This is autism

[nightengalesknd]

This is my submission for the "This is autism" flash blogI wake up in the morning and check my livejournal, a certain set of blogs that are updated daily, the CNN headlines and the MSN online crossword puzzle. Sometimes the order varies, and sometimes I don’t have time, but by and large, this is my routine and I stick with my routine. I like

Comments

[nightengalesknd]

Adding dinosaurs would have been a big mistake for me as a kid - I was simultaneously terrified by dinosaurs and devastated at the idea that they all became extinct. But for someone who is into dinosaurs, there's no reason we can't color dinosaurs, do math problems about dinosaurs, read about dinosaurs, write about dinosaurs. . .

[sammason]

... and my OH, who adores her grandsons, tells me that dinosaurs are in fashion for the current generation of little kids.

[nightengalesknd]

I'm not sure they ever went out of fashion. They were pretty big when I was a kid. I had a dinosaur kit with scale cardboard cutouts. There was the movie, Fantasia, which I saw when I was 6. The dinosaurs were huge and scary. Then they all died - on screen- which was a different kind of scary. Then there was the whole Jurassic Park thing, which isn't for little kids but does tap into that same popular mindset.

Now there is an actual cute kids TV show here called Dinosaur Train, on the theory that most preschoolers love Dinosaurs and trains so putting them together into one show is the best idea ever. It's a pretty good little kid science show, actually (they teach the word "hypothesis") and it's a great positive representation of interspecies adoption. . .

[nightengalesknd]

Thanks!

[sammason]

I learned from this.

[nightengalesknd]

This is going to be a great flashblog - there's 31 posts up already and the day is young, in my time zone at least!

[sammason]

At some point I hope you'll link to the flashblog from friendly_crips.

[nightengalesknd]

Done. It was a lot easier because I had something specific to link to, rather than just trying to summarize up the whole. . . horrifying mess. Which is maybe a little less horrifying also now that there are 164 flashblog posts in protest.

Still wondering if autism speaks is going to write an official response

[shehasathree]

I need help sending a referral. The nurses are talking. I try to find the pause in the conversation. There isn’t one. I stand off to the side, trying to figure out where to stand. I’m not even sure where “off to the side” is. Do I look at the one who is talking? Do I join in even though I wasn’t part of the conversation initially? I shift my weight and rock a little but stop myself before I start clicking my tongue. This is what autism looks like in the workplace.

Having this experience over and over again at a conference last year was one of the things that prompted me to start looking into ASD as a real possibility for me. It doesn't help that I'm short and therefore not even in most people's eyelines. /o\

This is an awesome post! :D

[nightengalesknd]

This is SO autism, the running scenarios in our head trying to fit social norms, and talking about it would be true autism awareness that might help more of us get and keep jobs. Instead we get stereotyped rhetoric from our supposedly "advocacy" organization - who probably would say neither of us are "really autistic" except when they need our numbers to make us sound more like an epidemic

[nightengalesknd]

This is just one piece of autism - I wonder what your students would say it is? The flashblog is at 149 entries already (and counting - mine hasn't gone up yet)