott Autism Speaks to signal boost them some, at least.

But you know what? It's OK that I can't always do more than just manage my own existence. It really is. Also, at the moment, I'm in a position where just being there and existing and making it to class every day... apparently does have some potentially important activist effect. The university that I'm at in China has apparently been worried about having an autistic student studying abroad at their school for the entire time I've been around. OK, make that ever since I disclosed, which was sometime over the summer. 

Right now, my advocacy is being the autistic student who goes out and is a student and makes at least some of the administrators and teachers think. My advocacy is being there and being visible and saying "Yes, an autistic student can go to college. Yes, an autistic student can study abroad. Yes, an autistic student can reach a high enough level of Chinese proficiency to take major classes conducted in Chinese. Yes, an autistic student can do all of these things, albeit not in the exact same way, still needing supports, still looking rather clearly different." And no, not every autistic student will follow in my exact path. Most won't. [Neither will most neurotypical students, let's be honest here, if you don't live in a multilingual household or in a household where the dominant language isn't the same as the one used in school getting that kind of proficiency in a second language is hard.]

It's still important to open those paths. It's important to make "college" and "study abroad" and "education while still acting obviously autistic" things that people think of as possibilities. I didn't go into the year intending to prove stuff to Tianjin. I figured I'd be spending some amount of time reminding the USA program people that yes, the ADA exists, not that they'd be proactively protecting me from Tianjin so I get the chance to prove competence to them. I might actually be the first openly autistic student this school has had. I'm not 100% sure, but given a lot of the reactions and questions I'm hearing about... it really sounds like I might be. 

So advocacy: Someone has to be that first person to openly go out and say "I'm Autistic and doing the thing." Or "I use a wheelchair and I'm doing the thing." Or "I have Down's and I'm doing the thing." It looks like I may have (predominantly unwittingly) wound up being that person for the university where I'm studying abroad. And I'm kind of being a Lady Knight Keladry about it. This is already interesting and I'm sure it will get more so.

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Some Things

(Some cheese, one pound, I'll get the knife, this bread, it's stale, madam's mistaken THERE MUST BE MORE THAN THIS PROVINCIAL LIFE! Hi I like musicals and I was in a production of Beauty and the Beast in 8th grade so that's a thing.)

Anyways.

There's a fairly small number of hours left to vote on Project for Awesome. There was a video made for ASAN, and you can vote here. You don't need to register or anything, just click the link and click vote. It's that simple. Voting closes at 12pm Eastern Standard, 9am Pacific Standard December 19 2013, 1am on the 20th China time. If that time hasn't come yet when you're reading this, please go vote. This is actually kind of a big deal, especially for an organization like ASAN- they run on a pretty low budget. I actually looked at the numbers when I was comparing their financial situation to that of Autism Speaks- I think ASAN was working with under 1% of the funds Autism Speaks worked with, something like that. Anyways, the money would make a big difference to ASAN, and ASAN does good things, so you should please go vote.

Below you can watch the video you're voting for :) If anyone knows about a transcript, please let me know because that is a thing which should exist.

Now that that's taken care of:

I swear, We Are Like Your Child isn't completely kaput. There will be a new post up on it for Saturday, sticking a submission up. We still exist.

Tomorrow is a virtual march type thing for Boycott Autism Speaks. That's another cool thing going on.

Finals are starting to happen and I've got to get ready to present on quantum dot sensitized solar cells on Tuesday. Also write a 2000 character paper on them. I say character because this is happening in Chinese. Yup. Sciencing in Chinese, that's cool. 

A question and a twitter event

Reminder that today is the twitter-bomb, go tweet and retweet about boycotting Autism Speaks stuff! If you're not sure why we're boycotting Autism Speaks, well, I've got a tag called Problem With Autism Speaks and the boycott has a website. Feel free to read up. Why now is that Autism Speaks recently made an editorial that led to a bunch of parents who used to defend them and a bunch of organizations deciding enough was enough and realizing just how awful Autism Speaks really is.

An anonymous commenter asked me a question over on my This is Autism post.. It's a good question. My reply was long for a comment (I still answered in the comments) and I've been in a total writing-slump (note the lack of updates) so now it's a post too.
Here's the question.

Alyssa, I'm just wondering if there are any non-profit or government based agencies in China that resembles agencies such as the "Regional Center" in the U.S. I understand the social welfare in China is still developing. I also want to find out if China has laws and regulations enforcing equal treatment of autistic students in classrooms. Are there laws that mandates the enrollment of autistic students?

Hi Anon!
I don't know as much as I'd like to about autism-specific stuff. I know that for disability in general, there's the 中国残疾人联合会 (Chinese Disabled Persons Federation is the English translation) and that disability doesn't exclude you from being required to go to school for the same years as everyone else.
Unfortunately, that doesn't always mean people actually go to school. There've been reports of autistic kids getting kicked out of mainstream classes and such, and there's definitely a sense that having an autistic student in the class will hurt the education of the other kids, meaning there have also been parents trying to get their kids autistic classmates kicked out.
There are also special private schools for autistic kids, which are super-expensive (and seem to be taking their advice from Autism Speaks, so that's a bad sign). The government has special schools for disabled students as well (not sure what the stats are for how many disabled kids are in regular classes and how many are at these schools or how it varies by disability type,) but these are apparently not that well suited for autistic needs.
Since autism is recognized as a disability, anything that applies to disability in general will apply to autism. As far as I know, there aren't any laws specifically about autism, but the disability laws are actually pretty good. [China was one of the first countries to ratify the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, and 残疾人权 (disabled person rights) is a specialization you can apparently go into here as a lawyer.] It's enforcement that has issues. [You know, like folks in the USA violate the ADA left right and center?]

Science and the environment: 2 essays

So we do in-class essays every so often. These tend to be shorter than full weekly ones for Monday reports, but longer than the ones I write on daily homeworks or preparing for tutoring reports.

Here are two that I did in the unit on environmental stuff, they're both about science and environment stuff.


随着科技发展，越来越多人买电脑，手机等。这样，电子垃圾增多了。因为电子垃圾对环境污染造成了严重的后果，所以我们要解决电子垃圾得问题。

那么，我们会怎么解决呢？根据“从个人做起”的想法，个人会用可充电的电池，长一点时间用以各手机等。这样，个人扔掉的电子垃圾会减少。

但是，个人不会从根本上解决电子垃圾的问题。公司应该多开发可以回收的产品。而且，公司应该愿意修自己的产品，不让的人多扔掉。

不仅个人，公司要来解决电子垃圾的问题，而且国家政府要来解决电子垃圾的问题。因为个人难以让公司做应该做的事，所以国家要采用规则让公司开发可回收的产品。而且，国家要资助开发可回收产品的研究。

如果个人，公司，国家合作解决电子垃圾的问题，电子垃圾会减少，对环境又帮助。


And here's the other one.

有人认为科技发展越快，环境问题越严重。他们拿空调的发明，塑料袋的制作，车的使用等当他们的例子。反而，科技发展得越快，科技找解决环境问题的做法也越快。因此，我们不应该把环境问题归咎于科技的快速发展。

对环保来说，科技的快速发展是一柄双刃剑。人们滥用塑料袋对世界造成白污染。人们为了方便多开车又带来了不便（交通阻塞）又带来了环境问题。公司，为了挣钱，给世界巨大的污染问题。从企业革命开始，科技的快速发展及人类得经济选择一起带来了越来越严重的环境问题。

但是，科学也带来了一些解决环境问题的方式，即回收，太阳能，水能，风能。人们不使用这些方式来解决一些环境问题不是科学的问题，而是社会的问题。有一次，加拿大的一家公司提供完全没有排放的一辆车。没有人买这家公司的车。这不是科学得问题。我们不应该责备科学：环境问题是人类的问题。科技只当人类的工具。

Chinese Practice

Chinese, primarily education, should be trigger free?

 

为了帮助贫困问题，这些年轻人甘于放弃好的工作机会。他们宁要帮助贫困问题，不看重自己的工作。

之所以英语横扫了中国，是因为在国际贸易现在多用英语，而且是因为科学现在多用英语。中国要开拓国际市场，所以学贸易的人都学英语。而且，企业靠科学，科学多用英语。因此，中国也注重科学，科学家要学好英语。

在高考决定孩子的命运这样的情况下，出国留学是反对你不同意的决策。如果孩子生病，考得不好，他就不能上好的大学。这是应试教育和高考风靡一时的一个问题。在全球化的推动下，这个学生可以出国留学。孩子知道除了考高考以外，还有机会上大学会营造放松的氛围。因为只有钱的学生才可以出国留学，所以留学有如高考：有一些好的学生可以用这个做法读大学，但是也有很多好学生无法读大学。

随着全球化及科学的快速发展，教育越来越重要。父母为了孩子的成功要营造对学习好的氛围。为了进入好的大学，学生甘于化过长时间学习。但是，社会需要的教育反其道而行之。随着科技快速发展，人需要的知识也快速改变。由此，学好怎么自学宁应该普及，不比化太长时间学什么内容。例如，我和我的外公都是工程师。我们两个人，上大学的时候学到完全不同的知识。他的学习没有电脑软件，而我的教育靠软件。甚至我上初中的时候，没有我现在用的软件！因为科技发展的越来越快，所以我未来的工作会需要完全不同的软件或者做法。而且，个人可以上网查什么内容。如果我已经知道背景，也学好了怎么最好上网查事情，什么信息都容易找到。归根到底，学生最要学好怎么学习，大部分的内容在其次。

中国父母认为子不教，父之过，所以父母有责任教孩子。因为美国父母包括很多文化不同的父母，所以难以说“美国”的父母是不是这样认为的。但是，美国父母与中国父母在家庭教育的内容是不同的。在美国，如果孩子做不道德的事情，人们会认为这是父母的责任，但是上学的问题是孩子或者老师的责任。在中国，好像父母认为孩子读书的问题也是他们自己的责任：子不教，父之过。在道德的方面，中美两国父母同意：子不教，父之过。在读书的方面，中美两国是不同的：如果美国学生因为父母不让他学好所以有教育问题，人们才会认为这是父母的错误。如果父母没有来帮助孩子学习，这件事不是父母的责任，父母真的做什么事，害得孩子的学习，才能说这是父母的错。而在中国，帮助孩子的学习也是家庭教育的一部分。总之，中美两国家庭教育的不同点不是家庭有没有责任，而是家庭教育应该包括什么内容。