@neurowonderful / neurowonderful.tumblr.com
Disabled Beauty Portrait for Myth
Timelapse:
It’s my boys and me 💚 Look at the gorgeous background (inspired by my tattoo)! The colours! Boo and Jiji’s handsome little faces!
I can’t recommend Michaela and their art highly enough. You can find more of her work (image described) here: https://www.ogrefairy.com/
Hello, I would like to ask why so many autistic children become so attached to screen time. I know the formal reason, I am also aware that all people can become attached to television, video games, or a tablet. I suppose my question is how do you engage an autistic child when they only want to watch tv, play video games, or play on a tablet? They do not care about toys, books, or anything else other than jumping. How do I become part of their word if they don't want to be bothered?
It’s always difficult to provide good advice based on the amount of information that will fit in a tumblr ask, so my response will be fairly general, but I hope still useful to you.
It sounds like you’re feeling a lot of pressure to engage with your child in the perceived “right” way. I think that’s the crux of the issue here.
When we say that parents can and should become a part of their children’s world, that statement should be taken at face value. It doesn’t mean, “craft a perfect, Today’s Parent-approved world around your child.”
Your child’s world is currently watching television, playing video games, and using a tablet. Quality children’s programming teaches story structure, facilitates echolalia and language development, and models friendship and how to navigate social situations. Playing video games develops hand-eye coordination, teaches problem solving, and builds confidence. A tablet is exactly what you make of it and the apps you put on it.
It also sounds like you are feeling resentment, which is neither productive nor necessary. That’s on you. As a parent, your job is to support and love your child. That means that you need to manage your emotions. Journalling, therapy, and self-care are ways to do that.
Now, instead of thinking of screen time as inherently bad and toys and books as good, consider what ways you could meet your child where they are at and use their interests to facilitate learning. Try offering different kinds of apps: there are apps that teach music, drawing apps, apps to make simple animations, apps that allow you to track the flight of airplanes, apps that show you the stars above you right now. There are apps that even read children’s books and allow kids to read along.
Keep offering new things, and see what interests take hold. Always have captions on, so that television time is also teaching literacy. Provide video games in different genres and using different mechanics. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box or feel constrained by what is typical or arbitrarily “age appropriate” when it comes to interesting or educational apps, games, etc.
Play video games with your child. Ask them about their favourite apps. Discuss the plot and themes of the television shows they watch, and try “writing” an episode of their favourite show together. Jump together. Talk about how and why jumping feels good to their body. Talk about why they like what they like. Keep engaged.
And most importantly, remember that there is no right or wrong way to have a childhood, and that the problem is not that your child “doesn’t want to be bothered.” They are not trying to frustrate or disappoint you. The problem is that you are clinging onto expectations.
Let go and just meet them where they are. It takes more thought, more intention, and more care, but it will be a lot more fun and bring you closer.
sometimes i feel like the only autistic person who is interested in sports. (and then i saw the most recent thing you reposted and apparently lack of interest in sports is common, which was isolating to read tbh) is that true, do you think?
Not at all. An autistic friend of mine is a self-professed jock, very spatially/athletically inclined, and has participated in lots of different athletic type activities and sports. There are lots of autistic people who are interested in sports.
I’m sorry that the common autistic experience of being apathetic towards sports has been isolating for you, but I promise that you’re not alone
Dear Amythest, for starters I want to say you're very smart. I have Autism or Asperger Syndrome by old name, and I have learnt more about Autism and myself thanks to you. Keep on making Youtube-videos and writing blog. My question is: is it normal if an autistic person doesn't have special interests? I have many interests and hobbies, but not really a special interest. The closest things to special interests are writing poems, jellyfishes and walking.
Thank you.
If by normal you mean, “it happens” then yes, that is normal. Fixations, special interests, passions, obsessions, whatever you want to call them are a very common autistic experience, but not a universal one.
If by normal you mean “okay”, like, “am I a valid autistic person?” then yes. You are so dang valid. Keep doing you. Poems, jellyfish, and walking are all wonderful things.
when i was in the 5th grade or so, i was evaluated for autism but the doctor said i didn’t have it but i’m a teenager now and i seem to have a lot of autistic traits and some of my autistic friends say i act autistic so.. is it worth trying to get re-evaluated or not
Honestly, probably not, but it’s difficult to give good advice without knowing *why* you’re considering being re-evaluated.
If you are autistic you do not need a professional diagnosis to identify as such, to participate in autistic culture, etc.
If it helps, I validate you :)
They’re here! Because you demanded it, and because I love you – more neurodivergent/Autistic Valentine’s Day cards! Please feel free to use and share these as you will. Just do remember to give me credit, please <3
[Image description: A series of six Valentine’s Day cards featuring bright watercolor backgrounds with complimentary coloured bars containing white text. The cards read:
End image description.]
EDIT: “Red list” references these communication badges, your red list being the short list of people who are allowed to talk to you when you are wearing the red “don’t talk to me” badge.
~poor/abnormal posture ~trouble with left, right, and other directions ~disinterest in sports/physical activity ~rituals with no outcome ~large or unique vocabulary ~lack of organization ~intense compassion/empathy ~intense anger or no anger at all ~connections with animals ~difficulty understanding pop culture, styles, trends, etc
if ur ever considering making a post being like: “when you’re x kind of disabled you get treated well but if you’re the kind of disabled I am you get treated poorly”, please consider: they hate all of us.
Growing up autistic often involves not being believed. Your experiences of being tired, stressed, and overwhelmed are constantly minimized. “How could you be tired? You haven’t done anything all day.” “How could you be stressed? You’re eight.” “Look at the other children, how much fun they’re having. If we go home now you’ll miss out on all the fun!” If you find certain tasks particularly challenging, you are told it really isn’t that hard, you just have to [brief and unhelpful description of task].
There are no upsides to denying or minimizing someone’s pain, except that it frees the person doing the minimizing from having to deal with it. Even if the child is “only doing it for attention”, worst case scenario they give their child attention. What’s so terrible about that? Because the alternative is that they are teaching their child not to value and trust their own experience, and that is immensely damaging. It can mean the child might not recognize when they’re being emotionally abused. It can lead to mental health issues, burnout, and many other problems.
Not everyone responds to a given situation in the same way. If someone tells you something bothers them, just because you’re not bothered by it doesn’t mean they’re lying or exaggerating.
Somewhere I read that a symptom of autism/ ASD is a tendency to feel victimized. Feel. And I couldn’t get that out of my head because there is a difference between saying that and saying “a tendency to be” victimized. Saying “feel” carries the implication that the victimization is in one’s head.
There’s probably a reason people with ASD feel victimized:
[Edit with more links on this topic]: Info On Autism & Sexual Assault Personal Essay On Why Autistics Are Vulnerable ABA Teaches Compliance Not Consent
So, there’s the problem. Not that autistics have a tendency to “feel” victimized.
You are a young child, and in this universe, the large majority of people communicate by writing words on paper. Unfortunately for you, your natural method of communication is by speaking.
When you speak, no one seems to understand what you are saying. They seem confused, embarrassed, and even angry when sounds come out of your mouth. Your mother publically laments your inability to communicate like the majority. The older you get, the more obvious your difference in communication becomes.
People begin to shush you, place their fingers over your mouth, or even duct-tape your mouth shut when you speak. When you enter kindergarten you spend entire school days being taught how not to laugh, exclaim in delight, speak your teacher’s name to get their attention or blurt out answers to questions vocally.
Your parents and therapists spend hours and hours pushing a pen into your hand and forcing your hand to the paper, withholding praise and affection until you do. But while writing comes so easily and quickly to everyone else, you find it nearly impossible on your best days, and an insurmountable challenge on your worst.
Along with a different natural method of communication, you have a motor disorder that affects your ability to hold a pen and write. While other children your age are scrawling out long lines of chatty dialogue, blowing through page after page of paper, it takes you six months just to eke out the letters of your name.
But you try, and you work at it— as if you have any other option. You learn to stay quiet, to not laugh or sob aloud, to put pen to paper instead of expressing yourself with your vocal cords. You find a system that works for you and your motor disorder, and although it takes longer, you find that you can communicate by carrying around index cards and using one card per word.
This means that you are constantly carrying around a backpack weighed down with packs and packs of index cards, which tires you out. Sometimes you drop your cards or lose a few, and often people will get impatient watching you lay out your lines of words to make sentences and walk away before you can answer their question. For no reason that you can understand, people can get offended if they can tell that you’re re-using your cards. There are still some days where forming letters is too difficult, or the wrong words come out.
But by the time you’re a teenager you’ve done it— you can, in your parents’ words, “speak properly”, and your parents are thrilled. Never mind that, out of ease, you often reuse the same cards over and over, even if those words don’t exactly apply. Never mind that you’ll answer “no” because it’s easier to write than “yes,” or that you’ll avoid answering at all because pulling out your index cards is such a pain.
Never mind that other people’s pens move so fast across their notebooks and their words are printed so small and close together that you struggle to understand half of what anyone says to you. You can print at all, and that’s enough.
You don’t know that there are other ways. You don’t know that some people like you speak by typing onto a tablet until one day you see the technology, featured on a sappy news story about a young non-writing child, a child like you once were.
The realization stuns you. No more fumbling with index cards, watching in despair as they catch in the wind and scatter while people look on in pity or (worst of all) laugh! No more forcing your hand to squeeze each and every hard-won letter out of a pen! With that technology, you could have entire conversations, order your own meal, ace a job interview!
When you explain the technology to your parents and beg for the chance to finally, truly express yourself, they deny you outright. No, your mother scrawls slowly, that’s for people who can’t write at all. You can write just fine! You almost seem normal now! We didn’t pay for thirty hours of therapy a week for six years for you to throw down your pen and give up.
i want you all to know that there is an artist (carmen papalia) who, after he started using a white cane, assembled a 12 foot long white cane and began using it in downtown vancouver. the length of the cane made it functionally useless as a device and the only purpose it served was making him an obstacle for sighted people. dare i say… 2019 goals
therapist to sighted patient: long cane isnt real and it cant hurt you
carmen papalia:
[id: a dimly lit photo of carmen papalia using his 12 foot “long cane” piece. he walks casually behind it. the cane takes up the majority of both the photograph and the sidewalk.]
Okay I went to a conference where this guy was a keynote and he’s so fucking cool. He’s done a ton of art around disability rights. The twelve-foot cane is really cool, but here are some of my other favourites:
From the series on replacing his cane, this is one where he replaced his cane with a megaphone and would stand at intersections repeating “I can’t see” until somebody would stop and help him cross the street
Another cane replacement, this time replacing it with a high school marching band who would change the music depending on if there was something in the way or not.
A museum intervention where he got people at the MET to go through the museum with their eyes closed and experiencing touching things he’d gotten permission to touch (the floor in this image) and just exploring a visual art museum blind.
The Blind Field Shuffle, in which he has dozens of people form a conga line behind him with their eyes closed and leads them on a blind tour of the city - literally the blind leading the blind.
Wish I could find a better photo, but this is a museum gallery he curated where the works are almost at floor height, making them accessible to children, little people, and people in wheelchairs, but requiring abled people to bend down or sit on the floor in order to see them properly.
In short, this man is amazing and I love his work.
some of y’all don’t seem to know how to appropriately interact with artists and content creators, so here’s a few tips:
1. constructive criticism is a criticism that clearly points out something you feel can be improved upon in a piece while, preferably, offering suggestions for how to improve said thing.
2. constructive criticism is not always appropriate or wanted. here’s when constructive criticism is appropriate:
3. creators are people and not content machines working ‘round the clock. they do not always want to discuss their work nor is their work their sole designing factor. it’s weird and presumptuous to assume they are open to criticism from strangers at any given time.
4. unless a creator is causing harm or being a dick, manners are not hard to have
