13 March, 2011

Autistic Passing Project survey

These are my 4 surveys for the Autistic Passing Project which is an art project I'm doing as a Creative Writing practicum in school. My goal is to collect writing from Autistic people about their experiences of camouflaging the fact that they are Autistic, or their attempts to do so; I will then sample pieces of the writing to make a textual and visual collage portraying the Autistic Passing experience.

APP 1: Background Diagnosis and Identity, Beginnings, Mechanics of Passing
APP 2: Intersectionality, Other Kinds of Difference, Passing in Different Environments
APP 3: Drawbacks of Passing, General Questions, Advantages of Passing
APP 4: Autistic Identification

To explain why I'm doing this: I'm Autistic, of course, and passing or not passing has been a huge theme in my life although I've only understood recently how huge it has been. Appearing more like a non-Autistic person is often presented to a young Autistic person by parents, teachers, doctors, and peers as being similar to eating your vegetables--an inherently positive act. There is very little acknowledgment that meeting these goals could be seen as lying or hiding, or could feel artificial to the Autistic person. Often professionals believe that passing as non-Autistic is the same as success; this is my major motivation for doing a survey, because this belief has not been backed up by Autistic people’s testimony.

If you are supportive of my project, please post about this on your own blog or anywhere else so I can get more participants in my survey.

I'd super very much appreciate it if, upon noticing any technical problems in the survey (for example, if the URL at the end of Part 1 is not the URL of Part 2), you would inform of this through an email, comment, tumblr reblog, etc.

19 comments:

  1. Is there an e-mail address at which we can send you our answers?

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  2. Am just now seeing that it's survey monkey. Ignore my ignorant question, sorry.

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  3. oh okay cool. I was just worried the survey wasn't working for a minute

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  4. I posted a link on my forum. Although we are a community based around an online game, I know we have several members on the spectrum who may want to participate.

    Link to the post if you want to stop by: http://forums.wow-petopia.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10558

    (Goodness knows which Google account this comment is going to end up hooked to.)

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  5. Hi Amanda. I took part one and two so far. I'll do the rest later and link up. I am now wishing that I have a printout of your questions because they are so good and my answers, but I realized it's anonymous and there's no way you could tell which one is mine. doh.

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  6. Actually, I'm having a really awkward time because I keep recognizing the answers of people I know. So if it doesn't creep you out I actually might be able to find yours.

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  7. Quite glad I'm your hero.

    You will probably/definitely recognize mine, sorry about that. You have my permission in advance to not feel awkward about knowing stuff about me, if that will help.

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  8. it's nice to have another nos-er in there, there are only six. I guess I thought because people make so many puns, it must actually be a lot of people's diagnosis.

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  9. Amanda, it doesn't creep me out. If you can find mine ( I finished), I would love to have a record of it!

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  10. wow, ok, I'll bite. Sounds interesting, I'd love to see what you do with it when finished.
    :) filling it out now.

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  11. phew..that took a bit. there you go. Enjoy! I cant wait to see what you do with it.

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  12. Only got through two of them before I had to go out of town. I'll get to the other ones- and I wonder if you recognize mine or not? XD

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  13. I mean yeah, but I think you were also the first person to take the survey so I was reading your responses when they were the only ones. So I kind of cheated that way.

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  14. I took the survey. I'm not sure if you can recognize my responses or not, but don't feel bad if you can.

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  15. Hi Amanda,

    I just finished the survey. Thanks for making me feel like a hero!

    The questions were thought provoking and I learned some things about myself.

    I realized part way through the survey that I am no longer really interested in “passing”. This, I think, is because self-identifying as on the spectrum, at 65 years old, has finally given me an explanation for my unusual life. This has given me a sense of peace, understanding, and self-acceptance that I never had while struggling to fit in for 65 years! It has also introduced me to a community of people in bloggyland who understand me and to whom I can relate.

    Also, I realized that the fact that I am retired greatly reduces the need to fit in or pass. So I am concerned that I may be a bit of an outlier in your survey and my results may skew your findings so feel free to drop them if necessary.

    I have been enjoying, and learning from, your YouTube videos on ASD which I just discovered a day or two ago.

    I'm keen on seeing the survey results too.

    Bruce

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  16. Don't worry, it's not a scientific survey so it doesn't matter if there are outliers. I'm mostly collecting writing that is about the experience of passing and feelings about passing, so I probably won't use responses from people who say they don't pass; but it's still refreshing to read those responses.

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  17. Here is my blog which goes through all the therapy needed in order to pass when you find out in mid life that you have asd and associated disorders: Http://Journeythroughthecortex.blogspot.com For a contrary position from people who have decided not to pass, see http://journeyswithautism.com and her associated blogroll

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