Tag Archives: acceptance

ASNL Chapters Fundraiser Update

So, I finally have (and am putting up) the results of the ASNL fundraising promotion at Chapters on April 1st.

Together, Chapters and the Autism Society of Newfoundland and Labrador managed to raise $206.19 (Cdn) for the ASNL Library fund. Yay! And Chapters is also interested in doing more with the ASNL – Double Yay!

So, thanks to everyone who came out and contributed by buying books during that period; it helps a lot.

🙂 tagÂûght

Open Letter to ASNL: About LIUB

The following is a letter that I will be sending to the Board of Directors of the Autism Society of Newfoundland and Labrador concerning the “Light It Up Blue” campaign. At the bottom of the post is a link to the PDF version.


Dear Mr. Crocker and Members of the Board,

Once again this April, St. John’s/Newfoundland has tried to demonstrate and/or encourage “autism awareness” (or “autism acceptance”, as most autistics prefer) by “Lighting It Up Blue” on Cabot Tower and the Confederation Buildings. And I really have to protest.

Continue to read letter

Let’s Talk About: The Meanings of “Obsession”

So, at Social Club (at the Autism Society for NL; it’s basically a small group getting together for social activities – playing games, doing art, etc.) this past weekend, we had a new person there. And that person mentioned that xe was obsessed with one particular topic (I can no longer remember what it was, that wasn’t the important thing), “like with OCD” (obsessive-compulsive disorder).

On my post about Hyper-Focus vs. Lack of Focus, Unstrange Mind called me on using the term “special interest” for interests that we have and like to focus on – a term that I used to replace the term “obsession”, which tends to carry a negative connotation. She suggested using the term “passion”, which I thought was a very good idea, and have since cleaned up my vocabulary that way. 🙂

Anyway, getting back to the topic of the post, I was rather disturbed by the way that person was using the term “obsession” to define a particular area of interest, because at one point, my mother suggested I might be OCD, and I asked my psychologist about the matter. And what he said was something of an eye-opener.

Read on for more details….

Recommendation: G is for Giraffe by Unstrange Mind

And it’s another recommendation of a post from Unstrange Mind’s A-to-Z April Blogging Challenge, this one “G is for Giraffe“.

What do giraffes have to do with autism, you ask? It’s all about symbols and symbolism. The majority of the Autistic community do not care for the puzzle piece symbolism, for fairly clear reasons – there’s nothing about us that’s missing, for one thing – and it was a symbol created by allistics, not autistics. We need our own symbols.

And that’s what Unstrange Mind’s post for today is about – what are the autistic-created symbols for autism? Read, and find out!

🙂 tagAught Âû

Recommendation: E is for Empathy by Unstrange Mind

Heh. Remember when I said in the last post not too expect too many recommendations this month, despite the posting volume on Autistic-oriented blogs? Well… there was another wonderful post put up today that really needs signal boosting.

Unstrange Mind is doing a series this April for the Blogging from A-to-Z Challenge (check the following post for the link if you’re curious), and she’s hitting things hard, the way they need. And today’s post (well, all these posts she’s writing, but today’s happened to strike me) is about something that is a huge problem in trying to gain acceptance for autistics. The Empathy Question.

Please, read through the post E is for Empathy – it highlights a number of problems with the idea that autistics have no empathy (talk to my mother, or my best friends; they’ll dismiss that idea immediately). It even mentions a new study that brings to light some problems with the “well-known” Sally-Ann Test, a study that I hadn’t heard about before.

Not to mention the ludicrous treatise she mentions that says something about since autistics have no empathy, we have no sense of community. *cough, cough* Um, what do you think my blogroll list is?

Anyway, she also provides links to another blog post about empathy, that in turn provides links to more. Please, take a look at them, and absorb the message we’re trying to send.

Recommendation: Autism Awareness by Andraya

There are a lot of good posts going up for April that have nothing to do with Autism Speaks (at least, not directly), and I honestly wish I could recommend them all, but I’d probably overload my blog with posts if I did that. (Though don’t be surprised to see a few of them going up as rec posts over the next few months! Also, feel free to poke around my links page and check out the blogs I’ve got there, most of which I would be recommending from.)

This post on autism awareness by Andraya, of Asperger’s and Me, definitely needs to be signal boosted and pointed out to people, however. It points out something to people that helps explain part of why Autistics in general have no interest in being “cured” of our autism. Aside from the fact that it’s a huge part of who we are… most of what people/parents with autistic children who have extreme difficulties are looking at: Is Not Autism. Epilepsy, GI issues, Depression, Anxiety… they are not the same as autism. Yes, autistics may be more likely to have these issues than the general population, but as Andraya points out in this post, females are more likely to have depression and anxiety than the “general population”.

A very worthwhile post to read.

🙂 tagAught

Toning It Down Taupe for WAAD

So, it’s World Autism Awareness Day – or, as the vast majority of autistics prefer to refer to it, World Autism Acceptance Day. (Check out World Autism Acceptance Month!) And what, one wonders, are the savvy, internet-connected autistics of the world wearing this month?

I can tell you one thing. It’s sure as hell not blue.

And why is it not blue?

ASNL Library Fundraiser

The Autism Society of Newfoundland and Labrador is holding a fundraiser for their library at the Chapters on Kenmount Rd. (just up from the Avalon Mall) in St. John’s, from 7pm to 9pm tonight. A percentage of the prices of all books bought during that period will be donated to the Autism Society by means of a Chapters/Indigo gift card, in order to help expand the ASNL Library.

More details of it here….

Revamped Links: Neurodiversity Paradigm

This is very much an aside, not a standard post, but I think it needs to be said.

Sunday, I posted a recommendation link post to Nick Walker’s “What is Autism?” I then proceeded to go and read his entire blog (called Neurocosmopolitanism). There aren’t very many posts there at the moment (from what I can see, he’s quite the busy man – and there is a new one up today), but the ones that are, are well thought-out, and thought-provoking.

One of those posts – the second one – has a very long title: Throw Away the Master’s Tools: Liberating Ourselves from the Pathology Paradigm. I’m not going to go into loads of details here – that will be reserved for the recommendations post I intend to put up sometime this week – but there is something important that I want to say straight out.

This post – with its description of the pathology paradigm, how it damages us and impoverishes society (not necessarily mentioned, but I’m a firm believer in the “Patchwork Quilt” society, rather than the “Melting Pot”), and its suggestions for how to build a neurodiversity paradigm (that is not solely about autism, but other “conditions” involving differences in neurological wiring) really made me think. And one of the things that most made me think was about language use, and how it affects our views of ourselves. In particular, the term “Autism Spectrum Disorder”.

Nothing wrong with the term “Autism Spectrum”. That’s a very good term. It’s the “Disorder” component that Mr. Walker takes issue with, and argues against very well indeed. He points out that using the term “Disorder” makes it appear that there is something “wrong” with us – which is exactly the sort of thinking that autistic advocates are trying to fight. That the neurodiversity community is trying to fight.

So. I have gone through my links list, and changed each description/category of “ASD” to “Autistic”. I have not yet decided whether I will do this to my posts or not – I suspect not, simply because they provide a record of how I thought at the time. But the change has to start somewhere, and who better for it to start with than ourselves and our allies?

🙂 tagAught

[Added Note: I have also changed the title of my post category and tag of “ASD” to “Autism Spectrum”.]

Recommendation: What Is Autism? by Nick Walker

This is a guest post on the blog Raising Rebel Souls. Nick Walker is autistic, and has come up with a description of autism that matches my own experience and, as I understand it, the experiences of the majority of my fellow autistics, no matter where they might fit on the spectrum. He also removes the pathologizing element from the equation / description, and writes clearly, presenting facts as they are known.

I highly recommend that everyone read this post: Guest Post from Nick Walker: What is Autism?

Or, alternatively, you can also find the details of his part of the post (though not Mom2Rebels’ additional comments) at his own blog, Neurocosmopolitanism, at What Is Autism?

🙂 tagAught