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Author: Mark Haddon
Paperback: 224 pages (April 1, 2004)
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0099450259

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon is a Whitbread Book of the Year winner and its cover is weighted with praise. I was given this novel as a (very) belated Christmas present and on asking why this particular book was told that I would probably enjoy and find fascinating the narrator’s voice. Now, I’m neither a quick reader nor someone who will read “anything” – and I knew nothing of its surrounding media “hype”! I sometimes have a few books on the go and depending on my mood will choose the one whose rhythm and style fits. As soon as I picked up The Curious Incident…I was so taken by it and – indeed – the style and voice of the narrator that I could hardly put it down. This is unusual. Normally I can’t read when other people are around or the television is spewing out its vapid inconsequentialities (okay sometimes it’s a great medium), or there is the odd, arrhythmic and almost disharmonic uttering of a computer game. But I was “in there”. Transfixed I was, very curious indeed and funnily enough definitely in tune with the rhythm of the novel. I say funnily because the narrator – Christopher Boone – suffers from an acute case of Asperger’s Syndrome* whose thoughts are marshalled in short, ordered sentences and who is trying to navigate a very curious and at times hugely frightening world.

Christopher has constantly to make sense of this, our, world. His thoughts are precise and usually logical; though he has aversions to particular colours and will “read” things into certain patterns – i.e. four red cars in a row equals a “good day”. He sees the detail in all things– almost as if he is under the influence of a hallucinatory drug. It is as if everything is a problem – everything is too much – a sensory overload that causes him great pain.

As we read and inhabit his mind, his rhythm of life, we feel something of the intensity, the illogic of our own. He is gifted at mathematics and requires absolute order to function properly. He doesn’t like touching people and cannot tell a lie. Because he doesn’t tell lies he has an innocent charm. Also in order to live reasonably he needs to break down everything into manageable sections of order and logic. There is a real feeling of isolation and an unbearable and very concrete barrier between him and others. And yet we understand why he is the way he is – because the narration unfolds clearly the process of his thought – thus to some extent we inhabit his mind.

He is like a romantic poet without the poetry – and yet there is a kind of poetry in the book; a poet makes you view the world differently or makes the common-place extraordinary – I think Christopher does this. But his poetry is unconscious. We are forced into his world and the clear, innocent logic of it makes our world often seem hysterical and nonsensical. Sometimes it is as if his skin has been removed and he is left raw to his environment. No wonder he doesn’t want to touch. To touch would be unbearable. And because the world “shouts” at him he has to withdraw and find peace in internal complication. Puzzles, timetables, chess etc. gives him some relief. Also we can only wonder at his acute mathematical intelligence. He is gifted – but the price of his gift is heavy.

The Curious Incident is not, I stress not, a depressing book. Far from it. When I read the last sentence I had a smile on my face. The appendix, which carries a mathematical equation (that Christopher had worked out), humbled me. I wouldn’t want to have to pay the price Christopher has for his way of thought but I finished the book thinking about people and their thoughts slightly differently.

How complicated does life have to be? What kind of a world have we – the “sensitive” people (those who think emotionally and who can touch each other) created? And yet if Christopher were to invent a world (in his favourite dream everyone dies except those like him; therefore he never needs to be near people) it would be very ordered and cold. I am uneasy with this statement because as you read the book you tend to feel instinctively that Christopher has a great locked-up chest of emotions. But am I being fanciful? He cares for animals and it is the “murder” of a dog that sets him on a life-changing course. But it is the idea that an ordered, imposed world kills emotion, excess, subtly, nuance, that stays with me. We might live in a crazy world but it is an exciting world. Cruel and frightening too – if you don’t obey its covert rules. And through the novel we see the effect of Christopher’s condition on the adults who care for or surround him.

The novel is driven along by some nice twists (in our expectations) and there is plenty of movement within it. It makes you think about life without being heavy. The title of the book and elements within it (often explicitly) refer to Sherlock Holmes’ detective adventures. Christopher admires Holmes for his cool calculations but despises Conan-Doyle the author for his sentimentality and belief in the supernatural. Christopher is encouraged to write his thoughts and thus the story by a social worker at his school – this gives Haddon the opportunity to throw in a few ideas about the nature of writing and hand over authorship of the Curious Incident to “Christopher” – giving distance and credibility.

One thought I have had since finishing the novel is the seeming absence of puberty on Christopher. I have no idea if this is unduly affected by Asperger’s Syndrome or not but would be intrigued to know. All of us become somewhat “obsessive” during these years and there must, at least, be a potential affect upon a sufferer of autism.

* Asperger’s Syndrome seems to identify a form of autism where the children have a very high IQ

Reviewed by Tim Bragg

Wikipedia Asperger's Page

Posted via email from HikiCulture – A Forum for Reclusive People (and Hikikomori) {hikiculture.com site blog}

The movie “Mozart and the Whale” is a love story about the relationship between two young people with Asperger’s Syndrome.  Asperger’s is an autism spectrum disorder. The prevalence of the disorder is in the neighborhood of 71 in every 10,000 children. One of those 71 includes my eldest son.  The term “spectrum” is very appropriate.  My analogy is of the electromagnetic spectrum, where visible light is so very different from microwaves or radio waves, yet all lie within the same spectrum of waves. The different severities and types of “autism” make the term limiting and inadequate.  Regardless, my hope in watching the film was to gain some insight into the world in which my son resides.     

Sadly, there was no such revelation, at least, nothing Earth shattering or life changing as I had hoped.  I came to understand the objections many “Aspies” (people with Asperger’s) seem to have with the movie. Many of the portrayals in the film were more like caricatures rather than characters. However, the film did deliver some enlightenment for me.  The title refers to a scene when the couple dresses up for Halloween.  It is a time when they have the opportunity to wear a costume while the rest of their lives they are simply unable to hide their true selves like the rest of us.  They cannot mask their insecurities or hide behind any pretense. Their social inability and emotional awkwardness is magnified and always out for display, and they cannot hide, as we do, behind our laughter, laptops or lattes. The movie reminds me that the quality of a personality is NOT the quality of the person.

The end of the film has the young “autistic” couple happy and together.  I could not help but to think of my son and my hopes for his future happiness.  I’ve come to realize that the dreams I have for him are only mine and not necessarily shared by anyone else, particularly my son.  My expectations also belong only to me along with my biases, prejudices and judgments.   In the days to come I’ll try to look upon my son and recognize the courage he has in having to live without a mask while so many of us cannot survive without one. 

Two of my favorite quotes from the film…

“ ’attraction’ is a whole package”

“..you can’t disappoint me. Because whatever you are…is exactly what I want.”

Stephanie Lynn Keil reprinted the ASAN New England testimony on aversives, and I just have to link to it as well. It is very unfortunate that Sara Willig was unable to say what she wanted to say at the hearing. I hope her testimony comes to the eyes of legislators anyway. They need to know that the abuse occurring at the Judge Rotenberg Center and other institutions is counterproductive to treatment, harmful to the physical and mental health of people with disabilities, and a violation of their human rights. Restraints and seclusion should only be used in absolute emergency situations, where someone’s physical safety is in immediate danger, and there really is no alternative. (I’ve been meaning to write a post on staff perception of emergency and lack of alternatives re seclusion for awhile, but I’ve been in a very bad state lately so couldn’t get myself around to it.) Restraints, seclusion or aversives should not be used as “treatment” – they are not -, and should not be used as substitutes for proper care. Electric shock should, in my opinion, be banned, since it is a cruel and unusual punishment (yes, I know that part of the constitution applies to criminals, but I don’t see any reason why people with disabilities should have fewer human rights). Heck, I find it hard to believe this is even legal in the U.S.; in the Netherlands, the only legal reason to use electroshock is in electroconvulsive therapy for some treatment-resistant cases of depression, under strict conditions, and with as little discomfort to the patient as technically possible. It is about time U.S. lawmakers wake up and finally implement legislation seriously restricting the use of abusive “interventions”. And I’d hope they won’t use the soft-spoken, politically correct, open-ended mumbo-jumbo we have here regarding restraint and seclusion.

I recently had an opportunity to observe a classroom of 18 – 20, pre-K, Kindergarten and 1st grade children mostly with autism.  The teacher in charge, with the help of two aids, was working to transition the class from a relatively unstructured activity to a planned learning activity.  This particular day the class was really high energy.  The director of the school had supplied several of my Digital Aquarium DVDs to the teachers and she decided to give it a try.  One of the aids started the Digital Aquarium on a large screen television set centrally located at the front of the classroom and dimmed the lights about 25-30 %.

Within 5-6 minutes the children had calmed down and focused their attention on the fish swimming across the TV screen.  The included music seemed to help the process as well.  Shortly thereafter the teachers were able to raise the lights and begin the  previously planned learning activity.

I stumbled upon a blog post by Jessica Ruvinsky autism as the next step in evolution. First of all, I want to say that I can’t stand what I call neurelitism, that is, the view that autistics are somehow superior to neurotypicals. This view dismisses the fact that autistics actually do have serious problems. Some of these believe that autism is the next stage in evolution. Really, if any autistic believes that they personally are the next step in human evolution, maybe they should consider getting fifteen children to make sure their genes get passed on. After all, if you don’t have children, you play absolutely no part in evolution at all.

Ruvinsky correctly states that there is no reason why any individual autistic should be the next step in evolution. Evolution, after all, doesn’t play on individuals, but on species. Genetic mutations happen spontaneously, and get passed on through the generations if people get children. Therefore, if people with one particular genetic mutation, are more likely to reproduce than others, it is likely that this mutation will increase in the population.

It is, however, highly questionable that autism is increasing at all, and if it is, that this could be some kind of mass genetic mutation. It is far more likely that autism diagnoses are increasing as a result of more awareness, broadened criteria and more people with the autistic neurology getting stuck in a rapidly complicating society (in western cultures at least). If the autistic neurology is truly increasing, it is far more plausible that environmental factors are at fault than genetic factors. Autism is far too complex a genetic construct to be able to have evolved spontaneously within the last, say, two or three decades. It is possible that, as a population, we are slowly getting more “geek genes”, which may in an increasing number of cases (due to diagnostic factors) be referred to as Asperger’s Syndrome or autism. But it is pretty much impossible that the genetic make-up of autism truly involved out of the blue since the 1980s.

There is one more premise behind the next step in evolution theory: autistics have a reproductive advantage. I honestly don’t see any reason to believe this. Even people with mild forms of autism are statistically less likely than NTs to be in intimate relationships. I don’t know how they magically get all these children that will account for an evolutionary leap, somehow, in the course of many generations. Of course, it is possible that some genes that occur in autistics are reproductively advantageous – I don’t know which or why, but it is possible -, but I don’t see any reason why the complex genetic make-up of autism should be in any way advantageous in evolution. And even if it were, at some point, in so many centuries, that is not a reason to start calling autistics the next step in evolution now.

This is the story of Sam, a 10 year old boy with Autism. After many tries with various medications, his family decided to give medicinal marijuana a try.  You be the judge.

Yesterday was a very crazy day.  Play. Decorate. Meltdown. Play some more. Watch a movie. Rake some leaves.  Meltdown some more.  Finally, we topped it off with a trip into town to watch the Startlight Christmas parade.  All in all, the day ended on a good note.

I haven’t been able to shake this cold nor the headache that comes with it.  I blame that on these constant 4am sometimes 3am wake-up calls I’ve been getting these last few  months. I’ve been trying to chip away at catching up on my sleep whenever I can.  John took Alec to run errands this morning and I was able to get Matt to fall asleep.  Finally! My time has come.  I lie down. Nothing.  I am so tired yet I cannot fall asleep.  It’s not one of things where I have a billion things running through my mind causing me to stay awake.  Of course I have many reasons to have anxieties but I am much too tired to even think about them at this point. But I still can’t fall asleep. It’s like my body has become adapted to staying awake even when I am beyond exhaustion.  After about 30 minutes of just lying there, I gave up.  Fine! I won’t sleep then!  At least I can enjoy the few moments of peace and quiet while Matthew naps.  So as soon as I  get up, Alec and John come walking in the door. So  much for peace and quiet.

John immediately walked over to the couch, kicked off his shoes, layed down, and was asleep in seconds.   Why can’t I fall asleep fast like that?  Oh well, at least it’s still peaceful. Right now Alec is playing quietly with his toys while the other two nap.  I will enjoy this moment for I know, it may end soon. 

Gary McKinnon, Asperger Syndrome, obsession with UFOs, and the wounded pride of Empire

by Jim Gordon

Update, November 28, 2009.

The most recent decision by the Home Secretary to allow the extradition of Gary Mackinnon to the United States is not surprising. The absence of ethical content and responsible moral control in the decisions of the current government, its wholesale capitulation to the demands of the United States that US security concerns give carte blanche for political and military pressures, and that country’s now expedient assertions about the importance of international law, come together against the ironic and morally tragic exposure of US and UK complicity that now forces seasoned diplomats, facing public enquiry, to openly question the legality and legitimacy of the war in Iraq.

I have little to add to the reflections I offered in August. Except this. I am ashamed of the failure of the UK government to protect its own citizen. I am ashamed of the lack of moral courage and legal wisdom on the part of the Home Secretary and the Government which, if they are now over a barrel because of a bad law, were the very Government that drove through its approval. Either way, Gary Mackinnon should not be the one to bear the cost of ill conceived legislation enacted by a supine legislature administered by a domesticated administration.

Gary Mackinnon’s mother asks the right question – if her son’s Asperger’s condition and his current distress, which no one denies, do not constitute a fundamental threat to his well-being such that it compromises his human rights, then what in fact does? “How does a British citizen claim asylum in his own country?” is one of those twisted legal questions that exposes the nonsense of the Home Secretary’s position. Rightly, this country does not send people away if they face a credible theat of serious harm abroad. We have had no medical report published by the Home Office indicating Gary Mackinnon’s health will withstand the trauma of extradition. The impact of edxtradition, trial and sentence on a person with autism whose sense of self and the world is so fundamentally different, is so obviously severe that it would rightly be called inhumane. At which point I want to repeat here my post from August 1, and stand by each word of it.

…………………………………………………..

Disquiet. Unease.
A persistent mood of ethical anxiety.
Discomfort like toothache of the conscience.
Awakening suspicion that something is wrong.
Hard to place and hard to ignore anger.
An inner resistance to saying nothing.

1. No one denies that Gary McKinnon hacked into US computerised defence systems.
2. Computer hacking is bad enough. But to compromise high level national security systems is by any standards a matter of serious concern. In most cases it is also a matter of criminal intent and is rightly treated as such by the relevant legal and judicial systems. (Perhaps the vulnerability of such high level computer systems to attack from an amateur UFO researcher in the UK raises questions of incompetence or negligence which are themselves definable as criminal).
3. Extradition is an important legal process of national co-operation and of reciprocal help between nations in ensuring that it isn’t possible for people to escape justice by virtue of living in another country. But for a nation to give up its citizens to another such laws need to be secure, fair, reciprocal and reviewable to avoid anomalies and injustice.
4. National security is the top of the agenda concern for the Unitred States for reasons that are obvious; the 9/11 attack and the determination to secure again the safety of the homeland, and as its inevitable corollary, the widespread hostility to the US and the UK amongst many Muslim countries and communities, many of the radicalised, following the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions by US and UK troops backed by other non Muslim nations.

So for Gary McKinnon to breach the supposedly elaborate security hardware and software of the Pentagon and other defence facilities, with their lauded military standard fail-safe systems, at such a sensitive time, raises questions that are both worrying and embarrassing for the United States and its global reputation. Somebody needs to pay.

Add now to these observations the equally undisputed fact that Gary McKinnon is a person with Asperger syndrome, obsessive about UFOs, and that his patterns of behaviour are classic expressions of a condition that essentially defines his way of relating to the world. Then ask what questions this raises about the legal and moral implications of a decision to extradite him to the United States, to stand trial for actions he does not deny, but which are explained by a pre-existing condition that is by definition related to compulsive behavioural patterns, and when the likeliest outcome is an inevitable and long jail sentence.

And this because the UK has a treaty with the United States intended to ensure co-operation in dealing with serious crime and terrorist threats, but which was intended for people with ambitions to kill, not persons with an autistic spectrum disorder. Add to this that UK Judges, charged with upholding the law, while acknowledging the severe impact of extradition on this man’s mental health, which they themselves admit may be life-threatening, suggest nevertheless it would not be a breach of his human rights to extradite him to the United States. I find it profoundly ironic that Judges appointed to uphold law, including international and human rights law, take at face value “assurances of appropriate care”, on the very same day it is reported that evidence about whether or not the CIA and british Intelligence knew of or were involved, directly or indirectly, in the mistreatment and alleged torture of a British citizen, could not be heard in a UK court, on the direct intervention of Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State. Human rights indeed! I am not reassured by the cynical ambiguity of the term “appropriate care” for someone who has so embarrassed the might of the United States, and whom the US sees as a continuing security threat.

I’m not arguing that Gary McKinnon should not face up to the consequences of what he did. He himself recognises that. But given his condition, there are issues of justice here that are deeper than the desire to put on trial, convict, sentence and make the public power statement that seems to be so important to the US authorities pursuing this extradition. The law is not there to serve the political interests of Empire, as instruments of power at the disposal of the state. Justice fundamentally involves using just laws justly, and for the purposes they were intended. Justice, and therefore moral and legal accountability, takes into consideration a person’s capacities, intentions and ability to recognise how personal acts have social consequences. The proper administration of justice requires the law to take into account the reality of a person’s medical condition and the impact of that condition, in this case autism, on a person’s recognition of boundaries and the overall context of their actions – or why not arrest and try persons with Tourette syndrome for using obscene language in public space? As David Cameron said yesterday, in the application of law, justice is not incompatible with compassion in our ways of dealing with people. That is particularly important in a world where compassion now seems to be massively discounted, and hard edged “justice” understood as legal retribution is considered a high value virtue. Mercy does not undermine law, it enhances its authority, demonstrates its value to the community, and quality assures its expression for the public good.

What I miss in the judgement of the judges, and in the reiterated refusal of the Home Secretary to allow a trial in the UK, is the moral courage to discern more deeply, the mature wisdom to decide more humanely, and thus to raise our respect for the law as that which serves us fairly and well. Under this present Government, for all its hyped up claims about making our country more secure, our own citizens are considerably less safe. In the political and cultural background, can be heard the remorseless grind of the machinery of Empire, armoured and determined that those who threaten it will feel the full force of the law. Even when a particular law is badly framed, inadequately qualified and increasingly recognised as open to political manipulation.

That’s why I’m suffering from

Disquiet. Unease.
A persistent mood of ethical anxiety.
Discomfort like toothache of the conscience.
Awakening suspicion that something is wrong.
Hard to place and hard to ignore anger.
An inner resistance to saying nothing.

We went to our first Christmas party this evening. It came as no surprise that after 30 minutes Heidi was showing signs of being overwhelmed and we left shortly thereafter.

My solution to Christmas overwhelm for the last two years has been a tent set up in the loungeroom providing a safe place for Heidi to retreat into.

So this evening after we got home from the party the first thing I did was get the tent out and put it up in Heidi’s bedroom… not enough room in the lounge now that husbands office has been turned into Annie’s bedroom and all his computer stuff is in the lounge along with the hammock, trampoline and my recliner…. I’m not even sure where we are going to put the Big Pink Christmas Tree this year.

Tent as usual worked a treat in calming down a very overwhelmed young lady.

From November 2009

Yay for our Pink Tent and a big THANK YOU to Uncle Adam for buying this tent all those years ago for my girls, it has been a godsend.

I’ve been looking forward to today for ages, Mr Lacer gets paid = Mrs Lacer finishing the Christmas shopping. I have been doing some, in dribs and drabs, but I needed a concerted burst and this year is the first year where I’ve had enough time to myself during the week, where I could do my Christmas shopping during the week, not that that was that much difference between how crowded the shops were mind you.

So, I dropped Boy Lacer off at nursery, where he immediately joined up with his “special friend” who he has been playing with for a little while now, except he calls the special friend Abigail, despite his special friend being actually a boy and me repeatedly telling him what the boy’s name is. In fact for a while I had thought he had made two friends in nursery, his friend plus this Abigail, but it appears possibly as if they’re one and the same. Or there may be an Abigail and he’s just interchanging the names, because as the speech therapist explained earlier this week when I said he was pretty useless with names, that he probably doesn’t think it’s important to correctly link the name with the person (an example of this is that he’ll randomly use the name of one of Girl Lacer’s many friends to refer to any other of her friends, regardless of whether he’s actually got the right name or not). Anyway they make a sweet pair of friends, at least for the moment.

So, off I went on my merry way into town, with the complete and utter naivety that getting £80 out of the cash machine would cover everything (I just had Girl Lacer’s main Christmas present, plus the majority of the stocking fillers to get), huh, first stop was Early Learning Centre and the total came to nearly £70! Having said that did include Girl Lacer’s main Christmas present and the majority of the stocking fillers.

Girl Lacer was hard to buy for this year, at least for the main present, partly because she is quite easy to please. Last year (in reception) they had written letters to Father Christmas, completely unbeknown to the parents I hasten to add, so when Christmas came and went and Father Christmas failed to deliver what was in the letter (because ‘Father Christmas” hadn’t seen it!) that did result in some confusion. So this year I’ve been trying to get her to write her Christmas letter at home, but she, like I say, is easy to please and just says she’d like some ‘toys’ and there I am, without much of a clue and wishing I had some hints, although thankful she still says toys because I know quite a lot of 6 year olds who are already not that interested in toys, which is sad, kids grow up so quickly these days. I am thankful that we don’t have satellite TV, so that although my kids have an overfondness for toys branded with CBeebies characters (Charlie and Lola – as usual and Timmy Time, will be featuring heavily this year), they aren’t swayed by toy and computer game ads on the commercial channels, they also aren’t that swayed by their friends, who all seem, other than a mild interest in High School Musical and an obsessive collective interest in superheroes, not that swayed by fads either. Whereas from what I’ve heard from friends further afield, all there kids want this Christmas is a toy hamster and a DSlite. I doubt Girl Lacer even knows what a DSLite is and long may it stay that way because when she starts asking for one of those, ouch, my poorly projected budget wouldn’t get anywhere near and introducing just one DSlite into the house would cause so many fights between Girl and Boy Lacer, as I said to Mr. Lacer, “We’d need two”, to which he replied “No, we’d need three”, i.e. he’d want one to. Me? I’m just happy with my iPhone.

So what did I get Girl Lacer in the end? A toy farm, despite me promising myself I wasn’t going to get one for lack of space. I just remember having a toy farm at Girl Lacer’s age and loving it so much and you never know, next year she may actually know what a DSLite is.

So other than the toy farm, Father Christmas has been quite the bibliophile this year and has brought some beautiful books and would have brought more but (s)he had to control themselves. I dislike getting very cheap plastic-y toys for stockings, they rarely last beyond the day itself and therefore I see them as false economy and not particularly helpful to the environment. So, other than the books, there is some crafty stuff and some puzzles. I need to get some underwear (Father Christmas is being really boring this year) and some sweets nearer the time (otherwise I’ll eat them). And so, even with those fairly minimalist stockings, they still were over my £80 budget, thank goodness I’m making the rest of my presents!

Anyway, after struggling back with the shopping, I picked up the kids (having gone back home first of course to drop off the shopping first, I can imagine the scene if I’d turned up at the school gates with a very large, very recognisable to the kids, Early Learning Centre bag, I could not have explained that one away) and had to go to the corner shop, as with all that shopping, I didn’t actually have time to go to the supermarket. On the way back we popped into the local library where they were holding a small exhibition of local historical photos, which were absolutely fascinating. I live in a large late 1930s housing estate and they had copies of the adverts advertising the then new estate and early photos, plus photos going back even further to the early 1900s and it was fascinating to see how little had changed, I guess a benefit of living in a fairly old part of London. It was also fascinating to see the house ads, particularly the description of the kitchens and the bathrooms. The bathrooms were billed as having ‘interesting’ choice of tile colour schemes, hmm I can imagine. The kitchens were described as having (and I can’t remember what they called it, but it sounded like the 1930s equivalent of putting John Lewis kitchen in housing particulars) something anyway, along one wall in the kitchen. It basically sounds like a block of kitchen units, so ahh that explains a lot, as you may know, me and my kitchen do not get along, it’s way too small and that’s because it was designed to just have one bank of units on one wall! I’ve always known, after living and house hunting in an area with predominately 1930s housing stock, that 1930s kitchens are small because back then they didn’t have to plan for the dishwasher, washing machine and the large fridge freezer (we house hunted one flat where the kitchen was literally so small we couldn’t actually fit in a full size fridge freezer, let alone anything else and we knew that if we were to buy that flat we would have to do major building work first, we were so tempted, only having a 9 month old baby at the time, put us of). But our kitchen is so badly designed, two full width rows of unit and overcrowded with wall units, we have such plans (that involve money sadly).

Cutting-edge technologies are about to enter the marketplace, thanks to a new partnership between Gestion Univalor, Limited Partnership (Univalor) and Cognitive Sensing Inc. (CSI), a privately owned technology company based in Montreal.

Four University Of Montreal Discoveries To Be Commercialized By Univalor And Cognitive Sensing Inc.
(author unknown)
Fri, 27 Nov 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Carolyn Quist goes over flash cards with Chandler Garrard Tuesday morning in the West Elementary School autism class.

Parents pleased with school district’s approach to autism
(author unknown)
Thu, 26 Nov 2009 08:47:25 GMT

Today I had the luxury of a whole day to myself…attempting to fill out Josh’s disability living allowance form! OH MY GOD ! My dreams of putting my feet up with a family pack of Maltesers and an OK mag were dashed in the first hour of the first attempt at filling out the first page of the blinking thing. My child’s national Insurance Number, apparently VERY important. I waited for a good 25 mins to speak to a real person at the office of Work and Pensions, as recommended in the guide notes. Vivaldi had already notched up three seasons by the time a real person came on the line, only to enter a long cold spell of Winter when I was put on hold once again for the real live person to find a real live number for yet another department….to eventually be told that as he is under 16 he has not been given a number! An hour down the pan, and my detox is standing up well afterall ( no chocolate, no caffeine, no sugar, no wheat, no dairy…am starving!!!).It took all day to complete the first ten  questions, not even half of the form.

I had to repeat, again and again, how J needs to repeat, again, and again, certain rituals, in certain ways. For example, he will only go up the stairs if I stand behind him, and he touches the same parts of the wall each and every time. If I attempt to challenge this need, all hell breaks loose. I’d rather learn the dance instead!

On another page we did it all over again, only this time in the bathroom. J has to wash his hands in a certain way, turn the taps on in a particular order, run them at a particular speed, and turn them off again, just so. It is the same as he dries himself, and so too when he cleans his teeth.

When he gets dressed the operation needs to be performed in a particular order, and tights figure quite a lot!

All of this I had to repeat, over and over, again and again. A familiar pattern emerging, and there I was thinking I had a day off.

And he may still be turned down!

I’ve been quiet because the last couple weeks have been rough.  Without going into too much detail, there was an incident at school where G inappropriately touched a female classmate.  Not it a sexual way, more in a typical-for-G poking way, but still not good.  The other parents are understandably upset.  The school psychologist spoke extensively to G and DH and I went back to basics with regard to discussing private areas and personal space and *think* we have it handled so there won’t be a repeat occurence.

DH apologized to the other parents, although they were not exactly receptive to our apology.  We live in a very small town so we’ll see them often which makes this situation more difficult.  And for the last 10 days I’ve been having a hard time getting past my feelings of shame and mortification.  I’m not proud of this, but I spent a fair amount of time wallowing in self-pity and feeling depressed.

Then the other night, I had the absolute worst dream.  I dreamt DH and G were in a car crash and died.  It was one of those incredibly realistic dreams where I woke up with tears in my eyes and a feeling of overwhelming panic.  I had to check that everyone was safe in their beds and even after that it still took quite some time for me to fall asleep. 

Essentially, my psyche kicked my ass and told me to get over myself.  Since having that awful dream I’ve found it much easier to feel positive and keep my eye on our family blessings instead of obsessing on our family challenges.  You can be sure I spent time yesterday being thankful for my family, especially my wonderful G.

This short excerpt from a documentary is pretty amazing. It is breath taking what the human brain can do, I particularly enjoyed the divide 13 by 97 bit, where he beats a calculator and then goes on to beat a computer.

This video make me think about what we describe as disabilities, because Daniel has Autism, but he is clearly far better at utilising the memory and logic aspects of his brain than I am. Interesting.

I did a back to back race this weekend. I registered for the race and shine fun run due to its noble intention. I know it is a bit risky on my part since I have been running non-stop for the past week and that I also registered 10k for Botak. Me and some of my office mates decided to register because we believed in its objective and i just had to do it due to a very personal reason. 

before the race...

We arrived at the race venue at around 0545 and I was surprised to see that there were only a bunch of people in the starting line. I had a feeling that very few registered. This could be attributed to the fact that there were two races scheduled for the next day. It was disheartening… I just thought races such as this should be widely supported. 

aj, me, and RD

I saw RD before the start of the race… I introduced myself and asked for a photo-op. I learned that she’ll be running 15k. It was nice to finally meet her. 

me, RD, and febs

The route was fairly simple; there was really no pressure since I only did 5k.  My regret was I forgot to take note of my time. i guess it was sub 30… I hope they will publish the result. It would be a good redemption for the official result that the KOTR published. I still can’t get over the fact that my official time in that race was 41 minutes.

I enjoyed the run; not so many people, no long lines, plenty of drinks, and yummy breakfast.  

lots of vitwater

Finally…

ayoko sanang sumama dito

Why I hate going to the store…..Reason #2

Because its Black Friday…..need I say more?   Too many people. Too much noise.  Too little parking.  Maybe I have a little autism in me as well.

Det är ett tag sen jag ramlade in här. Mitt eget ställe och jag hittar inte ens in här. Hmpf. Dålig Zstiiil asså.

Här är fullt från golv till tak. Både i huset och livet kan man säga.
Badrummet är färdigrenoverat. Ja, med undantag från spegel och ljusramp ovanför handfatet. Det kommer när vi varit på IKEA.
Sovrummet är i princip färdigmålat och tapetserat. Nu är golvet kvar. Det är bara att slänga sig på knä som gamla husmor och såpskura golvet.. Ska bara införskaffa mig ett ordentligt förkläde först Kanske en bättre borste också. Nog för att min nagelborste är större än de flesta men inte såå stor.

Jag har en ny Bärbara Barbara. Minimonster, -även kallad Hoppochstudsmaskinen, var liksom lite arg. Han fick inte sitta och spela på Barbara. Barbara är inte för Minimonsters. Då slängde han igen toppen på laptoppen. Locket alltså. Hårt. Ordentligt hårt. Knytnäve? Troligtvis. Jaha, tänker du som läser. Och. Det är väl inget att dänga igen en laptop, det har jag gjort många gånger.
-Lägg musen mellan t-bord och lock och stäng sen lika hårt. Titta sen hur fint mönster det blir på skärmen.

Nåja, med lite hjälp från försäkringsbolaget så har jag en ny Barbara. Barbara 2 heter hon
Klart det är en hon liksom. Så mycket intelligens och kunskap så kan det inte vara något annat. Vem är det man frågar när skärp/slips/byxor/strumpor/favoritkalsongerna/osv/osv saknas och inte går att finna? Inte är det han iallafall.
För att även dra fram något negativt även om det både bär emot och är ruskigt svårt att hitta något, -så vem är det som är lynnig, humörsvängningar, dagar av absolut utomjordighet? Som plötsligt går i strejk och vägrar samarbeta.
Jodå, det gäller män också, men inte i samma utsträckning. Åtminstone inte i detta huset. Fast visst finns det sånt även hos män. Först kommer PMaS och därefter kommer mans… Perioder av manlig hopplöshet. En grinig man är en störig man. Urtråkig…
Och dessutom har de mage att klaga över vår periodiska störighet.
Men Barbara2 är fin. Mannen, dvs Genbanken valde ut henne. Vad han kan.

Självklart är det ju krångel med skolor i vanlig ordning.
Mister trivs inte i sin skola. Orkar inte med alls. Går fortfarande 4 förkortade dagar i veckan. 2 dagar är som vanligt och två dagar är ännu mer förkortade. Ändå är det på gränsen.
Vi var iväg och tittade på en skola för barn o ungdomar med autism. Första gången pojken skulle byta skola såg vi den på nätet och tyckte den verkade bra. Tyvärr sa rektorn att det var odiskutabelt för den skolan är för särskoleelever och dit hör inte Mister. Nu fick vi veta att den är för särskoleelever i första hand men om man inte har det behovet så läser man enligt vanlig grundskoleplan. Så bra tyckte vi och var iväg på studiebesök. Vi bestämde att Mister ska få titta själv och därefter ta beslut. Vi ville ju men det är bäst att ha honom med sig.

Efter några samtal med start med ett NEJ ALDRIG och hojt hojt och till slut: “jag orkar inte mer. Jag vill byta skola. Iallafall titta på den” så ringde vi om tid. Det var svårt att få tag i rätt personer och till slut fick Genbanken tag i rektorn på skolan. Då säger han att Mister är ju högfungerande och då hör han inte hit. Här är bara förskoleelever. Genbanken tog upp det att skolpsykologen har ju hållt i detta och varit med på studiebesöket. Rektorn säger att hon nog inte har lyssnat på vad han faktiskt har sagt….
Så nu har vi en Mister som accepterat och numera är redo att titta på och ev byta till denna skolan. En chans att må bättre. Fast nu kommer han inte in iallafall fast han blivit i princip lovad en plats av skolpsykologen.
Vi har ännu inte vågat säga någonting. Måste dessutom ha lite mer information om vad vi har för alternativ att röra oss med. För i nuläget funkar det inte alltför bra.

Även Decibel har fullt upp. Numera ledig varje onsdag. Nu har hon varit hemma även igår och idag. Hennes lärare verkar närma sig den berömda väggen. Igår hade han inte klarat att ta sig till arbetet.
Man ska inte säga “vad var det jag sa”. Men jag tänker det. Högt. Jag sa faktiskt det efter mötena vi har haft. Han tar på sig och får på sig för mycket.
På dessa möten är det också bestämt att vi ska få veta när det sätts in vikarie i klassen. Så att Decibel vet om det innan och om det inte funkar för henne så får hon stanna hemma. Att läraren som inte mår bra inte ringer det säger sig självt men ingen annan har ringt heller. Inte heller rektorn som suttit med på dessa möten och som lagt en hel del på läraren. Och som sitter och säger att skolan har mycket mera att försöka förbättre. Vi lyfte tanken att om det fortsätter gå neråt så kanske man kan tänka tanken att byta till Rönnen där Mister gick.
Det är ju lätt att säga att det finns så mycket när hon själv inte behöver göra det. Det lägger hon ju på läraren. Som nu är hemma….
Eftersom skolan inte informerat oss har jag heller inte informerat dom. Ser inte vitsen med att tala med en av de andra klasslärarna som inte har med saken att göra. Genbanken skulle försöka få tag i rektorn idag och förhoppningsvis få lite information om hur det blir.

I don't use the forum WrongPlanet anymore, but find it to be one of the best Asperger's forums out there at the present. It's not on par with a couple other Asperger's-related boards that I frequent, but the people there are a lot more caring and supportive than they are on some other boards I've been on.

I decided to type this blog-entry up after pondering all of the present Asperger's forums I know of and realizing that WrongPlanet, even though it has its flaws, is still a somewhat decent Asperger's forum to use.

One thing I recommend is that you stay clear of the Adult Autism Issues & Random Discussion parts of the board since they are loaded with extremely trivial threads (I created some myself back when I used to frequent the site – pretty much everyone there does.)

Posted via email from HikiCulture – A Forum for Reclusive People (and Hikikomori) {hikiculture.com site blog}

Har någon sett filmen Ben X? Om inte, gör det och om du jobbar inom skolan så bör du verkligen se filmen…

Jag är med i en filmklubb och får då flera filmer varje månad och denna gång hade jag fastnat för en film som jag trodde var en SiFi-film med en kille som gillade onlinespel… så går det om man inte läser mer om filmen än en kort beskrivning innan man ser den Dock är jag i efterhand glad att jag faktiskt inte visste att det var en drama vilket gjorde att jag såg filmen utan att veta vad det var jag skulle få se… risken fanns dessutom att jag hade inte valt denna film då jag sällan, nästan aldrig… gillar drama…

“Ben är en ovanlig ung man vars universum kretsar kring favoritrollspelet på nätet, där han är fri från skolans mobbare. I spelet är han en stor krigare som kan helas av följeslagerskan Scarlite, men i verkliga livet fungerar inga magiska krafter mot demonerna. De ständiga trakasserierna i skolan blir allt värre, men en dag hör Scarlite av sig på riktigt och vill träffas. Sakta börjar Ben komma ur sitt skal och tänker ut en aktionsplan ingen kunnat räkna med… “

Filmen är stundtals väldigt jobbig att se då man får följa Bens vardag i skolan med mobbing från småskola upp till gymnasium och får dela hans värld med Autism, Asperger och hur folk beter sej… både vuxna och barn/ ungdomar… I bland vill man faktiskt resa sej upp ur fåtöljen och slå ner plågoandarna och andra gånger vill man skrika åt Ben att använda vapen han faktiskt har till hands; att han då och då lyckas dokumentera sina plågoandar på film… men han använder inte vapnen, han talar aldrig om för andra vad som hänt/händer… och frustrationen växer hos den som sitter i soffan och tittar på filmen… Att filmen sedan bygger på verkiga händelser gör inte saken bättre!

Under filmens gång börjar man undra när han ska brista och hur… ska han göra en skolmassaker, ska han hugga ner sina plågoandar, ska han elda upp skolan?

Filmens klimax kommer på slutet och en sak är säker, efter att man har lidit med Ben och allt han fått utstå så ställer man sej upp och ropar, YES! men en knuten näven i luften!

Pappan i filmen säger en sak som är väldigt sann och som jag själv sagt många gånger när det gäller detta handikapp… De lider inte av sitt handikapp, det är andra som gör att de lider…