Continued from part 1 After spending just two weeks as an academic liaison for twenty-two people on the Autism Spectrum (and getting a sense for their inner lives), I started to observe my own behavior more closely. I’m very sensitive to sounds, colors, movement, and social cues — I love patterns, numbers, and being alone, and I have intense (often excruciating) empathy. I wondered: Am I … Read More
Can I do this job? In early 2006, I got a job working as an academic liaison for a group of 22 college-aged students on the Autism Spectrum. My job was to help the students with all of their academic needs: scheduling, counseling, learning accommodations, tutoring, social services, transportation … I was hired to create a total support system under and around the students so that … Read More
Back on April 2nd, I posted on World Autism Awareness Day and wrote about my sense that my friends on the Autism Spectrum didn’t have a problem with their mirror neurons (oops! see the comments section for an update). Instead, I felt that they had a problem with sensory overload. And I’m not the only one! Neuroscientist Ilan Dinstein and colleagues performed an fMRI brainscan study … Read More
The United Nations has declared today World Autism Awareness Day. Excellent! I had the opportunity to work with a group of young adults on the Autism Spectrum, and in order to get ready, I read everything I could get my hands on. Autism has been described as a form of “mind-blindness” by British psychopathology professor and researcher Simon Baron-Cohen … as a lack of function in … Read More