6. This study was approved by the Lausanne University Hospital Ethics Committee

Yet in the introduction to the paper, the authors acknowledge that ‘Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) [sic] often report that looking in the eyes of others is uncomfortable for them, that it is terribly stressful, or even that “it burns”’

It’s interesting that their citation for this is a low-effort listicle of sixteen quotes from Autistic people on Facebook (https://themighty.com/topic/autism-spectrum-disorder/why-eye-contact-can-be-difficult-for-people-with-autism/), suggesting to me that they don‘t take our suffering seriously

If they (and the ethics committee) really believed Autistic people’s accounts of the discomfort, stress and even physical pain associated with eye contact, would they really have encouraged Autistic participants to look lots of people in the eye??

Maybe they would: they say in the Discussion section that ‘our direct comparison of the same dynamic facial expression seen freely or with a fixation cross is the most direct evidence of the mechanisms by which direct eye-contact may be experienced as stressful in autism’

#EthicsInAutismResearch #ableism #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs #ActuallyAutistic #EyeContact

Schon wenn ich "eine Firma Autismus erklärt" lese, frage ich mich über die Qualität von der Erklärung. Es gibt so vielen von uns, die es gut erklären kann, dass wir keinen Firma braucht.

Ich würde gerne einen Namen haben. (DM)

@ShinoMe

#autismus #nothingaboutuswithoutus #actuallyautistic

This, shared by @jbenjamint, should be good news for Scottish Autistics :audhd:

https://www.inspiringscotland.org.uk/autistic-adult-support-fund/

I hope the Scottish APOs (Autistic People’s Organisations) below will have access to the fund

• Autism Understanding Scotland, https://www.autismunderstanding.scot
• Autistic Mutual Aid Society Edinburgh (AMASE), @amase
• Autistic Rights Group Highland (ARGH), https://arghighland.co.uk
• Diversified, https://www.diversified.org.uk
• Scottish Ethnic Minority Autistics (SEMA), https://sema.scot

(If any of the APOs besides AMASE has a fediverse presence, I’d love to know! Also please let me know if there are any APOs I don’t know about)

#ActuallyAutistic #AllAutistics #AutisticPeoplesOrganisations #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs

The ‘people with allism/neurotypicality’ meme, turning the tables on allistics/neurotypicals, feels more pointed when the phrase is ‘people with not-autism’

Or it could just be the way Purple Ella does it: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGJgptdJ7/ 🪢

(CW: eye contact)

#ActuallyAutistic #AutisticAdvocacy #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs #AutismSpeaks

The ‘people with allism/neurotypicality’ meme, turning the tables on allistics/neurotypicals, is more pointed when the phrase is ‘people with not-autism’

Or it could just be the way Purple Ella does it! 🪢

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGJgptdJ7/

#ActuallyAutistic #AutisticAdvocacy #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs #AutismSpeaks

@disability@a.gup.pe @disabilityjustice@a.gup.pe @disability@beehaw.org @DisabilityJustice@chirp.social

hi everyone. i am a presenter at the #NCILconference #NCILconference2023

gonna be talking about why its important for #CentersForIndependentLiving
to be lead by #Disabled people. #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs. as well as the importance of leadership in #DisabilityRights spaces by people with #IntellectualDisability and #DevelopmentalDisability

if you'd like to chat hmu. i'd love to connect!

#DisabilityJustice
#IndependentLiving

I just watched Neuroscientifically Challenged’s YouTube video on autism – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEBsTX2OVgI – part of a playlist on ‘Pathology & Disorders’

By watching the 2-minute video, I hoped to gain some insight into my neurology, or at least enjoy learning some new brain facts. I was disappointed, and left this comment:

—✁—

I have been binge-watching your 2-minute and 10-minute neuroscience videos for the last couple of days, and have found them very educational and enjoyable. I’ve only just dipped into the ’Pathology & Disorders’ playlist, and thought it would be interesting to know more about what neuroscience currently says about Autistic brains and how they are different from allistic (non-Autistic) brains (or at least what can be said in 2 minutes).

So I was dismayed to see my neurology so lazily characterised.

• Autistic brains are neurodivergent (differing from the neurotypical ‘average’ brain), not ‘disordered’. This is a biased value judgement.

• Having an Autistic brain is not a disease, so there are no ‘symptoms’. Traits perhaps.

• I don’t have ‘impairments’ in social communication and interaction. I simply communicate differently from neurotypical people. See for instance research by Catherine Compton at the University of Edinburgh: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1362361320919286 and https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.586171

• So-called ‘restrictive and repetitive behaviours’ are actually either things that we’re passionately interested in, and things that give us pleasure, or coping mechanisms we resort to when we’re under extreme stress, which may go unnoticed by neurotypical people because of our very different sensory profiles.

• We are not ‘individuals with autism’. We are Autistic people. There are many reasons the vast majority of Autistic people prefer this way to describe ourselves, the main one being that most of us couldn’t imagine being, and wouldn’t wish to be, anything other than Autistic: there is no ‘autism’ we ‘have’ that we could do without.

• Talk of the ‘risk of autism’ plays to this idea that being Autistic is undesirable. (Oh, and the risk of being neurotypical is also strongly influenced by genetics!)

• My brain probably looks a lot like yours: it certainly isn’t made out of brightly coloured jigsaw pieces. The so-called charity that this imagery is linked to is reviled by the Autistic community. We prefer to use our own symbols, notably the gold infinity sign.

I hope you can take these comments on board in the spirit of constructive criticism. I really appreciate the rest of your videos that I’ve watched thus far.

#ActuallyAutistic #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs #neuroscience #pathology #AutismSpeaks

@actuallyautistic

∀y (y → P)

All y is a necessary condition.

ro da poi broda cu ckini lo du'u ro da cu broda

"P represents the proposition or condition that is deemed necessary. The expression "y → P" means "if y, then P," which signifies that P is a necessary condition for y. The universal quantifier ∀y indicates that the statement holds true for all y in the domain of discourse".

#Lojban
#ActuallyAutistic
#NothingAboutUsWithoutUs

I was just having a discussion with @lauravivanco about aphantasia and SDAM: https://mastodon.scot/@lauravivanco/110729611947017752

I am aphantasic and have a very different kind of autobiographical memory from that of other people I’ve spoken to

But then this occurred to me:

Why should I accept Brian Levine’s 2015 (yes, 2015!) coining of the term ‘*severely deficient* autobiographical memory’ for this aspect of my neurotype?

Being Autistic, I’m pathologised by the medical model as having a ‘autism spectrum *disorder*’

And being an ADHDer, I apparently have an ‘attention *deficit* hyperactivity *disorder* (yeah, get two Ds in there, why not!)

Yet many Autistic and ADHD activists who subscribe to the social model of disability and the neurodiversity paradigm are making inroads into persuading at least some academics and clinicians to treat us as disabled, not disordered, not deficient – just a different kind of human, not humans that have gone wrong

My aphantasia/SDAM (I have a strong hunch they go together) may have strengths and weaknesses in comparison with the imaginative capacity attributed to the mythical ‘normal’ person

But because it’s out of the ordinary, it has to be called *severely deficient* by the gleeful (probably) neurotypical researcher, doesn’t it!

In 2015!

Still!

#aphantasia #SDAM #SeverelyDeficientAutobiographicalMemory #neurodiversity #SocialModelOfDisability #ActuallyAutistic #ActuallyADHD #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs

#Wheelchair users react to new Delta airplane seat design. https://www.cnn.com/travel/delta-flight-products-wheelchair-airplane-seat-design/index.html
#DisabilityPolicy #InclusionMatters #WomenWithDisabilities #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs #DisabilityJustice

#Wheelchair users react to new Delta airplane seat design. https://www.cnn.com/travel/delta-flight-products-wheelchair-airplane-seat-design/index.html
#DisabilityPolicy #InclusionMatters #WomenWithDisabilities #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs #DisabilityJustice

The geological period that no one talks about: #menstruation in the field https://blogs.egu.eu/geolog/2023/05/12/the-geological-period-that-no-one-talks-about-menstruation-in-the-field/
#NothingAboutUsWithoutUs #WomensHumanRights #WomensHealth #accessibility

The geological period that no one talks about: #menstruation in the field https://blogs.egu.eu/geolog/2023/05/12/the-geological-period-that-no-one-talks-about-menstruation-in-the-field/
#NothingAboutUsWithoutUs #WomensHumanRights #WomensHealth #accessibility

#WomenWithDisabilities must be at the table to be part of the decision making and part of implementation. Without their voices, we are losing out. We need more #women leaders. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/05/13/1174089463/when-getty-began-losing-her-vision-as-a-girl-she-was-told-her-life-was-over-wron
#NothingAboutUsWithoutUs #InclusionMatters #RepresentationMatters #DisabilityJustice #blind #Ghana

Thank you to everyone who came out and supported this cause! #TogetherWeArePowerful #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs #mapoli 🌎 QT @MiriamWasser: https://nitter.it/MiriamWasser/status/1671651923575951364#m

What parking reform means for people with #disabilities https://usa.streetsblog.org/2023/03/22/what-parking-reform-means-for-people-with-disabilities/
Any transportation proposal that doesn’t center the needs of people with mobility challenges has no place in the movement to end car dependency, particularly in a car-dominated community with few other options to get around.
#AccessibleParking #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs #DisabilityPolicy #RepresentationMatters #DisabilityInclusion

Casting people with facial disfigurement as confident and capable would help to change negative attitudes and false misconceptions. Continuing to ignore, exclude, or misrepresent us perpetuates the stigma, prejudice, and discrimination. https://faceequalityinternational.org/2023/04/advertising-excludes-women-with-faces-like-mine/
#FaceEquality #women #girls #disabililty #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs #WomenWithDisabilities #WomensHumanRights #InclusionMatters #RepresentationMatters

Casting people with facial disfigurement as confident and capable would help to change negative attitudes and false misconceptions. Continuing to ignore, exclude, or misrepresent us perpetuates the stigma, prejudice, and discrimination. https://faceequalityinternational.org/2023/04/advertising-excludes-women-with-faces-like-mine/
#FaceEquality #women #girls #disabililty #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs #WomenWithDisabilities #WomensHumanRights #InclusionMatters #RepresentationMatters

#Seoul #SouthKorea leader of #DisabilityRights protests arrested on illegal demonstration charges. In a show of protest, Park put himself inside a cage with prison chains around his neck during the press conference, saying #disabled people should have the same rights as others. Police mobilized a special bus with a wheelchair lift to move Park, who has a physical #disability. https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20230317004500315?section=national/national
#DisabilityJustice #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs #InclusionMatters #DisabledAndCapable

#Seoul #SouthKorea leader of #DisabilityRights protests arrested on illegal demonstration charges. In a show of protest, Park put himself inside a cage with prison chains around his neck during the press conference, saying #disabled people should have the same rights as others. Police mobilized a special bus with a wheelchair lift to move Park, who has a physical #disability. https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20230317004500315?section=national/national
#DisabilityJustice #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs #InclusionMatters #DisabledAndCapable