All Kinds of Minds

It's mid-March already! Sometimes I can't believe how quickly time passes. This week's post is going to be a little shorter than usual in terms of word content, but that's because I would really like everyone to watch the TED Talk below. It's a little long, but it sheds quite a bit of light on the mental processes of people with different types of autism.

The talk is given by Temple Grandin, one of the most prominent adults with autism today. She is a doctor of animal science, a professor at Colorado State University, autism activist, bestselling author, and inventor of the hug box, a device used to calm children with autism. I found her talk particularly interesting and inspiring not only for the message it supplies—the world needs all kinds of minds—but the way in which the message is presented. It's an enlightening look at minds across the autism spectrum as explained by a woman with firsthand experience in the subject. Not only does Grandin give excellent examples of how different brains function—for instance, she compares certain human minds, like her own, to those of animals, who are sensory-based thinkers—but she is also an example herself. So while viewers are listening to her insights, they are also seeing how what she says plays out in real life with real human beings.

So many talks are given by people who have second- or even thirdhand experience with the subject of their discourse. Those talks can be very effective; just because the experience isn't firsthand doesn't necessarily make the information invalid. But something about not only talking about a subject, but actually being the subject allows viewers to get a whole new level of understanding and insight. Therefore, I implore you to take the time to watch this video. It's nice to look at things from different perspectives, right? (That's why I love it when you guys share your stories and experiences. Please continue to do so!)

How do you learn best? I, for one, am a visual-verbal learner and could totally relate to what Grandin said about learning social skills as if she were in a play. Do you guys have any interesting learning techniques?

Google's "Autism" Fix: Good or Bad?

My friends and I used to do it all the time in middle school: type the beginning of a phrase into Google search and see what results Google suggested. We were curious, and often the results were funny and entertaining. But this week, Google has been making a few changes within their auto-complete search function after a group of autism activists blogged about the offensive nature of the search engine in regards to autism.

Last week, if you had typed “Autistic people should” into the Google search engine, the following suggestions would have appeared:

Autistic people should be killed
Autistic people should die
Autistic people should be exterminated
Why autistic people shouldn't have children

Now, however, the results are slightly different. They're milder, perhaps, and certainly less violent. It's a big move for Google, since changing the search results means more than just deleting a word here and there or blocking a phrase from appearing. The computer's algorithm must be altered to encompass a variety of potential search words, so it's a timely process. But in the eyes of many activists and the national group, Autism Speaks, the time taken to make these changes is well spent.

While it is nice to not tempt those curious internet surfers into clicking on suggested searches that could lead to hateful websites, there are a few other sides to this issue. Fifteen-year-old autism activist, Sam Gelfand, believes that Google's adjustment is not necessarily a good thing.

“They’re trying to protect people from hate speech, but it’s almost a form of censorship,” he says. “In my personal opinion, everyone should be able to hear both sides of an issue.” Granted, Google's changes do not prevent users from searching for specific phrases, but giving an altered view of what people commonly search for online is, in a way, dishonest. Don't people have the right to know what is really going on? It may not be pretty, but knowing that these violent phrases are commonly searched can be helpful in the movement to change people's opinions about the developmentally disabled. Hiding the problem is not a solution. Additionally, as Gelfand goes on to suggest, the popularity of these searches can be partially attributed to curious people (like me and my friends back in middle school) who click on the suggestions, increasing their popularity.

Another perspective calls people to consider whether Google's change gives special treatment to people with autism. After all, many other groups of people, like African Americans, Muslims, Jews, men, and women, yield similarly violent and hate-driven search suggestions. So in the fight to accept people as people, not as people with autism and people without, does it make sense to make exceptions?

Or was Google correct in its move to change its auto-complete search suggestion policy? All sides pose compelling arguments. What is your opinion on this? I think it's both interesting and important since Google is such a powerful entity in our culture. Share your thoughts!

Man Fakes Disability for Profit

I recently read an article about a man in Lexington, Kentucky who was charged with two counts of theft by deception after pretending to be mentally disabled in order to increase his panhandling profits, and it got me thinking about a few things. What else is new?

The man, Gary Thompson, claims to make $60,000 to $100,000 a year thanks to people's donations, and he admits that while he does have trouble walking and uses a wheelchair, his mental disability is entirely made up. How does Thompson convince people he has a mental handicap? According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, he uses “slurred, slowed speech, contorting his face and holding one hand close to his body 'as if he doesn't have use of it'.” And if you take a look at the video below, you'll see that he appears to feel no remorse or guilt about his act.

Surely that is offensive enough. First of all, this man has turned people with disabilities into devices for manipulation and profit. Suddenly, they go from being real people with faces and lives and legitimate challenges to being tools, potentially useful archetypes characterized by a series of stereotypical gestures. And it's upsetting. What gives this man the right to capitalize on disability? Moreover, what gives him the right to capitalize on a disability he doesn't even have? Some people don't realize that what is an easy, convenient, and sometimes profitable role for them to slip in and out of at their leisure is actually somebody's life, but that somebody doesn't have the benefit of taking off the mask, of switching roles, when it is convenient. (I think this adds a bit of concreteness to what I was trying to relay in the post a couple weeks back about the film “The Idiots”.)

What may be at least equally offensive is the way the strangers who gave money to Thompson reacted after they found out he was not mentally disabled. Many people were offended themselves because they felt they had been deceived. This made me wonder whether these people would have given Thompson money if he had acted otherwise, and if so, why or why not? Does it make a difference? Should it? I'm curious why, assuming that the donors were giving money out of a genuine desire to help a fellow human in need and not just out of perceived moral obligation, it would make a difference whether that human had any sort of disability or not. Don't get me wrong, I would have been upset were I in their position, too, but I think it would be more out of anger and frustration at Thompson's insolence. Something about their reactions peeves me. There seems to be an implication that people were upset not by the offensive nature of the trick, but that somebody had succeeded in tricking them. They felt “deceived,” not alarmed or angered. Does anybody else get that sense?

Click here to read the original article, and let me know what you think about this. Do you think disabled panhandlers, either mentally or physically, get treated differently? Do you think they should? How do you feel about the way the strangers reacted? I am so curious what people think about this. Do share!

Shock Treatment: A Thing of the Past?

I thought electric shock therapy was a thing of the past, a bizarre—albeit effective, in some cases—treatment for severe depression and bipolar disorder, so I was surprised to find that there is a school in Canton, Massachusetts that still uses electric shock therapy, also called electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). But this school does not use ECT to treat depression or bipolar disorder. Rather, it uses this treatment to address behavioral problems in kids and adults who have developmental disabilities.

Various types of electric therapy have been around as early as the 16^th century, but ECT—the only form of shock therapy used in modern medicine—didn't become widespread in the UK and US until the 1940s and -50s. Today it is estimated that about 1 million people worldwide receive ECT every year, usually in a course of 6–12 treatments administered 2 or 3 times a week.

There is, of course, a lot of controversy regarding the effectiveness and validity of ECT. For one, reports of ECT's effectiveness are only documented in the short term. That is, the treatment may be effective, but only for one to six months, and research psychiatrist Colin A. Ross found that there was no single study that showed a significant difference between real and placebo ECT at one month post-treatment. Furthermore, most ECT research is done with the effectiveness of depression and bipolar disorder treatment, not behavioral problems among the developmentally disabled. So why is ECT being used in that setting?

As is turns out, parents have found ECT to be very helpful in treating their children. Last year, NBC New York published a story about Judge Rotenberg Educational Center, that school in Massachusetts that uses ECT on its students, and explained that while the facility gets a lot of negative feedback in response to its methods, many parents continue to show their support:

“In 2006, the parents of Samantha Shear told NBC New York they were desperate after their daughter couldn’t stop hurting herself by hitting herself in the eyes. The Shear family insists skin shock therapy was a last resort that improved their daughter’s life.
'The thought process is, “we need something severe enough to make this kid stop hurting herself,”' said Marcia Shear. 'And you know something, it worked.'”

However, many people find ECT to be an inhumane, torturous method of treatment. A video of Rotenberg released in 2002 shows a patient, Andre McCollins, tied to a mat, receiving more than 30 electric shocks, each lasting two seconds. In 2006, another student, Antwone Nicholson withdrew from the school after receiving similar treatment. Though she did sign consent forms, Antwone's mother, Evelyn Nicholson, claimed that the extent of the shocking and the potential for abuse were never disclosed.

Now Rotenberg is back in the spotlight. In a legal filing last week, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley moved to end a court order that has limited the state’s regulatory authority of the Rotenberg center since the 1980s. The state aims to get broader authority over the facility and insists that ECT is an unacceptable method of treatment for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Naturally, I hope the state wins. What do you think? Do you have any experience with electroconvulsive therapy?

"The Idiots": An Emotional Conflict

The Portland International Film Festival has been underway for a week now. This is extremely exciting for me, personally, because I finally live in a place with the resources and interest to host such an event. I highly recommend checking it out to those who can. The PIFF is going on until February 23^rd. More information can be found on their website.

But I digress! The arrival of the film festival coupled with my involvement with Mt. Hood Kiwanis Camp got me thinking (again) about the disabled community as represented through film. As time goes on, it seems that the disabled are being more accurately represented in movies, which is great, but my thoughts were recently pulled back to a 1998 film by Danish director Lars von Trier. Von Trier is known for his typically bizarre, sometimes controversial, and often disturbing films. He directed, among others, “Dancer in the Dark,” a film about a young, working class woman who struggles to support herself and her brother as her secret visual impairment rapidly worsens. Like many of his films, “Dancer in the Dark” is emotionally jarring and thought-provoking. But the film I would really like to discuss is von Trier's “Idioterne”, or when translated, “The Idiots”.

The brief synopses of “The Idiots,” supplied by IMDb is as follows:

“The group of people gather at the house in Copenhagen suburb to break all the limitations and to bring out the 'inner idiot' in themselves.”

The term “idiot” comes off as crass and offensive when one learns that the movie is about a group of friends who pretend to be mentally disabled in order to challenge society and liberate themselves. Whether von Trier meant to offend or not (and to whom the offense was aimed), I am not sure, but his film is extremely thought provoking. The film is painfully raw and harsh in many ways, and on the surface it can be seen as a crude and disturbing story that mistreats the disabled. However, it allows the viewer to see the unfortunate reality of many people's reactions to the disabled community.

Steep yourself in cinema and feel your brain explode with ideas.

On the one hand, there is the reaction of the young slackers who act disabled for their own entertainment and treat it as a game, sometimes even as a competition. But below that, there is their interactions with the unaware people around them. In one scene, the group goes from house to house in a nice neighborhood, selling handmade crafts. One person slams the door in their faces, and another begrudgingly hands over some money, apparently out of moral obligation and a desire to get the group to leave her alone. At this point, one of the main characters “turns off” his disability and frustratedly laments the futility of their activity, showing the audience that these people are able to rejoin “normal” society whenever they want, whereas actual members of the disabled community don't have that luxury.

An article written in 1999 by Stefan Steinberg attempts to explain a possible motive behind von Trier's creation of “The Idiots”:

“On the basis of The Idiots, one concludes that [von Trier] is evidently motivated by a dislike, even a disgust for society as it stands. At the same time he is apparently blind to any way of changing society in a meaningful way. He has chosen the well-trodden and fairly threadbare path of individual self-liberation. There is something a bit provincial in all this, but von Trier seems to be espousing the notion, popular during the radicalisation of the 1960s, that mental disorder represents a higher and superior form of perception.”

I'm not sure what to think of this, and I'm worried that I will get little response if I ask you, dear reader, for your opinion, because I don't believe this movie has a widespread audience. If you are brave enough to watch the film, I would love some input. I feel I've not adequately expressed the conflict that comes with watching this movie or why I felt it necessary to share my experience with it. I must warn you, the movie is rather graphic and unconventional, but if you can go into it with an open mind, I think there is a lot that can be taken away from it.

What films have influenced you or changed your perceptions about people, situations, etc? Help me out! Did this gratuitously long post make any sense at all?

“It is impossible to say just what I mean!” - T.S. Eliot

The Season for Loving

Love it, hate it, or don't care either way, Valentine's Day is in less than a week. Advertisements for Hallmark and Zales overwhelm our televisions and fill us with a desire for companionship and nostalgia for the days when class time was spent making and sharing valentines with friends and innocent crushes.

Oh, crushes.

There is something about having a crush that fills one with an almost irrational, though undoubtedly fascinating, sense of hope and lightness that comes with the prospect of finding love. We all get crushes, and it's great. After all, everyone has should have a chance to find love, right?

Unfortunately, there seems to be this perception that it is not normal for the disabled, especially the developmentally disabled, to engage in relationships. It is natural for all people to seek companionship and have sexual desires, so why is there a mental block when it comes to thinking about these basic needs within the disabled community? It's quite common for people with disabilities to form relationships, express their sexuality, and get married, yet many people are uncomfortable with the idea, so it is not talked about as much as it perhaps should be. Were the conversation started, we might find that there is a lot to be learned about love from the disabled community.

Paul and Andrea Annear on their wedding day

In 2006, UK-based periodical, Daily Mail, published a somewhat lengthy but endearing story about the first couple with Downs's Syndrome to get married in the United Kingdom. Paul and Andrea Annear have such a genuine relationship that one can't help but admire. As the article puts it, they “share a love and devotion so raw that it is almost painful to watch. With their simple logic and searing honesty, they enjoy a relationship which perhaps every husband and wife should aspire to.” Yes, they have a disability, but nobody could deny the immense love they have for one another.

"I give him a kiss in the morning when he leaves for work, and I shout after him: 'I love you, Paul.' He says: 'I love you, Andrea,' and I watch him as he walks all the way down the road. I know that some people say we should not have got married, but why not? We love each other very much and we look after each other,” says Andrea. Her husband, Paul, comments that Andrea makes his heart feel full, and he feels like singing and dancing when she is around.

Isn't that how everyone—regardless of ability or disability—is supposed to feel when they're in love?

The internet has become an important tool for people of all abilities who are seeking relationships, but there are some websites dedicated to helping people with disabilities find companions and romance. Sites like Dating4Disabled and DisabledSinglesConnection make it easier for members of the disabled community find love. 

Let me know what you think! Do you have a Valentine this year? What do you think about relationships within the disabled community?

Click here to read Daily Mail's article about the Annears.

Penny for Your Thoughts

This week's blog is a little shorter than usual, but there is something I received that I would like to share with all of you. A friend of mine recently gave out letters to a bunch of people whom he had gotten to know and care about. Some of them, like me, were people he had just met, but others he had known for years. The letter was essentially a request to help him change the world, to change perspectives. In this post, I am going to share a portion of that letter.

I have one favor to ask each of you. I can't force you to do this, nor is there any way for me to know if you actually ever will. However, I will greatly appreciate it if you choose to do this remedial task. I've spent the last ten months trying to save the world, and I really believe I can do it. I believe everyone has the capacity to save the world. However, most of us choose not to do so. I wholeheartedly believe that if everyone did whatever they could to make everyone else happy, then we could have world peace. It seems that we spend so much time making each other miserable. We're all perfect, but we let others tear us down. I really want all of you to believe you're perfect. Don't get too cocky, though, but just don't let the bullies win. If you get the chance to do or say something nice, then do it! If you can take a little time to put a smile on someone else's face, then why not? 

Anyway, the favor: There is a penny in each of your envelopes. I want each of you to take that penny and make a wish. Again, you don't have to do this, but I think it would be nice. You can make a selfish wish—I don't mind. You can wish for world peace. Whatever you want. I just want you guys to believe that your wildest dreams can come true, because you deserve it. Never lose hope.

Make a wish...

So, whether you share my friend's optimism or not, agree or disagree, I think there is some value to be found within his hope for all of us. I mean, really, wouldn't it be nice if we all treated each other respectably? We don't all have to be friends, but it seems reasonable that we should be able to regard one another as beings with value and worth.

I apologize if this post was a bit different or too general, but it's good, I think, to be reminded that we are all part of a human community. We're all part of a natural community, too. The point is, we are all part of something bigger than ourselves, so we have to take care of one another if we are to thrive.

Share the love, everybody!