My last post about language was prompted by some of these interesting posts about language.
- Real Social Skills has the most informative and contextually sensitive post about person-first and identity-first language that I’ve yet seen.
- Meanwhile, Neurodivergent K reminds us how often autistic people get yelled at (by abled people) for not using person-first language
- And so does Unstrange Mind (Content warning: lots of talking about abuse)
There was an article recently in New York Times Magazine about children who “recoered” from autism by reducing their visible signs of autism to a certain level after therapy. I’m not going to link to the article, but here’s Chavisory taking it down by explaining what life ends up being like for children who go this route.
- Steven Kapp has another response, with more methodological detail.
Meanwhile, here’s some interesting “what it’s like to be autistic”-type posts:
- Dani Alexis on animism
- Feminist Aspie on the myth of autistic people being unable to lie
- E from The Third Glance on disclosing without disclosing
- Alyssa from Yes, That Too on understanding mental states
Some intersectionality:
- The Autism Women’s Network is Kickstarting an anthology on the topic of autism and race. This is awesome.
- Speaking of autism and race: a while back I posted a link to an article about undercover cops in the US preying on developmentally disabled teens by pressuring them into agreeing to a fake drug deal, then arresting them. Turns out it’s even worse for developmentally disabled Muslim Americans; the FBI entraps them into agreeing to help with fake terrorism.
- On a completely different note: Virginia Hughes on the sexual politics of autism. (Note: This article is pretty medical-model-y, and is exclusively about researchers rather than the viewpoints of autistic people. Proceed with caution. I’m linking mostly because I find it interesting to see what the researchers are arguing about these days, and because it might be useful for newbie/NT readers who have seen gender-related research claims and want context for them.)
And some pan-disability stuff:
- Real Social Skills on what disability acceptance means
- Everybody is talking about mental illness and depression now following Robin Williams’ death. I’m not going to post much on this topic since I’m certain it’s already been plastered all over everyone’s social media feed in great detail. However, if you’re interested in this topic, here is a much-needed post by Jo from Ether Drift Theory reminding us that it’s not only about depression.
- Here is a Disability in Kidlit roundtable about what not to do when writing disabled characters.
Misc:
- Here is an ASAN toolkit for managing health care during the transition to adulthood.
- Cynthia Kim on backstopping: a useful skill for our close friends and caregivers
- A shout-out from Mel Baggs to atypical Aspies. (Oh man. I fit, like, six of these.)