Well I have been questioning the concept of autistic for longer than Donna I think and I guess in a
somewhat more scientific way. I am a lot more rigourous and academic in my deconstructions than
Donna Williams however applying sociological, pyschological, and neurological thery. Just because I
see something I don't believe it is there until I can deduce it's existance logically as well as
anecdotally, and I am getting worse as I get older and read more. That's what academia does to you.
I am close to completing a paper on the way the science of autism may be erroneosly constructed,
positing my own (not unique) theory for which sadly I lack the mathematics, but then again if it
takes supercomputers to model the weather, I am hardly likely to have that ability to map the
development of the brain mathematically am I?
You can call it a fruit salad, or a bag of liquorice allsorts, personally I see it as a multi
dimensional phenomenon, that arises from the structural specificity of the brain, which is ultimatly
governed from the outset by growth funtions that once the basic parameters are in place will
construct the state of neurological complexity we currently call autism (but may well call something
else eventually).
It is the end result of a wave crashing against the shore, that arose from many points and
interactions out at sea. And like Hokusais wave, each wave has a fractal complexity all of it's own
too complex to ever completely measure or map without infinite recession.
As for me I am not stumping up the three quid to log onto the awares site, I vote out.
Larry
> -----Original Message-----
> From: The Disability-Research Discussion List
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Colin REvell
> Sent: 17 April 2008 08:38
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Donna Williams online seminar extended for second day
>
> What if there's no such thing as 'autistic'?Abstract By
> autistic author and consultant, Donna Williams
> http://www.awares.org/conferences/show_paper.asp?section=00010
> 0010001&conferenceCode=000200050002&id=170MY FRUIT SALADAt
> six months old, I had jaundice and began what would become 26
> years of recurrent infections and antibiotics. Two years
> later, in 1965 when I was 2 and a half years old, I was in a
> hospital for a three-day observation because I was thought to
> be deaf, showed no response to pain, was coughing up blood
> and had chronic infections. At the end of those three days,
> my parents were told I was not deaf, did not have leukemia
> and that the coughing was compulsive and self- inflicted. I
> was assessed as a psychotic infant and sent home. In the
> 1970s, I was labelled by the school as emotionally disturbed
> and by 1972 was still being tested for deafness at age 9.
> Then it was finally explained that I could hear but not
> understand language. Gesture and the use of representational
> objects was brought in, by 1973 I was put on zinc, C,
> multivitamin-minerals and began to understand speech with
> meaning. I began to use functional speech (previously
> jingles, songs, lines from TV shows as happens in Semantic
> Pragmatic Language disorder - essentially a product of
> visual-verbal agnosia). My parents used mirrors, coloured
> light bulbs, there was swimming and skating and swings and
> nobody stopped me tapping, rocking, rubbing, flicking or
> smelling things for recognition or posting my 3-year-old
> little brother down the stairs (though my mother did insist
> on zipping into a hooded jacket with a pillow up his back for
> protection). In my 20s, a psychiatrist noted that I was
> agnosic, I was diagnosed and treated at allergy clinics with
> gut, immune, metabolic disorders. I was formally diagnosed
> with autism (not Asperger's on the basis of a significant
> receptive language- processing disorder) and a few years
> later assessed byeducational psychologists as having a visual
> perceptual disorder. In my 30s, I had cranio-sacral therapy,
> Mc Timony Chiropractic and Brain Gym for neurological
> integration problems diagnosed by a brain injury clinic,
> dreamwork hypnotherapy for PTSD, OCD-related obsessional
> thoughts, Exposure Anxiety, Social Phobia and Generalised
> Anxiety issues and finally medicated (very low dose mood
> leveller) for a collection of mood, anxiety and compulsive
> disorders. I have relatives on both my father's parents'
> sides of the family with coeliac disease, ADHD, bipolar
> disorder, dyslexia and a few diagnosed with Asperger's and
> another diagnosed with autism. On my mother's side are
> Colitis, agoraphobia, addictions, rage, depression, suicide,
> sociopathy and violence. I have the artistic, idiosyncratic
> personality traits from my father's side, the solitary and
> vigilant personality traits from my mother's side, which
> makes me stereotypically a pretty autistic personality
> whether I also had autism or not, and a self-sacrificing
> trait from my paternal grandmother which can make me look too
> giving to be stereotypically autistic. I'm a kinesthetic,
> musical, logical thinker and a solitary learner. I'm not
> designed to fit the mainstream. Do I still have the same
> autism issues I had all along? To a degree, to a lesser, and
> less compounded, and more managed degree. Am I still
> autistic? And which 'autistic' am I? Can any of my issues and
> their management indicate what may help others, perhaps more
> severely autistic than I am? For now, I'd like to demonstrate
> what has led me to question whether there is such a condition
> as 'autistic' at all. Questions for Donna Williams (AS YOU
> CAN SEE BELOW YOU HAVE TO GIVE DONATIONS TO PUT A QUESTION TO
> DONNA
> WILLIAMS)http://www.awares.org/conferences/registration_update
> .asp?conferencecode=00020005§ion=000100010002
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