Autism’s First Child
theatlantic.com
Autism’s First Child
1–10 of 32 posts
Re: Autism’s First Child
#2I always enjoy theatlantic submissions here; this one is really sweet.
single page (also js-free!) http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2010/10/autism-821...
Re: Autism’s First Child
#3I always enjoy theatlantic submissions here; this one is really sweet. single page (also js-free!) http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2010/10/autism-821...
It's a meaningful submission, from that submitter, on a day of massive HN introspection.
Re: Autism’s First Child
#4Reading this really makes me want to recommend the Norwegian movie Elling - it's witty, completely unschmaltzy and hints at a pretty good answer on what good care for adult mentally challenged folk looks like.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0279064/
It's streamable on Netflix for the US-based folks:
Re: Autism’s First Child
#5"Certain words and phrases captivated him, and he would loop them aloud endlessly: trumpet vine, business, chrysanthemum. "
I want to know more about this idea.
I think we can agree that words like BIZ-en-Ness and CHRYS-ant-THENUM have a strange ring to them compared to the rest of the English language when pronounced aloud. (Also that word, "ALOUD")
From my experience, I'd expect most people as kids had at least one pet words that had nice ring.
Re: Autism’s First Child
#6The problem with most conventional approaches to those who deviate from the norm is to put them in boxes and label them, but they're human beings! This outlook directly results in dissociation from them and confining them to the label of other-ness.
On the other hand it is very, very rare to find complete therapy for an autistic child in most countries. It takes a lot of patience to teach such children, or adults anything. Unfortunately, if someone has a conventional model of behavior in their minds then they tend to get really angry really fast. So, what if we could make something, an interactive toy, that taught these skills to children?
I've always wanted to make touch sensitive panels with a display on them to teach kids vital social skills through play. If we make them smart enough to encourage safe interaction then it should be possible to teach social interaction skills at an early stage, but to do any of this we need to move beyond the disorder model and cookie-cutter attempts of making such kids fit in.
Why? In the conventional point of view Donald could never have a future like this and, hence, there's no point of even trying which is simply heartbreaking. I believe that there should be a path for such children which goes beyond such things. They're unique and no matter how different from the norm they may be. They deserve to be loved and cherished for who they are. Not who we want them to be.
Re: Autism’s First Child
#7The problem with most conventional approaches to those who deviate from the norm is to put them in boxes and label them, but they're human beings! This outlook directly results in dissociation from them and confining them to the label of other-ness. On the other hand it is very, very rare to find complete therapy for an autistic child in most countries. It takes a lot of patience to teach such children, or adults any…
All the best people are slightly different.
Re: Autism’s First Child
#8"... their lack of interest in people, their fascination with objects, their need for sameness, their keenness to be left alone ..."
which can be experienced when you are working on some code, trying to make bug-free and of course someone has to come over and start a conversation...
"... The rules keep changing on me. Every time I think I learn a new rule, you change it on me ..."
Psychology gives you the tools, observation the environment.
Re: Autism’s First Child
#9"Certain words and phrases captivated him, and he would loop them aloud endlessly: trumpet vine, business, chrysanthemum. " I want to know more about this idea. I think we can agree that words like BIZ-en-Ness and CHRYS-ant-THENUM have a strange ring to them compared to the rest of the English language when pronounced aloud. (Also that word, "ALOUD") From my experience, I'd expect most people as kids had at least one…
Aluminum!
Re: Autism’s First Child
#10Reading this really makes me want to recommend the Norwegian movie Elling - it's witty, completely unschmaltzy and hints at a pretty good answer on what good care for adult mentally challenged folk looks like. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0279064/ It's streamable on Netflix for the US-based folks: http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Elling/60025098
I'm really curious. What about reading this article made you think of Elling and what you refer to as "mentally challenged folk"?
Maybe I'm missing something (I haven't seen the movie, but from the imdb link you posted, no mention of autism)... but it seems to me like you're saying "having autism = being mentally challenged". Am I misinterpreting? I hope so :(