The Autistic Me

Academic departments in the humanities rarely understand the social impairments of autism. These departments are, by their nature, social places — quite unlike some departments in the STEM disciplines. I’ve blogged repeatedly that STEM fields tolerate introversion and even social awkwardness, but not the humanities. This claim is based not only on my experiences, but on dozens of interviews with graduate students and terminal degree holders. The autistic students and professors with whom I’ve discussed this problem point to the underlying philosophies and pedagogies of the humanities. Group work and discussion are the norm, which might be good unless you struggle with group dynamics or conversation cues. If you pause to interpret speech, speak too quickly or too slowly, if your tone remains flat or sing-song, then you don’t fit into the “style” of the discipline. Autism features an impairment of social skills and interpersonal connections. Any academic skills the autistic might have...

Navigating school requires social skills, and often the most successful academically are also successful socially. Despite the stereotypes of jocks and nerds, geeks and goths, consider actual data. To participate in athletics, a minimum GPA is required. I recall the star athletes from my high school and today those individuals are doctors, lawyers, and teachers. They were involved in student government, and later joined organizations at their colleges and universities. The "privileged" students had time to participate in sports, music, drama, and student government. They were raised in reasonably secure and successful households. They understood the rules of high school and, later, the universities. The balanced academic and social skills, leading to academic and professional success for themselves after high school. The student who can feign admiration for a teacher or professor? She does well, for some reason. Teaching assistants at the university particularly see...

I realize my blogs (not only The Autistic Me) have been slow throughout 2016. Life has a way of consuming more hours than exist in the day. My "to-do" list exceeds any realistic amount of time I might have each day, week, or month. If all goes well, in December I will complete my Master of Fine Arts in Film and Digital Technology. I'll have completed the degree in a year, with a few extra units. I completed five classes this summer, which was an insane workload for anyone. During the summer, we also juggled personal health issues for my wife and me. I ended up with an overnight stay in the hospital just as my classes were ending and I was starting a new part-time teaching post. That is how this year has been. In the coming months, I'll write some reflections on 2015 and 2016, but right now I'm simply trying to keep up with school, teaching, and a part-time job I took to help pay some bills. It is all a bit overwhelming some days. I don't like disor...

This fall was a respite of sorts from academia while I concentrated on writing and considered my path ahead. For the last few months, I've been working on a mix of screen and stage projects, while also collaborating on some creative writing projects. As December ends, I'm returning to both academia and corporate life, which will reduce my creative output significantly for at least 2016. I'll be completing my MFA (master of fine arts), something I started before my doctoral studies. If I complete the program, I'll have an MFA in Film and Digital Technologies, which will complement my interest in screenwriting and "transmedia" theatrical productions. At the same time, I'll be doing some corporate consulting to pay for classes and some home renovation projects. My consulting work will be as an ADA compliance expert for Web, application, and new media content. This work aligns wonderfully with my doctoral research and my dissertation. Working on projects...

Yes, our lives continue to be "normal" middle-class suburban lives. We sometimes feel that there's too much happening, but then I listen to other couples and friends and realize how rather routine and uncomplicated our daily routines are. Many of my friends and neighbors are returning to school in their 30s and 40s. The job market, improving slowly, requires more and more educational achievement to advance. For me, this means considering an MFA in Film and Digital Technology to add to my existing MA and PhD. My struggles in the academic job market are not about autism or disability (though there is an element of "you don't conform to our norms"); the academic job market is badly broken. Our house still needs some work, and there are things I like to change. Again, many of our neighbors who have been in this new development for as long as we have don't have every box unpacked or every room painted. Apparently, it takes more than four years to move in...

I received a question via email about a statement in a 2011 blog post: from  Autism and Higher-Education Rights  (May 2011) Legal Implications of the DSM-V Revisions Some disability services expect a sudden and rapid expansion of the number of students qualified for services when the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the APA is published. The DSM-V is not finalized and its affects are still being debated by mental health professionals. Regulatory agencies, including the Dept. of Education , use the DSM-IV to define disabilities. DSM-V updates "Autism Spectrum Disorders" — potentially expanding the number of individuals diagnosed. Universities must accept DSM-V criteria or risk losing federal funding. While the DSM-V is not perfect, and many of scholars remain critical of its approach, courts and regulators tend to defer to the DSM as a minimum guide for diagnoses. A college or university can offer greater flexibility, but the DSM is likely to serve as a bas...

Sex (Photo credit: danielito311 ) "Did you fool around in college?" the parent asked. "I suppose. I missed classes once or twice. And I liked to go to the beach." "No, I meant… fool around  with girls." Parents stumble into this question more ways than I could have anticipated when I started to write and speak about autism and education. No answer I can offer based on personal experience can capture what another college student might experience. Every student is different. I entered college as an honors student, with all the "geekiness" that implies. I was also socially awkward in general, as readers of this blog can appreciate. During college, I lived in a special residence hall with faculty members living among students as mentors. It was not a "normal" experience, I recognize. Some gifted students, some autistic students, are charming and will have active social lives. That is likely to include normal sexual experien...

One of the questions I was asked this week was how colleges should deal with autistic students who are too tethered to their parents. A college advisor explained to me that she has met too many students on the autism spectrum living on campus who rush home every weekend, and sometimes during the week, instead of making the transition to independent living. "The parents make matters even worse. They call us, they call residential life, they call professors, and they'll even call deans. They don't trust us and they don't trust their children." Okay, parents. Stop it! Just STOP IT. LET GO. As your children head back to school, at all grade levels, you need to accept that your child will stumble a few times throughout the year. He or she will have to deal with stressors that are academic and social. The classroom and the campus are social settings with plenty of difficult lessons for all students. Your job as a parent is to be a safety net, not a safety ha...

Note: This post is part of a continuing, irregular series on writing and autism. (See: Autism and Writing ) Autistic writers struggle with "abstraction," according to the limited research available. I would love to conduct more research on this topic, since I also dislike abstractions in writing — yet I am a creative writer. The signs of this challenge with abstraction include: Using figurative language poorly or incorrectly, an issue associated with "undeveloped" metaphorical thinking (and second language learners) What does this reveal about autism? More importantly for students with autism spectrum disorders, how can you pass required writing courses if you don't even understand what writing processors consider "mature" writing? Based on my experiences, most writing teachers cannot appreciate how autistics experience written language. What's an Abstraction? An abstraction is any thought that cannot be readily converted to a concrete met...

Autism Society National Conference  July 10-13, 2013 David L. Lawrence Convention Center Pittsburgh, PA http://www.autism-society.org/get-involved/conference/conference-sessions.html Title: Collaboration Conundrum: Mastering Group Projects At School and Beyond Content Area: Social Skills Target Audience: Adolescence and Adulthood Understanding Level: Intermediate Description: Schools and workplaces embrace collaboration, assuming that groups engaged in brainstorming, crowdsourcing, and agile development produce better ideas than individuals. Although new scholarship raises questions about the benefits of collaboration (Cain 2012), our cultural bias towards extroversion and social interaction means navigating collaborative projects is an important life skill for autistic students and adults. Schools claim to appreciate different learning styles, but they overlook different social styles. This presentation explores how autistic people can succeed in collaborative...

Two years ago, I posted on the topic of "Writing and Autism" because teachers and students were asking me for suggestions to improve grades on written assignments. I posted two entries, and then redirected people to the Tameri Guide for Writers , which my wife and I maintain. Many of the issues I might address for students with ASDs and other challenges were similar to what I observe for most students. Something about the way we teach writing in the K-12 system fails to prepare students, and students with disabilities struggle a bit more with writing. My doctoral dissertation raised questions about how well autistic students navigate academic writing, especially at the college level. The mandated first-year composition courses common in our universities carry a number of assumptions about what is "normal" and what is the "right" way to think about the world around us. Some of the classic scholarship in writing studies makes claims about thinking and pro...

I have a draft book chapter due March 15. It is an important project, whether I remain in academia or not, but I am finding it difficult to complete the draft to my liking. Some call this being "stuck in neutral" because little progress is made no matter how much I try to accomplish on this project. The project is outlined, I know what I am trying to communicate, and it needs to be done quickly so my wife can review it and I can submit a good draft. The problem is that I have accepted that my academic career seems to be ending, at least the full-time, tenure-track career I had hoped to have. Writing this book chapter, then, must be motivated by the hope that it will influence others, encouraging faculty to consider students with special needs. Consider the irony: I'm writing to faculty about inclusionary designs, while I never felt "included" within academia. It is hard to write about classroom designs and the challenges students with special needs en...

I am cross-posting this blog because it overlaps issues important to the autism community, rhetoric instructors, and those teaching with technology. It is a personal issue, for me, and one that reminds me how apart from "normal" society and dominant pedagogies I am as someone with a neurological challenge. The following contains generalities, and there are always exceptions to generalities. But, my experiences and those of adults with cognitive differences I have interviewed do support my claims. Contrary to what some might assume, many teachers in the humanities (though certainly not all) are extroverts. I've found the opposite is true in most science and technology fields, with the introverts outnumbering the extroverts. Statistically, there are personality traits that dominate various disciplines. There are political views that dominate, too. There are scholarly studies of the political views of professors (Gross and Simmons, 2007) and personality types within dis...

A new study seems to support the stereotype that autistic students and scholars are drawn to the STEM disciplines.  Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Participation Among College Students with an Autism Spectrum Disorder , by Wei, Yu, Shattuck, et al, indicates I am not alone in being drawn to the STEM fields. While I love writing, and consider myself a "writer" before most other roles I might have in life, even my writing tends to embrace my "geekhood." I am a geek. When I'm not writing, I'm experimenting with programming tools, new hardware, and reading all I can on websites like Slashdot and Ars Technica . My bookcases reveal my split-personality: books on art theory sit above books on database programming. I tell myself that programming is simply a special form of writing, but few of my colleagues in English or communications would agree. The idea of a programming poet confounds people, especially in an academic world with traditional di...

There are several claims I hear about employment and autism. Some of these claims are generally true, some are definitely myths, and all of them are dependent on many variables. No job is ideal for every person with an autism spectrum disorder, and not all autistics fit stereotypes about skills and interests. In this post, I want to explore the idea that an academic career is somehow a better fit than other careers. Is academia an ideal place for an autistic person? That's a complicated question. Writing this post is probably not the "smart" thing to do professionally, but the topic is important to many families and individuals. I've read several articles suggesting academia is a haven for autistics. Is it? Q. Which academic setting is being considered? When we discuss academic settings, we should admit that there are a nearly infinite number of settings. Not only do grade levels require different types of teachers, but so do different types of institutions....