“The Message Between the Words” by Grayson Bray Morris, published in Waylines.
I recently stumbled across a new online speculative fiction magazine: Waylines.
They seem to be associated with Clarkesworld (note the link on the bottom of the main page), but I”m not sure about their relationship.
Anyway, I found one of the Waylines stories particularly well done:
The Message Between the Words by Grayson Bray Morris.
To me, this is what science fiction should be. Continue reading
Autistic individuals tend to use different areas of the brain (yellow) for a movement task compared to a control group (blue). Powell K. Opening a window to the autistic brain. PLoS Biol . 2004 ;2(8) :E267. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0020267. PMID 15314667. PMC 509312. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I just came across a great article: Person With Autism Manages To Do Something on the Illusion of Competence blog.
This is a satirical article inspired by the story of an experienced hiker, who happens to be autistic, who got lost in the desert and was found alive and well three weeks later. His rescuers claim he was found in part because “autistics are often drawn to water”.
Of course, his autism had nothing to do with it, other than the initial unwise decision that got him into that situation. He knew he needed water to survive in the desert (who doesn’t know that?), and being an experienced hiker he knew how to find it, as well as how to find food.
The point of the article is that “autistic people are considered so exotic and mysterious that you can say pretty much anything about autism in a news article and get away with it”.
It’s sad, really. Autistics are just people whose brain is wired a little differently. It doesn’t give them magical powers.
What do you think?
I’d really like to get some feedback from more experienced bloggers on this. I’m into my fifth month of this blog now. It’s been growing slowly but steadily—32 followers now (not sure if this includes those using the rss feed, as I don’t think there’s a way to track them).
The problem is that starting last month my traffic stats took a big dive. This shows up most clearly on the monthly summary, taken two days ago:
WordPress traffic stats
My question is what caused the sudden drop off in traffic in June? Continue reading
English: Managing emotions – Identifying feelings (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I said I was going to write more about my personal experience living with Asperger’s, but so far I haven’t done it. Joe Bunting’s recent practice on empathy got me thinking about it again. So here goes…
Aspies are often seen as lacking empathy because of their difficulty in expressing their own emotions and interpreting the non-verbal communications of others. I don’t believe this is necessarily true. It’s certainly not in my case.
One definition of empathy is: “the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.” This refers to the internal feelings of the person experiencing the empathy, not the external display of those feelings. This is the key distinction. Failure to demonstrate empathy is one of the cardinal attributes identified by Dr. Asperger. Aspies often fail to show empathy, but that doesn’t mean they don’t feel it. Continue reading
