tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8466691337834051176.post2196538767988395196..comments2024-03-01T03:37:20.420-05:00Comments on I'M SOMEWHERE ELSE: They hate you. Yes, you.Amanda Foresthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04200794053287551087noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8466691337834051176.post-45732561961004453572010-04-26T10:46:02.934-04:002010-04-26T10:46:02.934-04:00I know I'm a Johnny come lately but I love thi...I know I'm a Johnny come lately but I love this post. There's such a narrow view of what is "normal" that it cuts people out and away from living their lives and being free to show their strengths or even just enjoy them quietly, alone. The idea that a child could be spoken to harshly just for nervous fiddling... It's galling, as is the rest and all the worse that happens.Ianyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02865923139801976158noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8466691337834051176.post-66071703010934210442010-04-12T23:20:03.442-04:002010-04-12T23:20:03.442-04:00Thank you for this. You've summed up my feelin...Thank you for this. You've summed up my feelings about ABA pretty succinctly. Though I never had any kind of autism therapy (being dxed only a few years ago) I always get a creepy crawly feeling reading about ABA, the way it seems to quash and crush any form of self-expression outside of a very narrow band. <br /><br />I've clicked to follow you, if that's okay. I'm primarily on Dreamwidth/Livejournal, so I don't tend to blog here at all, but I am interested in reading more of your thoughts.DandyLyonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08789763224896708620noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8466691337834051176.post-12002308604708549552010-04-07T22:24:00.223-04:002010-04-07T22:24:00.223-04:00This is a beautiful post Amanda. I have always bee...This is a beautiful post Amanda. I have always been disstisfied with the standards set by society and the expectatins I am supposed to meet if I want to have any friends. My family was not too fond of me openly discussing my numbering system withmy peers, worried that they will judge me (it is a very long story). They were absolutely right that my peers would think I am "weird," but I was never ashamed of it. I refused to take my mom's advice on how I should behave in school, so that stirred up some conflict. Luckily, my social skills teachers were a little more sympathetic, so they just wanted me to learn to ignore the bullying or find ways to stand up for myself. Eventually, bullies do get tired of teasing, and in my case, they started to give me some respect because I never took anybody's crap. I did at one point seem to inform the whole world of my diagnosis with pride. Not a move I take today, but I feel it did help my past peers understand me better.<br /><br />Unfortunately, many autism and asperger resources are still encouraging normalization. I understand that we should keep good hygiene, not fart in public, and perhaps avoid endless special interest talk with uninterested people. This is more an issue of considertionto others than appearing normal. But our rights to stim, appy our interests passionately, locomote our way, dress comfortably, and such far outweigh other's rights not to feel uncomfortable around us. It is a very easy "offense" for them to get overAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14559050484005593112noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8466691337834051176.post-63687148009984115102009-11-29T03:46:49.264-05:002009-11-29T03:46:49.264-05:00Excellent post! I'm glad Lindsay linked to th...Excellent post! I'm glad Lindsay linked to this. The school you described sounds like one majorly f---ed up education program. Sort of a poster child for what is wrong with the way so many ABA programs are marketed and implemented, and underlying that, what is wrong with the *goals* and *values* of so many ABA programs.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15510151176700173298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8466691337834051176.post-39850491448592330752009-11-27T20:34:24.625-05:002009-11-27T20:34:24.625-05:00hi ballastexistenz, I definitely don't think f...hi ballastexistenz, I definitely don't think functioning level is a super defined thing. I guess the reason I do think of myself as different from some other ASD people is that I feel I have privilege as a person who passes and doesn't need staff and probably won't need to be on disability when I graduate from college etc. I don't really agree with that thing Sue Rubin wrote about how "hfa people look normal but have special interests, lfa people are just trying hard not to bite themselves and need to be cured"--but at the same time, I think that it would be shitty for me to ignore her reasons for saying something like that, the fact that she needs staff, a device, etc., and also the fact that people make a lot of judgments about her as soon as they see her, which seems to bother her (it would certainly bother me). Those are not my experiences. Also, I don't have to fear getting stuck in an institution because I'm normal-enough-looking and verbal. I feel like it would be shitty for me to act like that's a danger for me, because it's just not, it's claiming a level of oppression that I don't actually experience.<br /><br />I always use cerebral palsy as an analogy for ASD because I think it fits well. There is not a straight line separating "severe" and "mild" cp and listing exactly what the people on each side are able to do. But a person with cp who walks and speaks clearly has a very different experience from someone who uses a device and a wheelchair and needs more help doing things, and they're not in as much danger, either.Amanda Forest Vivianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06284158336100298682noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8466691337834051176.post-85507309590683606962009-11-27T10:59:22.833-05:002009-11-27T10:59:22.833-05:00Great post! I just found your blog through Lindsay...Great post! I just found your blog through Lindsay's link here. <br /><br /><i>The only reason they're not about me is that I'm old and verbal enough to not be vulnerable to that kind of abuse. They would be all too happy to practice it on me if they could.</i><br /><br />Exactly. When I was young and vulnerable, I wasn't even recognized as autistic, and still got similar treatment (and tons of psych meds). It's all about the perceived weirdness. Very verbal "weirdness", in some cases, as you point out. Functioning labels are a joke.<br /><br />My first inpatient psych stay at 13 helped me see how ridiculous and divisive a lot of pathologizing labels are, and how much a lot of us have in common underneath them. Interacting with other autistic people (outside my own family!) has kinda confirmed that view.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8466691337834051176.post-14714046471104111722009-11-27T04:41:05.754-05:002009-11-27T04:41:05.754-05:00thank you for this post.thank you for this post.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09851887261238547609noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8466691337834051176.post-17526767912728341472009-11-26T22:46:01.119-05:002009-11-26T22:46:01.119-05:00Good post, Amanda. (And good comment, other Amanda...Good post, Amanda. (And good comment, other Amanda!) It explains very well the things I find troubling about how ABA is most often used; I don't have a problem with "dog training"-style methods per se --- like you say, breaking a task down into separate, simple components can be a good way to teach someone a skill, especially if they are having trouble mastering it --- but I *DO* have a big problem with the emphasis on looking normal. <br /><br />"Cui bono?" is a good question to ask about a lot of things, and I think it's especially applicable here. It doesn't help Danny --- or any other autistic kid --- to be told over and over again that the way they naturally move, act and speak are Wrong and Bad; it actually probably hurts them by encouraging passivity and learned helplessness. You're trading a child's psychological well-being for a parent's or teacher's not having to be embarrassed or inconvenienced by that child's "weirdness."Lindsayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10860246538349067232noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8466691337834051176.post-18506640601591000682009-11-26T11:44:58.874-05:002009-11-26T11:44:58.874-05:00"Working with" (only possible excuse to ..."Working with" (only possible excuse to spend time with) my friend in special ed was like that. Only I knew on some level functioning level was BS. Because although perceived (on the basis of one or two traits, mind you) functioning level affected how we were treated, the fact was we shared nearly all of the same sensory interests, spoke the same (or at least mutually comprehensible) body language, and even had many of the same difficulties with certain things. And that more than any psych report or anything my mom said taught me that my autism diagnosis meant something real. When you see the first person ever whose body language makes intuitive sense to you, it makes an impression. Even if the other few autistic people you know don't mesh with you as much. <br /><br />And that's continued to be the case by the way. I've now met hundreds of autistic people. It's still a minority who make immediate sense to me. But that immediate sense is more than anyone else in the world has ever made to me. (The people who make sense to me, seem to span all diagnostic categories and all supposed functioning labels, and that's a huge part of why I instinctively distrust the things -- they separate people who have a lot in common and group people together who may have next to nothing in common.)<br /><br />You say there is something to functioning level but there may be less than you think. I often have had an ability to see through mainstream categories, and usually functioning level is decided on the basis of between one and four traits out of possibly hundreds of others. Many "HFA" people can't do daily living tasks and many "LFA" people can. Because functioning level usually has to do with any or all of: perceived IQ, perceived speech ability, perceived amount of stimming, and perceived lack of reaction to people. "Perceived" because each of THOSE can be deceiving. And none of those necessarily say a thing about other abilities or even "how autistic" a person is. (Other people clearly use other categories, I was labeled "low functioning" by professionals at a time when I could speak sometimes and had a high-normal IQ. These days a lot of people still call me that no matter how I reject the categories, because I have lost a few abilities over time, but the ironic thing is that most of the things I can't do now I never could do even when I spoke better and had a higher IQ, like daily living stuff and aspects of language comprehension.)<br /><br />Anyway I relate to what you describe about meeting other autistic people in the school system. But you may find functioning level means even less than you might expect, even when referring to abilities.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com