Last night, Karen and I attended Exhaling Beauty: an Evening Celebrating Females on the Autism Spectrum. The aim of the event was to share and showcase the talents, experiences, and spirit of the female ASD community. They definitely did that. I have never heard of another event like this and I am very thankful that …
Thanks to everyone who voted for AWN in last month’s Pepsi Refresh Project. We didn’t win, but we were in the top 100 highest votes for our category and will be able to participate in September’s challenge. Please keep voting every day through September 30th! The voting process is kind of confusing and round-about depending …
Please vote for the Autism Women’s Network (AWN) in the Pepsi Refresh Everything Project. I have been working with AWN since the beginning as director of web development and technical services and it is a truly awesome organization. AWN is a unique organization that was founded by women on the autism spectrum. Our mission is …
Alex Plank gave the keynote presentation at the Autism Society’s 41st National Conference on Autism Spectrum Disorders.
Alex speaks honestly and openly about being autistic and connecting with other autistic people online. His website, WrongPlanet.net, has been helping autistic people connect with each other since 2004.
Alex’s keynote is the first of 7 videos from the conference. The panel discussion also features Sandy Yim from the Autism Women’s Network.
I have been different from other people for as long as I can remember. Over the years, I have had many different diagnoses, opinions, and treatments that were not quite right. My parents have tried to get me help since I was a little kid, but no one really knew what to do with me. …
Temple Grandin will be on the AWN Radio show tomorrow morning to give the Autism Women’s Network her first exclusive interview following the Premiere of HBO’s Original Movie which premiered a few hours ago. Radio show link is: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/autism-womens-network/2010/02/07/temple-grandin-gives-awn-first-interview-re-premie Interview time: Feb 7th, 2010 at 9am PST – 10am MST – 11am CST– 12pm EST (USA) Use …
After 3 months of complete immersion, the Autism Women’s Network site is live and open to the public. I am still adding features and fixing the occasional bug here and there, but for the most part, it is done. Building this site has been an amazing experience for me. I am happy to get to …
Autism Reality is a 10 minute documentary film about autism by Alex Plank. The film features interviews with Dr. Temple Grandin, Alex himself, and a handful of others including Alex’s parents.
This film shows a perspective not often seen in autism media by portraying autism as a reality which is neither good nor bad, just a different way that some people are wired.
Alex is the founder of WrongPlanet.net, one of the earliest and largest online communities for people on the autistic spectrum.
Sometimes it is hard to be an aspie. I am very lucky because no matter how hard things get sometimes, I have people who can, and do, help me out. If it weren’t for those people, especially my family and Karen, I really don’t what my life would be like now. It is likely that …
Writing on the iPhone. Hard to breathe. Shaky. Strangely okay besides that. Sometimes writing helps. Been very busy lately. All Drupal all the time. Besides from the insane learning curve and non-intuitive UI, I am in awe of its power and flexibility. After more than 15 hours of video tutorials and reading tons of docs, …
The Autistic Self Advocacy Network and other organizations representing the Cross-Disability Community are distributing this joint letter to the sponsors, donors and supporters of Autism Speaks following the organization’s latest offensive and damaging Public Service Announcement, “I am Autism“. If you are an organization that would like to sign on to the letter, please e-mail ASAN at info@autisticadvocacy.org before Close of Business Tuesday, October 6th, 2009. If you are an individual who would like to join ASAN’s upcoming protests of Autism Speaks in Ohio, New England, New York City and elsewhere across the country please e-mail ASAN at info@autisticadvocacy.org Thank you for your support and please feel free to distribute for additional signatories.
To the Sponsors, Donors and Supporters of Autism Speaks:
Responses to the the Autism Speaks’ “I Am Autism” video have been growing quickly. Here is another awesome video response to the tune of “I Am Woman” by Helen Reddy.
Check out this awesome response to the exceptionally horrible “I Am Autism” video by Autism Speaks. Link leads to Mike Stanton’s Action For Autism blog with video and commentary.
This video is just one part of Autism Speaks’ crusade to educate the world about how horrible autistic people are and how they will destroy the happiness of anyone who crosses their path.
If you haven’t seen the Autism Speaks video, it is exactly the same as this one except for the audio, which is almost the complete opposite. Lyrics are below.
A list of responses to the Autism Speaks video
is being compiled at I Speak of Dreams.
I… Am… Autism… Speaks…
I am Autism Speaks…
I am invisible to your children. And I will be invisible to you until it’s too late.
I know where you live. And guess what? It’s no use hiding.
I have my eyes on all of you… I am watching you all.
I am Autism Speaks.
I have no color… no religion… no morals… no love….
I speak the language of despair and disease. And with every voice I steal. I grow stronger.
I work quickly to make people believe your children are suffering worse than cancer or AIDS victims.
I am Autism Speaks.
And if you’re happily married… I’ll distroy your marriage with unattainable dreams and broken promises.
Your money will fall into my hands… And I will bankrupt you… And pay myself hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
I don’t sleep… And I’ll make sure you don’t either.
I will make it virtually impossible for you to leave your home without feeling the shame of diseased children.
I am Autism Speaks.
You have no defense against me…
Your advocates don’t have the money to fight me. And I relish your poverty.
I will make everyone think you and your children are diseased and disordered. And then… Turn on them.
I am Autism Speaks.
I have no interest in right or wrong.
I derive great pleasure out of your loneliness.
I will take away your hope.
I will rob you of your children and of your dreams.
I will make sure you will cry everyday.
You will wonder who will look after your children when you die.
Through My Eyes, sung by Thanh Bui is an attempt to help people get a handle on what it’s like to live with an autism spectrum disorder.
Ordinarily, a song this sweet would make me gag. I admit that in order to listen to it all the way through, my brain started translating it into a thrashier version of itself (in classic rock power ballad style). Personal musical tastes aside, I really liked this song and Thanh Bui’s beautiful voice brought me out of the thrash from time to time.
This post was inspired by an article written by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg and published on The Commons. More of Rachel’s writing can be found on her blog, Asperger Journeys. Rachel’s website includes a list of 100 Myths about Autism, and her article focuses on ten of those. After finishing the article, I found my thoughts lingering …
Me and K spent the past week in Baltimore and Florida and had a great time. We want to move to Baltimore, but we can’t. It sucks. We decided we wanted to move a few weeks before the economy crashed. Things looked pretty good for us then. Now we are stuck here for what could …
Project Spectrum was created to give people with autism the opportunity to express their creativity and develop a life skill using Google SketchUp 3D modeling software.
This video shows 3D models created by 4 children on the autism spectrum. Three of the models are of the child’s dream house. All are very interesting! Some of the children made paper sketches before trying SketchUp. Narration explains the children’s experience with the software compared to their experience with the paper sketches.
I wish there was something like this around when I was a kid! I wonder if it could be used to create 3D mind maps. I have found it helpful on occasion to use mind mapping software to translate the multi-planed thoughts in my head into the pictures and shapes of a mind map, and then have the software convert them to an outline of words that can be used in a way that I imagine is how “regular” people just use them automatically. Adding a 3rd dimension to a mind map would definitely make it more intuitive to use, as thoughts could be placed where they belong, rather than using lines that are too long to show a distance that would better be described by showing the thought’s proximity in space to the other thoughts.
Of course this kind of software will not benefit everyone on the autistic spectrum, but it is nice to know that a special effort is being made to give these children a new way to express themselves, especially one that is visual and 3 dimensional, AND teaches them a marketable skill in a growing industry.
In February 2006, Karen and I made a comic. Then we got sidetracked for three years. K took the original pictures and I made them into comics in Photoshop. We wrote the story together. This morning we filled in the remaining text and put the images in order.
Click on the images to view in gallery. Fullscreen mode is supported.
Chocolate, from Magnet Releasing, is a martial arts film from Thailand coming to theaters on Feb. 6th, 2009, and DVD Feb. 10th.
Directed by Prachya Pinkaew, this sweet, action-packed martial-arts drama features the debut of young female fighter Jeeja Yanin Vismitananda as Zen, an autistic savant who learns to kick heads by watching Bruce Lee and Tony Jaa movies.
Zen’s father, a Japanese gangster, has been driven out of the country by a rival Thai gang, so her mother has been forced to raise her alone. When her mother becomes sick, Zen goes on a candy-fueled rampage to collect debts from the corrupt gangsters that owe money to her mom.
I was reading an article called “Shutdown: A Specific Type of Meltdown” written by Gavin Bollard this morning. Shutdown is a pretty hard thing to put into words, but he did a pretty good job of it. Technically, there aren’t too many differences between meltdowns and shutdowns. Both are extreme reactions to everyday stimuli. … …
