And Now We Celebrate! April 2nd is International Autism Awareness Day, but really, if you’re not aware of autism yet, where have you been? The cool kids have already moved on from mere awareness to inclusion, acceptance, and love. We’re celebrating Autism Acceptance Month. Many of my friends in the autism community find mere awareness campaigns to be painful, because the messages about autism tend to … Read More
Where do we go from here? We are in a new and deeply troubling world, where pundits, writers, philosophers, social scientists, and spiritual leaders are churning out endless opinion pieces about how we got here. We’ve all been consuming these opinions, and that’s a natural response. But I don’t know if it’s helping us regulate and ground ourselves. I want to focus on the current emotional … Read More
Celebrate the Full Spectrum! April 2nd is International Autism Awareness Day, but I have to say, if you’re not aware of autism yet, where have you been? The cool kids have already moved on from mere awareness to inclusion, acceptance, and love. We’re celebrating Autism Acceptance Day, Autism Acceptance Month, Autism Acceptance Year, Autism Acceptance Decade (and Autism Acceptance Eon, while we’re at it). Many of … Read More
Your approach affects your data — strongly In my research for my master’s thesis (I received my M.Ed. in December), I did two things: I created the first-ever survey study that asked for autistic people’s responses to education that had been developed for them, and; I looked for autism-positive research that focused on autistic ways of learning. I did very well with my first project, and … Read More
The truth is this: you live at work. If you count up your hours at work and add in your commute, and then add the time you spent becoming trained for your career, you’ll find that you’ve spent more time at work than in any other place. Basically, we all live at work — yet for the most part, the work world has not created a … Read More
Hello! I’ve completed graduate school, and I’m now Karla McLaren, M.Ed! My master’s degree is in education and curriculum design with a concentration in linguistic anthropology, and my focus is on autism, empathy, disability rights, and human rights. Over the next few months, I’m going to be posting pieces of my own research and the excellent research I’ve found. For instance, if you’d like to explore … Read More
There is a tremendous amount of structural injustice and inequality occurring, and when a structure is unjust, it’s important that people learn how to think structurally in order to change the system. The concept of privilege can really help with that thinking, unless … I’ve been noticing a lot of anguish and conflict occurring in my online communities about the word privilege. White privilege, male privilege, … Read More
Providing responsible information about suicide When famous people commit suicide, and breathless news reports glorify or confuse the situation, there is the danger that others will follow their lead. Careful and sensitive reporting can reduce this risk, and providing straightforward information about depression and suicide can help suffering people find help. If you are feeling suicidal here in the U.S., you can contact the 988 Suicide … Read More
When people think of empathy, they tend to see it as a soft skill — as a yielding and pleasing kind of behavior. They think: If you listen to me and agree with me and make me feel good, that’s empathy. If you fix my problems and soothe everything, that’s empathy. Empathy equals niceness. But there’s actually a deeper form of empathy that transcends mere niceness … Read More
Balancing empathy for others with empathy for yourself When I talk about empathy, I tend to use the words healthy and intentional a great deal of the time. If your empathy is unintentional, and you’re not sure how it works, it can be very easy to enmesh yourself with other people’s emotions and needs — to the extent that you ignore your own. You can lose … Read More