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...

Life is okay, if more than a little hectic at the end of this first month. With one month down, I'm 11 months away from my MFA in Film and Digital Technology. Though things might happen and things do go wrong, so far I'm on schedule and things are going well —— though I'm exhausted and working harder than I did for any other degree. Because the MFA requires projects every week, this isn't as easy to schedule as writing. Even researching a paper can be done from the comfort of home, at any hour. You cannot make movies by yourself, at any time of day. It doesn't work that way. Filming takes time, and often requires a team of people. It's not comparable to working alone on a degree in writing or rhetoric. The team-based nature of film is exhausting for me, but I enjoy the results. I also like the practical nature of the skills being taught. You either learn how to adjust ISO, f/Stop, shutter speed, and other variables or you don't. You can have theorie...

School must  be better today than in the 1970s or 80s, right? Especially since we know so much about autism. Probably. Maybe. Or it is bad in different ways. As students, teachers, support staff, administrators, and others head back to campuses across the United States, I anticipate the annual questions about what to expect. Unfortunately, there are no good or easy answers that apply to everyone. Be sure you know what your rights and your student's rights are, and are not. They vary by age, type of school, and state. Remember that federal regulations are only minimums, and states can have stricter requirements for providing supports to students with special needs. Learn what you can about the alphabet soup of legislative requirements and federal programs. IDEA, ADA, IEP, OSEP, OVR, and so on. Work with  teachers and administrators, not against them. Start by asking how to help them help you and your student. What documentation does the school need? What is or isn...

In response to several queries from friends, a bit more elaboration on my plans. I applied for a number of teaching posts and have now received the standard letters proclaiming an "overwhelming number of highly qualified candidates" for each opening. The decision to not teach part-time as an adjunct, at least for now, was best for me. I'm too tired to drive two hours (or more) to teach one class in the fall for 80 minutes. Also, teaching part-time where I wasn't renewed full-time wasn't going to be comfortable. (The hiring process still angers me.) The pay was fair, but the situation would not have been healthy for me. If I teach again, it will be somewhere more welcoming. My passion remains creative writing, and the rhetoric of stage and screen — followed closely by the visual rhetoric of page design (including digital "pages"). Give me scripts, sets, and camera angles. I'll ponder what makes a great play vs. a great movie, and how both are...

Your disability does not give you the right to be a jerk. This isn't going to please some advocates, but I am tired of people willing to exploit their challenges to get their way and push others around in the workplace, in school, or in public settings. Jerks exist, with and without special needs, and I am convinced that a jerk is a jerk, period, but one willing to use a challenge to gain leverage does harm to the cause of advocates and other disabled people. I'll be the first to admit that some people will judge those of us asking for any accommodations as jerks. I've been told that it isn't fair or isn't reasonable if I ask for a trackball instead of a mouse or if I ask for an office lamp (or bring my own) so I can dim the overhead fluorescent bulbs. I get that asking for anything different leads some coworkers to feel you're getting special treatment. That's also why I believe workspaces should be flexible, so everyone can create whatever space work...

Although I am complaining lately that my syllabi, lecture notes, quizzes, and homework prompts have yet to be finished, the reality is that I look forward to the start of school and the return to scheduled, predictable days… and a paycheck. I'd be content sitting at home and writing. That would be my perfect existence, except I also need money for food, shelter, and some entertainment. Teaching about the topics I enjoy is a pretty good compromise for survival. I enjoy teaching, since it does connect to my passions. School for me isn't about seeing old friends or being in familiar surroundings. Instead, it is about the books and the opportunity to learn. The idea that I'll be challenged to learn something, to try something, that's what excites me. As I've written many times, the "year" is an academic year in my mind. July starts the new year, as I receive class assignments and start preparing for the first days on campus in August. The year ends wit...

Now, for some paradoxes about where we choose to live. Greater Pittsburgh, as a community, has proved to be a great place for my wife and me. The region, which includes parts of West Virginia and Ohio, offers excellent opportunities for people like us. But, those opportunities come with a cost. Before reviewing the toll I pay for working in Pittsburgh, I wish to list the amazing benefits of the Steel City: I teach at a top-ranked research university, among the best in the world; My plays have received public readings (and, soon, stagings) by some of the most supportive actors, directors, and crews possible; I can walk large sections of the city, after I find parking, avoiding mass transit; and My office is a short walk from one of the largest urban parks in America and the Phipps Conservatory. But, cities still exhaust me. As a result, I commute an hour or more each direction so we can live in the exurbs. People consider where we live to be "country" though I co...

Hamerschlag Hall is one of the principal teaching facilities of the Carnegie Institute of Technology (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) For the 2014-15 academic year, my title will be "Visiting Assistant Teaching Professor of Business Communication." Reading this long title on my contract, I considered how labels and titles, beyond "disabled" and whatnot, shape how people view us. And so, an analysis: Visiting: not expected to remain; a guest; a traveler heading elsewhere. Assistant: working to aid others. Teaching: responsible for educating, with any research duties subordinate. Professor: respected for past academic accomplishments. Business Communication: specializing in workplace communication, instead of academic discourse. The full title implies my role is to teach classes in the business school so other professors can focus on research. It is a temporary post, one that many scholars hold at an institution before locating a permanent position. ...

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...

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...

Last week, I started preparing for the fall 2013 class I am teaching at a local university. Working on the syllabus this week has been a "good thing" because it justifies, at least a little bit, the time, money, and energy invested in the doctorate. The school routine has long been comfortable, a familiar grounding for my mind. The "year" to me remains the academic year, with August marking the start and June marking the end. I'm not sure what July is, other than filing the last year away and preparing for the upcoming year. School was not fun or enjoyable for me as a student. I was just another student, neither one of the popular people nor a complete social reject. I wasn't part of any clique, not even among the honors students. I had friends and people with whom I shared interests. As a teacher and professor, I enjoy the classroom. The workplace remains a challenge, but I anticipate it being much, much better at the new university. In part, that...

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....

As we head back to school, I find the anxiety overwhelming. The start of each year is like starting a new job, with new colleagues (students) and new routines. Time to learn new people, new schedules, new classrooms, and even a new office. I'm now in my third office, in a third building and I haven't yet reached a year as an instructor at the university. The change is constant, as the institution is trying to redefine itself in two different (and sometimes contradictory) ways. That's not really a topic for this blog post, but turmoil and confusion in higher education also make each year more of an adventure than I would like. When I was young, the new year seemed like part of the routine. I'm from a small Central California community; the school was the center of the small community where we lived until I was in high school. Even after moving into the "city" we remained in the same school junior high (now "middle school") and high school distri...

I met Heather Conroy just before the 2011-13 school year. The university where I teach had asked me to reach out to two students diagnosed on the autism spectrum and consider how we might support those students. I contacted a Pittsburgh organization specializing in supports for high school and college students, which led to a meeting with Heather and one of her colleagues. I encourage readers to visit her website, http://www.heatherconroy.com , for some information. - - - 1. I'd like to begin with a short introduction to my readers. How did you decided to specialize in helping young adults with ASDs navigate the school setting? A: I began working in the field, as many practitioners do, by working with young children with autism. Later, when seeking a field learning placement for my social work degree at The University of Pittsburgh, I wanted to do something slightly different and was amazed at the astounding capabilities of the college students I worked with at AHEADD (Ac...

Readers know that my first passion is writing, followed closely by a dozen or more other interests. From computer programming to typography, my interests are broad and lack a "disciplinary home" within most academic models. When I'm not writing, I'm trying to learn more about the dozens of topics that interest me. I am a writer, but I hate to be limited to one label as if that's all I can or should want to be. Modern universities are discipline-based, with departments and programs hiding behind ivy-covered ramparts. The concept of a computer programmer and Web designer with a passion for creative writing isn't easy for the university model to embrace. You're supposed to have a narrow research specialty and a similar teaching interest. Few professors are fortunate enough to teach across the disciplines, even though many institutions market themselves as "integrated across the disciplines" and open to unusual mixes of talent. In private indus...

I'm reading Aaron Likens' Finding Kansas while I am revising my eBook A Spectrum of Relationships . I mention my project because I was updating the section on relationships at work when I reread Aaron's essay "Work" and found myself reflecting on how difficult workplaces can be for people with autism spectrum disorders. I certainly find workplaces confusing. Aaron's struggles in the workplace feel all-too-familiar. The gray areas are annoying. The interactions with others are exhausting. Honesty often backfires, and kind people are too often punished for doing what seems right. Because we seek to understand people, asking questions about coworkers is how we sometimes try to navigate and anticipate how people might interact with us. The problem with seeking information is that it can seem like gossip. Maybe it is "gossip" to others, but autistics are simply trying to learn the rules others seem to know intuitively. I end up wanting to avoid peo...

Many of the comments I receive regarding the blog are sent to me directly. For some blog posts, the majority of comments are not posted to this blog, though some might appear on Facebook or via Twitter. I have wondered why some topics lead to fewer public replies. Last night, a question asked concerned my previous post on being uncomfortable among writing and rhetoric professors at a conference. Did I believe the discomfort was related to autism? Is it an autistic trait to be uncomfortable in some academic situations? That's a good question. I know my personality and I know what autistic adults told me during my doctoral research: I do fit the stereotype of preferring academic subjects that are "apolitical" and "objective" in nature; the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) subjects are comfortable. I'd add to that list business, architecture, film production, and similar fields that stress applied knowledge over theory. Though I am a writ...