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For Faculty (and others) to consider in the month of April

April may be many things - Spring! - however, for many autistic people it is a month of near-constant microaggressions, assaults on our humanity, and resulting depression. Because, around the world, April is "Autism Awareness Month". Many marginalized communities have a month or day dedicated to celebrating their achievements, but April isn't like that. Instead, April is spent celebrating symbols and research, interventions and supports - celebrating the "brave and courageous souls who fight autism every day to make the world a better place." The same people who purport to love us and want to "help" us spend their time celebrating themselves and what a great job they are doing "fixing" us. And even, sometimes, celebrating research advances to rid the world of our kind. 

Imagine for a moment if there was a month dedicated to celebrating what a great job people were doing making you different from what you are - making sure that you "fit in" to society's norms - all in the name of helping you. 

In your classes this April, there will be students who need your support and understanding. They need you to know that they are feeling the pain of these messages. The messages are everywhere - on social media, on television, in the news, on the sides of buses, and even coming from their loved ones. Your student may be very much in touch with their pain or they may have an underlying feeling of disconnectedness and not really know why. You have the opportunity to be a safe person. One who, instead of celebrating autism awareness, celebrates autism acceptance, understanding, and acknowledgement of our humanity. 

You don't need to know who is autistic and who isn't to show this acceptance. Your every day actions and words in the classroom and out, will speak loudly to your students. Allowing for flexibility is the most important thing you can do. Understanding that your student may be emotionally exhausted from daily assaults which may not leave much energy for assignments or class attendance, and may not have the words to explain. 

Beyond that, here is a short list for the month of April:

If you do mention Autism - mention Acceptance, not Awareness. In your talk or other :

Do	Don't
Feature current autistic activists, educators, and bloggers	Don't Diagnose historical figures or people who haven't said they are autistic
Highlight neurodiversity as a positive goal	Don't Talk about interventions and supports that make autistic people "fit in"
Use identity first language "autistic person"	Don't Use person first language "person with autism"
Use the neurodiversity infinity symbol or no symbol	Don't Use puzzle pieces
Use multi-colored or red lights or colors	Don't Use blue lights or blue color
Focus on autistic people	Don't Focus on parents or siblings of autistic people

This post is not meant to be an exhaustive list of the things that are done to hurt autistic people in April, or at other times. There's plenty written about those things, and people who want to learn about it can easily find information. Here's a link to some prominent autistic voices to get you started: www.bellevuecollege.edu/autismspectrumnavigators/community-resources/ .

If you want to learn more about how to positively interact with and support autism acceptance every day of the year, here's a link to a fantastic free e-book that will start you on your journey: www.stairwaytostem.org/autism-101-an-introduction-to-academic-success/ (Disclosure: although I have written one of the articles in the e-book, I have no monetary gain when people download the free e-book.)

Thank you for thinking about how you can help your autistic students survive the onslaught of April. 

Thank you, Five Guys Burgers and Fries

It's been a rather grueling week, culminating in a big autism awareness event at the college where I work, and now on to moving at the end of the month. So, my son and I decided to head over to Five Guys Burgers and Fries on North East 24th Street in Redmond, WA to relax a bit before hitting the packing again.

While we were there, a young man, maybe in his 20s or 30s came in, with a remote controlled toy helicopter. He was very excited about this helicopter, exclaiming to anyone that would listen, "It WORKS!" He wriggled and danced and stimmed to the 80s music, and I wondered how the staff would interact with him. 

What happened next literally made my day. Each staff member greeted him by name, asked him about his helicopter, and took time out to have a conversation with him. He got himself a little plate of peanuts and a small portion of ketchup, along with some napkins, and sat down at the table next to us. We smiled happily at him.

The fry cook offered him some fries, and when he said, " a little?" asking for more, the cook said, "that's okay, it's enough" and the young man repeated, "it's enough" and took the fries happily to his seat. He continued on, eating fries and peanuts, getting up and dancing, stimming and showing his helicopter all around.

At one point he turned it on, and made it spin around, while very carefully holding it so it wouldn't take off. He and my son had a lovely exchange about the helicopter and when he exclaimed again that "it WORKS," my son and I agreed that indeed it did, and this young man was so excited with our acknowledgement that his excitement has stayed with us for the rest of the day.

I just want to say "Thank You" to Five Guys Burgers and Fries in Redmond, WA for making this social connection possible, for this young man, for me, and for my son. I will never know if this young man has a particular diagnosis of anything, but both my son and I are on the autism spectrum, and social connections while out in public are not common. So, thank you, Five Guys, for being the kind of place that welcomes and embraces everyone, and makes us all feel at home.

You made today better for two people on the autism spectrum, and I'm guessing that you don't know that you were helping people with an invisible disability while you were connecting with this young man who is so clearly your friend.

 

Memory

It was once thought that autistics suffered from amnesia, however, that theory is no longer popular. It is now believed that our curious mix of memory ability or lack thereof has something to do with weak central coherence or executive functioning deficits. It’s possible that it has something to do with the ability to process emotions as well.

Apparently, the way the autistic memory makes them really, really good at some things, and really, really not-so-good at others. And, as you already know, autistics, or people-with-autism, if you prefer are not all the same. Cognitive abilities are all over the map, even within one single person, let alone within the entire community of people on the spectrum. Personally, I find this fascinating.

So, here’s what some people who are smarter than I am think. That contextual memory is impaired in people on the spectrum, meaning autistics have a hard time processing information within its context. This would explain why my son didn’t know he could get coffee from the coffee vending machine. It would also explain why my father doesn't know where he is if there’s a new landmark along a familiar route, even though all the other context is still the same. So, this theory makes some sense to me.

This problem with contextual memory makes life pretty difficult for some autistics, and the people who love them. Some people on the spectrum, kids, especially, have a hard time knowing if something happened yesterday or four years ago. This makes it seem almost as if their memory is too good, particularly if what they are remembering is upsetting.

So, what role does emotion play? A fairly big one, apparently. All people remember things more clearly if they are emotionally aroused. Certain factors can pretty much ensure that we will vividly remember an event forever. This type of memory is called a flashbulb memory; we all have them, most likely of September 11, 2001. 

So, working on building an emotional vocabulary can be helpful.

And, last but not least, people who are self-monitoring also have worse memories, which makes sense, since their attention is divided. I know that many people on the spectrum spend a good amount of time in self-monitoring.

So, what might help work towards better memory?

1. Keep a journal, recording events with details and emotions. Parents, have a running dialog with your children about what happened today, yesterday, and what will happen tomorrow, next week.

2. Keep a calendar on the wall and use it. Using visuals is important.

3. Keep expanding your emotional vocabulary if this is an issue. 

4. Read your journal; go back over events and reminisce. This can help cement the memories. Remember that this works for bad memories, too, so try not to obsess on those, unless you really want to remember them. 

5. You could try to make it a habit to notice context in the moment. What else is around, what else is happening, is the sun warm, are the birds singing, is there gravel or blacktop on the road? What time of year is it, where are you, who are you with, how are you feeling? Use all your senses.

6. If all else fails, use a sticky note.

Accentuate the Positive

By my nature, I am wired to look for, and find, what’s out of place in my environment. What’s different, what’s wrong, what doesn’t fit, what’s not fair. 

 

However, I have learned that I am a much happier person if I focus on what’s working and look for the good. I am not Scarlett O’Hara; I don’t ignore things that are upsetting: I deal with them. I simply don’t focus on them, let them annoy me, or let them take center stage. I practice gratitude, joy, passion, love.

 

This is absolutely a learned trait, and one that I highly recommend to people on the autism spectrum. Barbara Fredrickson, a Professor of Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has done the research to prove that positive thinking works to improve our lives and relationships.  Not the blind optimism of Pollyanna positive thinking, but truly finding things to be grateful for, awed by, and delighted with. I’m looking forward to reading Fredrickson’s book, Positivity; the paperback edition is just out. You can take her Positivity Self Test  now and see how you’re doing.

 

The reason I recommend this for people on the spectrum, particularly those with Asperger’s, is that we can get caught in what I call the “Aspie Spiral.” Something goes wrong, and suddenly, everything is wrong, everything has always been wrong and everything will always be wrong. We either get very down on ourselves, or, we get very down on others.

 

Just knowing about the “Aspie Spiral” can be helpful. My son can get out of a spiral rather quickly by being reminded that it’s a spiral and that things will be better soon.

 

One thing I often tell parents is to have their children tell three good things that happened each day, and one bad thing, along with what positive steps they took to turn the bad experience around. This helps with positive thinking and with memory. As the child gets older, they can write these down in a journal, blog or personal document, however, talking about incidents with someone else, and receiving enthusiastic, honest, positive feedback is very helpful.

 

Dan Coulter wrote a terrific article called Rewriting Your Child’s Script   that is helpful for the person who ruminates on bad memories. I worked with one parent who kept track on the refrigerator of every time her son won a board game, and whenever her son lost, and exclaimed that he “never” won, she would show him the actual facts. He eventually became a much better loser.

 

So start practicing positivity and see where it takes you. Here’s a little something to help:

 

Accentuate the Positive, by Johnny Mercer

 

 

Feelings, Whoa

Many people with Autism Spectrum Conditions (thank you, Simon Baron-Cohen , in whose writings I first read this respectful term) have a difficult time defining my feelings. It’s called Alexithymia . According to the Wikipedia article, one can be born this way, or one can become this way through trauma or lack of modeling or teaching as a child. Alexithymia is marked by a lack of vocabulary for feelings, difficulty identifying physical reactions to feelings and few dreams or fantasies.

 

In a recent BBC News article , researcher Michael Lombardo from the University of Cambridge talks about a study that shows autistic brains have difficulty processing information about the self. This may very well be why you’ll receive an “I don’t know” answer when you ask your ASC loved one how their day was, or how they are feeling.

 

Many people on the spectrum, my son included, have this limited emotional vocabulary. He is happy, sad or angry. Getting him to talk about his feelings is pretty impossible, of course this could be chalked up to his age, I suppose. And Simon-Baron Cohen does theorize that perhaps Autism is simply an extreme form of maleness. 

 

Since researchers don’t yet know how much alexithymics can learn about their own emotions, we can work on it and see. As parents, and people on the spectrum, we can work on defining emotions and talking about them, to increase our knowledge, vocabulary and self-awareness. When discussing events, be sure to also include emotions that go along with the event, including small emotions and gradients of emotion. Hang up one of those “How Do You Feel Today?”  posters and use it. Be a detective when you or your loved one isn’t feeling well, although be careful not to cause them to think it’s psychosomatic every time they are ill: sometimes a cold is just a cold.

 

And please remember to be positive. This is imperative, in my opinion, for someone who has difficulty defining emotions. If we don’t know how we feel, we may as well focus on the positive, and try to feel happy. That’s my outlook anyway.