Creative Storm

Jarle and they them pronouns... Mostly autism related stuff. Or Gender and ADHD apparently.

[autspoon]

i wanna write a post about lingual elitism n regional languages… and how elitism and class n all that has alienated the masses from most writing…

and how the “improperness” of regional languages, non-standardized languages, and non-official dialects… is exactly what makes them good for poetry and lyricism.

and in fact, i’d argue that this is the function of most standardized language. to have something disconnected, originally purposely hard, and paying more homage to history than contemporary living languages.

and yeah basically… i feel if more of us got to read texts in our regional language, minority language or dialects.. then we’d all probably understand theory more, or find literature, like poetry or lyricism.. to be a lot more emotive and intimate.

oops.. i ended up writing the post, i guess. oh well.

anyway, i fucking love dialects, non-standardized languages, regional languages and minority languages.. and i wish they got more respect and recognition. and i think national languages in general are a huge alienating wall for a lot of people.

also, i know that per country this is a huge political topic, and i just feel like i need to say i don’t speak of every country here..

just that i think the people of the world deserve to see or hear their own tongue, not one established by academics 130 years ago, in some city across their country, or even across the world.

language has been a huge political tool, used to both create nationalism but also to assimilate groups.. and this is why the right to speak your language is so important. because it’s identity and also works against old prejudices and policies.

and as i said, i think it’s genuinely beneficial for people to see literature that resembles closely how they speak.

lingua francas is a whole other topic. tbh multilingualism needs to be encouraged too, but never at the expense of minority or regional languages.

[creativestorm]

I wholeheartedly agree with you, both as a writer and as a linguistics student, thus, allow me to elaborate:

It actually goes further than that: linguistically speaking, there is no real difference between a language and a dialect! What “merits” the title of language and what is simply considered a dialect is mostly a political decision. (Linguists like to say that a language is simply a dialect with an army and a navy)

I’ve also heard Norwegians talk about Bidialectalism (as in bilingualism but with dialect) so that’s a thing as well! (Although I haven’t heard it being discussed in any other language jet)

Also, historically speaking, people on average spoke a lot more languages than we do today (like speaking 4 or 5 languages was considered pretty normal). So there’s not really any argument against speaking a dialect or regional language and learning foreign languages on top of that! It would merely be traditional.

[bun-fem]

autistic + ND youtubers:

Amythest Schaber / @neurowonderful  / informational videos about autism (ask an autistic)

invisible I / chronic illness and autism informational videos + vlogs (including sensory DIYS and hauls) 

princessaspien / autism videos and music vlogs

minty frills / fashion and autism videos 

megan Rhiannon / @baby-gloom /  vlogs, autism, journalling and university 

Ashton Daniel / ND experiences, stim toys, vlogs + trans resources

how to ADHD / adhd resources and informational videos + stim toys

Barry Aldridge  / doctor who / special interests

IndieAndie / music, autism and vlogs 

bonus video with cool auties 

feel free to add your own! 

[thisoldriver]

The autistic view of the world is not the neurotypical cliché – Katherine May | Aeon Essays

Too many depictions of autistic people rely on tired clichés. The neurotypical world needs to take note of our own voices

[neurodeervergent]

Someone who thinks they know better: listen hun you being on your phone on YouTube all the time is bad, it’s bad input, and you should always take breaks inbetween, with no input whatsoever. Take a walk, look at the clouds. Just nothing

Me, someone who needs constant visual or audio stimulation or otherwise they feel very very bad: fascinating

[official-german-autismus]

Der Autismus Moment, wenn…

… du beim Kochen aufgibst dem Rezept zu folgen, weil es nicht genau genug ist und einfach alles in den Topf schmeißt.

[whyistheworldlikethis]

Shout out to all the people who have had to give up their dreams because of their disability/ies

- those who wanted to play an instrument but had to stop because of joint issues

-those who wanted to be photographers but had to stop because of visual difficulties

- those who wanted to be athletes but can’t walk or run anymore 

- those who wanted to be nurses or doctors but couldn’t get the grades due to a learning disability

- those who wanted to travel the world but they can’t leave the house without help

- those who wanted to be artists but now lack to motor skills to do so

- those who wanted to be teachers but now can’t due to hearing difficulties

These are only a very few of the thousands of examples of ways disabilities can rob you of your dreams. You are strong and you can create new dreams, but you’re allowed to mourn the life you wanted to have.

It can be really hard being disabled. Accepting the limitations a disability gives you is hard work. You can achieve great things, even if they aren’t the great things that you planned on. 

[withasmoothroundstone]

Omg WTF empathy research sounds like it's often a sham

This same idiot researcher just said the way we Study empathy in human children is to instruct a family member to act distressed and see what the child does.

TO ACT DISTRESSED.

ACT.

That is not a genuine situation and does not necessarily test empathy in the way people would expect. Someone with really good empathy would not respond to feigned distress as if it was real. And someone who can’t spot feigned emotions but can spot real ones would be up a creek.

I once designed, on the spot, a way to research empathy in autistic children for real. One off the first things I told the researcher was that the tension and stress of the family member had to be genuine. It could not be acted or feigned. Autistic people are notorious among people who actually know us, for frequently seeing past the surface appearance and into the reality in ways many nonautistic people can’t do. I know an autistic woman who flunked an empathy test because she gave the actors real emotions instead of their acted ones. But the idea that anyone can see through surface appearances and essentially stage conventions is unheard of apparently.

Anyway the researcher I know did frustration experiments so she had software designed to stress people out. So you stress out the parent and test the galvanic skin response of the child. Which eliminates the need for any language skills on the part of the child. Add in control groups and everything else and you have a study that will probably show what the researcher had ignored parents saying until I asked her to reflect on it – their autistic children are more sensitive to tension in the air than any other family members.

The researcher had assumed the parents didn’t know what they were talking about because everyone knows autistic kids don’t show empathy. Just like her students thought the autistic kids in Autism Every Day were all nonverbal and did not interact and did not pick up body language and did not make eye contact and show joint attention… Until I took them through the video acne paused it every few seconds to show them how wrong they were. And these are supposedly experts.

Anyway she had better actually do that experiment one day because it would change the entire face off autism research if people started really testing us instead of setting us up to fail. Which is what relying on stage conventions, artificially created situations, language, and multitasking (expecting both reading body language and using language at once), does to us.

FFS I’ve taken one psych class in my life and have no science backgrounds and I can smell the bullishit in research well enough I’ve been publicly praised by actual researchers (including the then president of the Association for Psychological Science). So surely it can’t be that hard to do real science.

[universally-interested]

in school, kids are taught the “five senses”: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. however, there are actually many more senses than that. considering that autistic people generally have divergent perceptual experiences, I’ve been wondering if these other senses should be considered when discussing our differences. 

for instance, there’s proprioception, which is the sense of body placement. personally, I have to shift positions often because I become uncomfortable. this can be related to sense of touch (my skin resting against material I find unpleasant), but I also find myself hyper-aware of limb position at times. this sense could also explain why a lot of us do “raptor hands,” or hold our arms in stiff positions. when I’m walking, I find it impossible to let my arms dangle at my sides–I can’t ignore how weird it feels to let them swing. 

equilibrioception could explain issues autistic people have with balance. hot/cold and pain pathways also seem to be perceived differently. finally, I’ve noticed that autistic people may have difficulty telling when they’re full, which could be explained by differences in the sensory receptors which detect stretching in the stomach. 

[official-german-autismus]

Der Autismus Moment, wenn…

… du beim Kochen aufgibst dem Rezept zu folgen, weil es nicht genau genug ist und einfach alles in den Topf schmeißt.

[thevampireauthoress]

I honestly wish it was socially acceptable to introduce myself like:

“My name is […], I am […] years old and I would like to be your friend please!”

Instead I have to “work on my social skills” and “take part in small talk”… ugh

[13faeinapenguinsuit]

It is complete bullshit, but for what it is worth, I have a lot of followers that would absolutely respond to this with an appropriate, “My name is […], I am […] years old, and I would also like to be your friend. It is nice to meet you!”

I know it is online, but honestly? We deserve to be able to be ourselves, and if the only space we have to be ourselves is online, then we should use it.

So. Followers. I think you know what to do.

[sweetandsavageautistic]

So my dad made an interesting hypothesis this evening:

He says that, based on what I’ve told him, us “high-functioning” autistics online are trying to speak over the “low-functioning” autistics and claim we know what’s best for them. That we’re turning into our oppressors.

I know there are autistic people on Tumblr who are considered “low-functioning” by society. But I think he’s claiming that we think none of us want a cure?

Here’s the thing; I personally don’t want a cure, and it seems the majority of us feel the same. But I’m sure there are autistics who believe that they would benefit from one, not because they think it’s a bad thing, but because they think they could reach their full potential by having one. And I get that, agree to disagree.

But I feel like a lot of the world thinks we’re all unable to reach our full potential because of autism, and that’s why a lot of people go for a cure, and that those who claim they don’t want a cure aren’t actually autistic.

Btw, he defines whether someone is low/high-functioning based on whether or not they can communicate and if they can take care of themselves.

So input time. What do y'all think? Are we speaking over those deemed “low-functioning”? Those deemed “low-functioning,” I’d especially like your input.

[13faeinapenguinsuit]

I think @lysikan has already spoken for themselves.

Thing is, as advocates that can advocate out and about in the world, the whole point is that we’re not talking over other autistics, we’re taking their experiences and their stories and their concerns with us. And we should be sharing those things as much as we share our own things.

Look, any group can speak over any other group. But part the whole thing with autism advocacy is that we speak for ourselves as self-advocates, and we speak with the words of others as autistic advocates.

We do that so the people who can’t self advocate can (hopefully) be in a position where they can self advocate. At least, that’s how I see it.

[violettamondarev]

This post was written a while ago by a non-verbal autistic.

[13faeinapenguinsuit]

@pixiesky is why I backed off hard line views on functioning labels and started re-evaluating all my views on autism advocacy. I had to make some pretty big changes to my views, too.

To be honest, we do a pretty shitty job of actually being inclusive of a lot of autistics. One of the things that I actively try and do now is bring up the counter points even if I don’t agree when I am in a panel.

One of the things we talked about at the Self-Advocate Panel for the LEND Fellowship program was functioning labels. We talked about how they affect us as broader community, but two of us made specific points about functioning labels being useful.

One of the points I used was an analogy made by @pixiesky and it did a really good job of getting the Fellows to think critically about when and how to use functioning labels, rather than if they should or shouldn’t use them. And gosh, that is such an important thing.

Because let’s be honest here - autistics that self-identify as low functioning have a very realistic reason for doing so. They have fundamentally different needs.

And those autistics? Make up the majority of autistics. We don’t see that majority online in many cases and in most advocacy because those things are often inaccessible. And like, sure that might change as we continue to understand autism, but it’s not going to change that much more than it already has and there’s a good chance that low functioning autistics will remain the majority.

Either way, we owe it to them to elevate their voices even when they are opposed to ours. And to be honest, I think getting allistics to think critically about autism is how we can best help all autistics. I’d rather be treated by a therapist who understands the nuances of autism and the autistic community than one who has a black and white perception of what autism is and what the autistic community is like.

Yes, I see the irony in this.

[nyxtheautisticbean]

*reblogged because important conversation*

[chronicallyinvisible]

able-bodied people don’t seem to realise the nuances of disability, they look at it as such a black and white issue when it’s really not. like, i don’t need a wheelchair in the sense that i can’t physically use my legs and i don’t need a walking stick in the sense that i would fall over without one. but i do need a wheelchair in the sense that it could make the difference between my being bed-bound for a day and being bed-bound for a week and i do need a walking stick in the sense that using one today might enable me to do more tomorrow. disability and chronic illness aren’t black and white; using things out of necessity can mean a lot of different things for a lot of different people.

[thedoctorishereguys]

Autism and sign language?

I am a polyglot (someone who speaks multiple languages): I am completely fluent in two, can communicate in 4 or 5, can read, god, like 6 or 7 well enough to navigate and understand museum signs, and can write a basic letter in three.

This skill has been just so fucking handy at work - my area has a very high immigrant (mainly Latin American immigrant) population, and I am one of two in my workplace who can communicate in Spanish at *all*. (And even the little Spanish I speak helps with those who only speak Portuguese).

But we have several regular deaf customers and they absolutely are awesome about working with all of us who don’t even know how to fingerspell, but hey, I’m all about learning.

I can fingerspell slowly and painfully, but I thought, gee, let’s learn more esp for the pharmacy.

And I found a great great site - www.signlanguage101.com - and lesson one was about making sure to read facial expressions.

That made me wonder - do autistic people have trouble with that aspect of ASL? I know signed speech is used sometimes with moderate functioning autistic kids who don’t speak, and ASL with low functioning to at least express needs, but is it harder for someone with autism to fully grasp a language that is so rooted in body language and facial expressions? I know I’m having trouble with differentiating between the instructor looking, say, bored and lost.

Does anyone know more about this? Could anyone link me to articles or studies about this? Or share their own experiences?

Thanks!

[13faeinapenguinsuit]

This is a really super interesting question. I know that as a general rule we have a much easier time with facial expressions of native ASL signers than with non-native because the native signers will have much larger and more obvious expressions. But we still have to be taught what they mean, and we have to be taught explicitly. Of course, teaching the facial expressions explicitly is not uncommon - or at least, it should be - when it comes to ASL as a second language.

That said.

Looking at faces is also really hard for a lot of us, and the expressions of native ASL signers can be exceptionally overwhelming for us. Like, if I were using ASL and trying to sign another autistic down from a meltdown and ground them, I would absolutely not use the facial expressions because that is a lot of sensory input.

One of the things that I have noticed is that when we sign within the autistic community itself, we often drop the facial expressions, essentially expressing the flat affect we are stereotypically known for.

The biggest reason for this, I think, is that we are watching the hands, and only the hands. Not because the hands are the focus of ASL as a language, but because ASL as it is signed natively puts an extreme overload on us.

To us, there are the hands, there is the body, there is the face, there are the emotions expressed by all three, there is the context expressed by all three. You’re already up to nine sensory sources we “have” to pay attention to in order to fully understand the language, and that’s before we get into accents, dialects, etc.

Furthermore, in the autistic community we have to contend with a lot of chronic illness - the act of signing is itself very demanding for us and having to communicate all those aspects while taking into account all the possible differences in language, and doing so through stiff fingers, pain, executive dysfunction, brain fog, whatever…

Well, it’s not easy for us in general.

This, by the way, is all the same stuff that applies to spoken languages - the big differences with ASL being that well taught classes involved explicit teaching of facial expressions and body language.

We tend to simplify communication. Most of us use low context language. We pay more attention to the actual words (whether signed or spoken) and take them at face value. Within our community there is a lot of honest and trust that people say and sign exactly what they mean - no more, no less.

And if there is contextual meaning, it is usually explicitly defined or clarification is asked for.

Ultimately it is going to come down to the individual autistic. I can’t look at faces. When I got my autism diagnosis, they even commented on how infrequently I looked at my wife (thought it was still more than I looked at them). But I can use high context language like nobody’s business because I make a business out of contextual language - I’m a writer and written words are my writ and wit. But ASL? It is going to be hard for me to learn.

Just depends, really.

[autismus-obscurus]

I actually wanted to learn Sign Language as well but postponed it in favor of Dutch for the exact same reason. Facial expressions are hard for me mostly because I can’t force myself to look at a face and still read what’s going on. Eye contact makes my head spin in the worst way and kills even the most meticulous concentration I had 0.5 seconds earlier.

Another problem I had was just dyspraxia - I can’t control my hands this fast and so accurately. I still want to learn sign language but it’s going to be extremely hard, so it’s on the waiting list for now.

[sweetandsavageautistic]

Does This Make My Asperger’s Look Big? | Michael McCreary | #TEDxYorkUSpectrum

This comedian and Aspie will have you rolling on the floor with his witty insight observations about life on the autism spectrum – beware, you will be edu-ta...

This guy is fucking hilarious! Honestly, whoever said us autistics aren’t funny have clearly never watched this guy. 

Also he is fairly cute AF. Like, hi. Can I date you please? 

[a-fools-jester]

STIGMA

This is a hot take on this, but Imma say it anyway. 

Stigma isn’t always intentional cruelty or malicious words. Sometimes it’s:

Being treated like a helpless child all the time

Hearing The Caring Neurotypical Voice™ when people talk to you

“Oh you can do that?” in regards to being able to do normal things everyone else can do. 

Not being given the freedom to do what you want out of concern

“(Name) is… different”

Everyone acts so scared to name the disorder like it’s a summon for the devil

Say it. Say autistic. Say schizophrenic. Say bipolar. Say the disorder we have. Say it.

Struggling to keep your head above the water but keeping it in because you’d rather face the suffering alone than have everyone walk on eggshells around you

“I have X disorder, I can’t do this activity right now” “Oh but honey, you shouldn’t put yourself in a box. just think you’re not and it might help you recover. give it a try.”

“I am not broken, let me do it” “Honey, I know it’s sometimes hard to accept but you have X disorder and shouldn’t push yourself. sit this one out.”

Not being given the chance to prove that you can take care of yourself or do things the others can

“Oh have you met that boy/girl from (grade/ place)? He’s also [X Disorder].”

it might “not be good for someone like you”

Having someone tell your story for you. Not being given a voice or having it shushed by people who are neurotypical. 

People looking at you like you’re shattered glass, their eyes filled with pity and sympathy as if you’re a living tragedy, as if you are this thing that they wish they could fix.

They do not ask you if you want to be fixed. They do not consider that this is your life, and although occasionally troubled, this is yours and it’s the only life you’ve had. 

They cannot fathom you ever being happy with your life, but you are. Perhaps not always, but you’ve learned to be content with your life.

Sometimes they push you. But sometimes they also hold you back.

[autism-mome-deactivated20181017]

This is great information - very informative

[sensory-heaven]

The sound of an orchestra tuning.