It Gets Better: Autism (video)

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgKjDE7DFFc[/youtube]

Good for you Lydia!

Thank you

I'm usually on here when I can't view videos, but I do look forward to checking it out at a later date. Just wanted you to know that I'm not ignoring it.

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EDIT: I finally got to watch it! Yeah!

Thanks for sharing and I am so glad you've found your answers


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Last edited by DW_a_mom on 02 Oct 2011, 6:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Hello Lydia,
I read your posts in Member only section and I appreciated it, even if I never introduced myself. I'm not autistic, so I tought it was not the right place to post for me.
I'm not an English mother tongue, so I understood about 80% of what you said. Even if you had your diagnosis when you was 21, you are having therapy and improving. I'm glad you are succeeding.
Thank you for your video... I'll never give up with my son.

Thank you for posting such an awesome and inspiring video.

Congrats on all your success!

SuperTrouper, I hope you know I'm a big fan of yours - and I liked seeing this video of you using TTS; I think it's good to remind people that someone who finds it hard to speak has so many eloquent words to say.

Thank you to everyone

Momsparky, I vastly prefer TTS to speaking. I like to say that TTS is my first language and speaking is my ESL. Some people assume that I have mild intellectual disability or something due to my unusual speech... or they just don't realize how intelligent I am. I wish I got to type all the time so that people got to see the real me!

If we ever meet in real life, (and I hope we do) I will bring my cell phone. No words required.

Just out of curiosity (all the various autisms in our family involve struggling to shut up, rather than struggling to speak, so I have no idea) have you ever tried learning ASL? Obviously, it's a very limited tool as not many people speak it, but I wonder if the different brain-wiring required to speak with your hands might work better than verbal speech (kind of like how people with a severe stutter often have no trouble singing.) Not that you need to, you do so well with a keyboard.

I've learned some basic things... but no one knows what I mean when I use it, so it's sort of pointless! I try to tell my mom that it would be helpful, because when I don't like something I make this noise that she can't stand (she says I sound like a cranky two-year-old when I do it)... but it's my first inclination, and it DOES get her to stop touching me or whatever she's doing. If we could convince staff/Mom that it would be useful, I really think it could be.

Just out of curiosity, based on this video, what functioning label would you put on me? I know it's hard to tell just from this, but I kind of mess up the labels as I am highly intelligent but not very verbal. What would you say?

Thank you for that, Lydia. A lovely video and a beautiful cat. My cat was sitting next to my laptop while I was watching the video.

What does TTS stand for?

Text to speech. So, I type whatever I want on my iPod and it speaks it

I have a hard time with the word "functioning." It doesn't seem to have any kind of specific meaning. My son would be classified as "high functioning" without question, but there was a time last year when he could barely walk down a hallway. It seems like a silly way to make generalizations.

I'll say this: I'm glad I got to know your words first, and I'm glad to have met autistics like you here on the internet. It helps me see that many people are clearly intelligent but struggle with sensory and communication issues that may mask it unless I'm willing to look deeper. I think I can see that intelligence in you when I see the video, but as I already have an opinion about you, maybe I'm coloring what I see. Thank goodness for all this technology that allows this to come through!

In actuality, I HATE functioning labels. Don't get me started. But people use them so-stinking-much, so I was curious how I appeared to these people, you know?

I wish I could type all the time so that people always got to know the "real" me. Instead, they see how I act and hear what I (sometimes...) say, and they instead assume that I'm not intelligent. But because everyone else speaks, I have to speak to, and deal with it.

This was why I was asking you about ASL - because while people don't understand AS ≠ (or may not equal) cognitive disability, they DO understand that deaf ≠ (or may not equal) cognitive disability. Using sign language in public may offer you a socially acceptable bridge to TTS.

As far as how you look: unfortunately, there are folks who just aren't looking for "personhood" in anyone who's different (funny how NTs are supposed to be socially superior, but yet get completely thrown by minor variations in language, dress code, skin color, culture, etc.) I would say that someone who only looks "skin deep" might never see the "real you." However, many, many people are used to seeing around the edges of things, and I think you can't really hide the other side of you, either, as long as someone is open to it.

I'm sorry there are buttheads out there in the world, but narrow-minded folk have to live in the narrow little world they made for themselves.

Basically, the perspective of people in my life is that I need to speak and not any AAC/ASL/anything else. So, I quit learning ASL and only type with my mom now. It makes me sad. I don't force other people to type so that I can understand them, so why do they force me to talk? But there's no use whining about it. It is what it is.