Well this took a dark turn. I never would have known about this RPM thing if I hadn't read these comments.
I Have Nonverbal Autism. Here’s What I Want You to Know
21–30 of 53 posts
Re: I Have Nonverbal Autism. Here’s What I Want You to Know
#22>'Let’s pretend you are like me. You can’t talk, but you have a well-functioning mind' I thought that one of the few genuine insights made about autism is that so-called autistic people have difficultly reading intentions (their own, or other people's) or even appreciating what minds and intentions are . Which is why they appear selfish, and why they're unqualified to make such statements. Also sceptical that coercin…
> I thought that one of the few genuine insights made about autism is that so-called autistic people have difficultly reading intentions (their own, or other people's) or even appreciating what minds and intentions are. Which is why they appear selfish, and why they're unqualified to make such statements.
I don't think this is wholly accurate. My understanding was that people with autism commonly have deficient cognitive empathy (they have difficulty discerning others emotions) but not affective or emotional empathy (they get upset if they hear about others suffering).
With sociopaths, it's meant to be the other way round: normal (or better than normal) cognitive empathy, but a lack of affective empathy -- hence their purported skills in manipulation.
Re: I Have Nonverbal Autism. Here’s What I Want You to Know
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Note that this was most likely written by his facilitator, not by him. It was written via a technique called "Rapid Prompting Method", which appears to be a variant of facilitated communication, a method that has been debunked as simply being the facilitator guiding the child, either consciously or subconsciously, to type things that the facilitator is thinking, not that the child is thinking. See https://en.wikipedi…
And there is a comment in the source article that claims it was written using RPM, so we know the exploitative RPM. Method was used. http://faithhopeloveautism.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/world-auti...
And another comment on the blog that they're not focused on getting RPM working without the mother aiding.
Re: I Have Nonverbal Autism. Here’s What I Want You to Know
#24We need to be very careful with this. And I mean we, the hacker community, we, society at large, and we, people who genuinely want to reach those with communication disadvantages. I'll start with why: this may not be Philip writing to us. I would like to believe it is, and those of us who may be on the autistic spectrum will not find it difficult to believe that this writing is of the ability they had when they were…
This is... this is awful. I had no idea this was a thing.
Its awful, but not necessarily done out of cruelty or avarice.
I know many parents of autistic kids, and so many of them are just so terribly desperate for any sign of improvement in their child that they're easily led by charlatans. They'll desperately believe and see patterns of improvement where there are none because they want to believe that they can lead their children to be independent and strong.
Re: I Have Nonverbal Autism. Here’s What I Want You to Know
#25That kid is a really good writer for a 12 year old. Very clear and to the point.
This is likely above the 95th percentile writing skills for neurotypical twelve-year-olds, and uses anachronistic language to boot. When's the last time you heard a twelve-year-olds using words like "I am weary", or" for causing so much hardship.", or idiomatic abstracts like "another way of being". If you took a neurotypical kid and duct-taped their mouth shut up to age 12, you would be robbing them of the vast majo…
> There are recursive layers of social intrigue in this paragraph that people with autism would have a great deal of trouble understanding, much less writing
That's a bit sweeping. Many doubtless would; but there are autistic people who are capable of self-reflection.
A somewhat exceptional example: Temple Grandin, PhD, who has extrapolated from her experience of having autism, specifically the sense of constantly being under threat from her surroundings, to advise on more humane ways of handling livestock: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin#Career
Re: I Have Nonverbal Autism. Here’s What I Want You to Know
#26I am an autism parent, who was similarly skeptical of prompting as many comments expressed here.
My son, who appears completely uncoordinated with random repetitive behaviors, would fit the typical pattern of many of these kids. Even now, if we take him to a grocery shop, his conspicuous behaviors would cause people to stare at him.
Yet, here is an experimentally testable concrete thing he can do: read a complex English passage and answer a series of fairly non-trivial multiple choice questions - for example "What is the tone of this paragraph? a) Irony b) Sarcasm c) Sorrow d) Happiness" type of questions which you cannot simply answer by trivial pattern matching.
No prompting would be necessary and this test has been performed without parents being nearby, on totally new material. In fact, he takes these tests often, partly because we could tell he gets some thrill from getting everything right and that test-taking seems one of the rare times he seems completely focused.
Originally, he was very prompt dependent (as many people mention here), so even I was somewhat skeptical about his real skills, but now I have no doubt.
The reason I mention all this is that no casual observer, not even one who spends hours together with him, would conclude he can do those things. He has no motivation to connect or demonstrate his skills; yet, he now can demonstrate he can do these things independently.
These kids are very complicated, so don't be too quick to dismiss them.
Re: I Have Nonverbal Autism. Here’s What I Want You to Know
#27>'Let’s pretend you are like me. You can’t talk, but you have a well-functioning mind' I thought that one of the few genuine insights made about autism is that so-called autistic people have difficultly reading intentions (their own, or other people's) or even appreciating what minds and intentions are . Which is why they appear selfish, and why they're unqualified to make such statements. Also sceptical that coercin…
> Also sceptical that coercing people to behave in socially acceptable ways is necessary or desirable.
Well that is the only way they could possibly live independently.
Re: I Have Nonverbal Autism. Here’s What I Want You to Know
#28Having a rather severe non-verbal (some single words or rote phrase) 11 year old with autism, our biggest mystery is how much she does or doesn't understand about us or about her own condition. Articles like this (again, hopefully written by the subject) help give some potential insight.
Because she essentially has no voice, it's almost natural to talk about her as if she isn't there. As she's grown we've been better about it, but because she doesn't express emotion it's near impossible to imagine what she might be thinking or feeling.
I have several dreams a year where she speaks. I'd expect other parents do as well.
The strangest thing for me is to have a child that has never asked us a single question. We see other families with 3 year olds that continuously ask "Why?" to everything you say. When you hear other parents complaining that their kids won't stop asking questions, I try not to remind them of the alternative.
Re: I Have Nonverbal Autism. Here’s What I Want You to Know
#29I am an autism parent, who was similarly skeptical of prompting as many comments expressed here. My son, who appears completely uncoordinated with random repetitive behaviors, would fit the typical pattern of many of these kids. Even now, if we take him to a grocery shop, his conspicuous behaviors would cause people to stare at him. Yet, here is an experimentally testable concrete thing he can do: read a complex Engl…
Even now, if we take him to a grocery shop, his conspicuous behaviors would cause people to stare at him.
I sincerely hope you still take him to the grocery shop. My daughter stims, makes loud noises, has OCD behaviors, may hit her head, etc. and I make a point of taking her to the stores several times a week. While it's good for her to practice being in public, I also want the public to see her and that there are others like her. As people with autism being in public becomes less of a novelty, other children and adults will eventually learn how not to stare, or in some situations how to help.
Re: I Have Nonverbal Autism. Here’s What I Want You to Know
#30We need to be very careful with this. And I mean we, the hacker community, we, society at large, and we, people who genuinely want to reach those with communication disadvantages. I'll start with why: this may not be Philip writing to us. I would like to believe it is, and those of us who may be on the autistic spectrum will not find it difficult to believe that this writing is of the ability they had when they were…
I agree that the youtube video you linked is not at all convincing as an example of genuine communication.
I don't know anything about Philip's path to get where he is now, but there are a number of videos of Philip using his current method of communication, which appears to be typing on a bluetooth keyboard to an ipad app that repeats his letters and words back to him.
The mom holds the keyboard, but Philip moves his own hand. Mom seems to use a lot of cues to help him keep on track--shaking the keyboard to bring him back to it, repeating his words back to him--but I really don't see her writing it for him, moving the keyboard under his finger to spell things, or "interpreting" vague gestures.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK_Q60LhgzA
This one has several minutes of typing where you can see the keyboard and his hand. It's slow, slow going, but it really looks like he's the one doing the writing.