2 Wk Window to Discuss Here 2 Autism Documentaries

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I was mistaken in that we have until (I think through) oct 7th to watch these videos, so 4 more days.. please watch them as they are a valuable learning tool. i have changed my mind and decided to discuss Neurotypical, if i can get around to discussing either, as it is shorter, easier to watch and i think applies to more here, so if you can only watch one I suggest this one, even the other one is perhaps more interesting.

In the beginning minutes of Neurotypical we see a precious little autistic girl dangling her feet in the water and flexing her ankles and wiggling her toes totally absorbed and experiencing great pleasure, and then we see her father literally ripping her away from this experience without allowing her any transition time (or if he did, which I doubt, it is not shown in the film0, and then after he puts her shoes she does not want to leave and starts crying... and then he forcibly picks her up and hugs her in a way which I perceive as not reciprocal but containing (and not saying this is necessarily bad but something is off about it....just watched this for the first time since I originally saw it on tv and it does not sit right with me even the first time....sometimes feels off about that interaction....of course this is my own subjective take on it and other people may have a different take....I did use to be a preschool teacher and went through the head start training program, but this does not necessarily indicate i have that much understanding....

Edit: The section with the little girl walking across the bridge is fourteen not fifteen min into the video.

To continue, I made a big mistake not focusing on the Neurotypical one first, and now there are only three days left to watch it and we will probably have to wait till next year...anyway to continue...this documentary is very skillfully done...the face shots when people are talking are excellent...you can catch a lot of nuance from watching...the autistic person who made it is quite skilled...one problem is, though, if you only watch it once on tv, which most people probably do, then you miss the richness of what this video can tell you, and it even gives a certain slant which imo is a false slant.

if you want to study the precious little three year old girl whose father imo does not at all know how to help her make transitions and is actually (not slightly but dramatically) reinforcing her so-called autistic behavior (not to deny she is autistic, but what exactly does this mean?), then go into the videa about fourteen minutes. I just watched this. You will see her walking across a delightful wooden bridge and at the end there is a beautiful path into a sunlit woods...very exquisite...watch how the father tries to get her to turn around and go back...pretty shocking, actually....I am ultra sensitive, maybe because of my own autism, and am too upset to continue writing this.....

To continue, of course these parents deeply love their child and are doing anything they can that they feel will help her. The problem is that generally speaking people do not know what to do, and I should mention here that I am the parent of an autistic child but did not find out she was autistic until she was an adult, and also I found out I am autistic, too because she pointed it out to me. Anyway, each situation is unique, but I know how difficult such a child can be.

I am going to watch the sequence fourteen minutes in again--have already watched it two or three more times since the previous message-- and will be back in a few minutes to edit this and add more, so for anyone who is reading now before..

Okay---decided to continue with a new post instead of editing the previous one, so, to continue, here is the scenario--this child is tiredly sludging across the wooden bridge toward an alluring sunlit forest, obviously almost out of energy, and is nearing the very end of the bridge, at which then starts to run to the end..at which point she pauses as if she knows she is not supposed to go any further, and then she walks onto the path. To be continued in the next post, but in short the key point here is she is behaving like an ordinary but quite immature three year old, who is testing limits. One disturbing thing is that she (apparently) is not allowed to go into the woods, though this is admittedly just speculation, and maybe she has been further before, , but it makes no sense to just go over the bridge to the other side and not go a little bit into the woods. Or maybe this was just the case this time because they were making the film and wanted to demonstrate that she is unable to make transitions, a typical characteristic I might add, of an autistic child around that age, but also of many children in general. They need to be eased into making transitions, such as saying to the child--at the end of the bridge we are going to need to turn around. Maybe he did say this, and that is why she paused, and then went she went further was just testing, so typical behavior. Personally from this episode I just see an immature child and nothing that indicates an autistic child, not to discount that she is what people are calling autistic, but in any case, it would be inappropriate and even kind of cruel in a way, though obviously not intentionally so, but at least extremely odd to not let any child go just a little bit onto the path that the bridge is leading to. I was going to discuss what the father does at this point, but have run out of time. Will try to continue tonight or tomorrow..

Only today and tomorrow left to watch these two videos. Did not have time to watch some more but will today.

To continue, these people do have unique brains. The face shots are very good. You can see the brains are a little different and unique. One teenage boy has sorrow. It is evident. He is paralyzed by it in some way. It has in some way stopped time, though he is still functioning quite well, but what is well? There is a very intelligent African American male who is telling the story of how he failed third grade and was diagnosed at age eight...quite an interesting story, but it is a story. Obviously much of the details of it are true and really happened, but in some respect it is fine-tuned and shaped, kind of like going backward in time and fitting his idea of what is to the memory. It appears to not be fasle memory, but tuned memory. The story is too exact, too perfect. He seems to attributing interpretations he is making now to an eight year old boy. I know it is all true to him, but I don't buy it.

A girl who looks about twenty and is quite articulate is telling about how her father explained to her about what so-called nt's are experiencing by social chit chat. I will have to watch it again,, but he said something to the effect that they are feeling positive plus signs above their heads. What???. Is this how you describe feeling good inside when connecting to another person? I realize it is hard to describe, but the above the head image rings an alarm bell. Was this child born autistic or did she learn certain ways of relating and/or not relating?

Today is the last day to watch these two videos. If you have not watched them, please do. You will not be wasting your time..

A general comment--one documentary is about low functioning autistics. The other is (generally) about high functioning autistics, and if you watch both films you will see the difference is profound. It makes no sense to lump both of these kinds of people under the same category.. If anyone can explain the sense of doing this I would like to hear it. Then some people get angry that the public associates high functioning autistics with low functioning autistics and these high functioning autistics say these so-called neurotypicals are stupid and insensitive and should get educated and should be responsible for getting themselves educated about this. What??

lso, I have seen people on WP get angry and offended that high-functioning autistics (aspies) are trying to disassociate themselves from these low functioning autistics and put themselves in a different category and feel superior. Again...what?? The way I see it, the problem is in categorization.. If you are making a fruit salad you cannot just say put in any kind of red fruit if you consider tomatoes and red bell peppers to be a fruit..This is maybe not the best example, but good enough.

I see one problematic area is is in aspies individuating themselves or being individuated by others as aspies. I can understand why "Asperger's Syndrome" was removed from the DSM...and yet these people, myself very much included, do have certain rather specific characteristics, and naming is very important. It can open up a whole new world for many people who are deeply suffering, so this is a kind of difficult situation.

Another thing that disturbs me is that as far as I can tell, most people do not really understand what autism is, and this includes psychiatrists and psychologists, but the latter two groups pretend to know as they are making money off of 'it." That really is quite disturbing, and yet it is not so cut and dreid as sometimes such a professional can really help someone... As the father I have mentioned said about his little girl," she is a mystery," but it, it is important to know about oneself. When one begins to know about oneself, many mysteries are revealed, not just about oneself but about other people, also. It should be noted tha in the schoot shown in the documentary Best Kept Secret, many kinds of young people are lumped together under the category of autism. Some of these young men look to me like they have alcohol fetal syndrome or some kind of general brain damage, and some others have serious developmental deficiencies caused by extreme neglect, and for some these overlap. I read one out of every 48 children in Newark, N.J. is autistic. But again, what is autistic? WHY do people not speak? Some of the young people in this film have great difficulty forming words. Either their mouths cannot form the shapes that makes these sounds or maybe they do not want to speak, or both. Maybe the pattern of not speaking is ingrained and established by a combination of factors.

Anyway, the general theme is that there is this word "autism" and all kinds of people are being lumped together under it> How helpful IS this in sorting things out? I would say it could be helpful if people understand what autism is, but it seems to me that they don't.

None of this is to discount the suffering of these low functioning autistic AND high-functioning autistics. The suffering is profound. I would like to take a look at this whole subject matter from a different angle entirely, that of human intelligence as expressed by action, so action as self expression.

To continue, these films are off-line now, but I have plenty of comments.

Both films were very well made, but re Neurotypical, as far as I can tell, it has not much if any redeeming social value except possibly to be scrutinized from a certain angle which was in no way intended, but which I am doing here, and so used as a leaning tool.

The second film, Best Kept Secret, does have redeeming social value, imo, as it educates the public about the plight of these young people who have just turned 21 and are so kicked out of the educational system and really have no much of a way to enter into society. The high school teacher, Janet Mino, who is the 'star' of this documentary, has started some kind of facility to help these folks become integrated into society (meaning the work force, presumably) and will surely receive all kinds of private and perhaps even public funding because of these film.

So what was the intended function of the other documentary, Neurotypical??

To be continued....

Back to the film, Neurotypical...the little girl crossing the bridge is named Violet. This is speculation, of course, but for anyone interested in Freudian psychology (not me) or word roots and punning as a symbolic communication device, this particular name in the given context is extremely interesting.. Do people just choose these names because they sound pretty, or do they sometimes have an inner meaning on a probably unconscious (or possibly conscious) level? I have often wondered about this in regard to the choice of children's names, including the names I choose for my own children.

To continue, this videos are no longer available to watch online as far as I know, but I think it is possible to order them., and also, to understand what I am saying it is not necessary to see the videos,though it might be helpful.

There is a kind of delicate line when discussing the behavior of people who appear in such documentaries.I beleive it is important to respect the uniqueness and integrity of the people whose behavior one might be discussing. I noticed on the comment page on I think the POV site several comments about the video, Neurotypical, were deleted, presumably because they were some kind of personal attack, but I have no idea what the content was. The aim here is not to attack anybody but to use these two videos as a learning tool. These people put themselves out there and allowed themselves to be filmed for greater humanity, so it seems logical to assume that they knew to some degree their behavior would be publicly discussed and even publicly analyzed. What I am discussing here was originally intended mainly as a learning tool for people participating on this site....

Personally I have a problem with the autistic label, and even this problem itself is problematic as this label has been very helpful to me in understanding myself. I do think I have a genetically different kind of brain in some ways. Actually I know this, but brain function is not so easy to label, as the brain is very flexible and shaped not just by genetics but also by environmental factors..One question is, why are we looking at our own brains as being different? What is the functional value of that? I do not really see it, but if this looking at ones own brain is interconnected with the ongoing reorganization of ones own mental functioning, of the mind, then I do see it.

To be continued....

To continue, I do not see the functional value of the documentary, Neurotypical. The label ofneurotypical is, imo, a misnomer which encourages wrong thinking. Each human being is a sensitive and unique living creature, hurting, cut off and conditioned in various ways by all kinds of factors, a lot of them cruel.. People have a myriad of ridiculous ideas about what is this or that and build all kinds of subjective stories around it. Each human being should be sensitive to the uniqueness of every other human being...not such an easy thing to do, I might add, as this requires a great degree of attention, more than most of us including myself generally have, but it is worth making it a focus to be attentive to other people, and we can encourage and even inspire each other to do this.

So how does the mind work? How does being attentive work?

Does being attentive work by having a grudge that other people are not attentive to ME and by feeding this kind of grudge by basing my thinking about myself around it and teaching other people, especially young people, to think in this kind of way???

What is a special interest group? How does that work? Naming is a requirement and of great functional value.. It puts many things into focus and enables all kinds of understanding and actions. Good for naming, but it can also be the way to get oneself inside a box, and people do this to each other, too.. The problem with this autistic/neurotypical dichotomy is that these terms are too general and not at all well defined. What is at the core of the dichotomy? it ishow I feel about myself, ME. But whoops, this is not enough. Each person cherishes himself just as much as I cherish myself.

To be continued, and I will be gradually, little by little, into the complexities of grading and sorting on the thread, Playing The Autism Card May Be Harmful To Humanity.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt240900.html

This is intended to be in conjunction with another thread, Playing The Autism Card May Be Harmful To Humanity http://www.wrongplanet.net/postx240900-135-0.html. You do not have to see the videos to understand what is being said on this thread, and I have decided to also comment on some other autism documentaries that are available online, but it might take a while to choose which ones.

To continue,I am going to seque back to the fascinating story of an African American male whose comments are one of the main threads of dialogue running through the documentary Neurotypical. His personal story is that he failed third grade, and his concerned parents took him to a major very prominent hospital; for an evaluation. The way he is telling all of this is really quite intriguing. He does not say he has a photographic memory, but even if he does, some of these details sound to me very much like a story that is partly true, was partly planted in his mind by others and which he has embellished to fit into the category of "autism." This is not intended to be a criticism. We all do this kind of thing, and surely I myself do it, though I try not to (but do I even know when and if I am doing it). The question is, how accurate IS the characterization he is making of himself and his own behavior, and is this categorizing (which in some way does make some kind of sense but in other ways may be off kilter) really helpful to other people in that it encourages them to do the same about their own "autism" whatever that means, and I question if people even really know what it means. In the next few days I will make a more detailed analysis of some interesting aspects of his particular story.

To continue, without referring to anyone in any video, but speaking from my own experience with myself, once you set up and/or get set up in the components of your own story it all feels very real and it is pretty easy to get other people to buy it especially if they have the same kind of story, or, if these others have stories that are discordant or discrepant with ones own story, to simply not tell these others ones own story and this could be a form of theater. Sometimes one can kind of forget one is participating in a play but be completely drawn into it. Or a person may not be able to share from within his own story, partly because he does not know it himself, but also partly because he cannot speak (even if he can speak).. The story could be horrific, and also, if a lot of people have the same kind of story they are more likely to believe other people's stories that are similar to their own.

Re the story of the person I referred to in the previous message, it is hard to know why a child would fail third grade. I did not get into Barnard College but only made the waiting list because I decided to quit chemistry and spend that period in study hall looking out the window and writing poetry. This is my story, and it is a factual description of what happened and my own reasoning behind what I did, but how true is it? Yes, probably if I had continued with chemistry and gotten a decent grade I would have gotten into Barnard College, but is quitting chemistry really why I did not get in? That is one story, but not the complete story. So a person who is very intelligent did not finish third grade because he was autistic...hmm....could be true and probably is, depending upon how you look at it,but what is autistic, and who knows the inner story of a child if the child is himself not capable of speaking it.

I do recommend everyone purchase that video, Neurotypical...I have yet to do so myself., but as mentioned, I am going to find some online videos to look at here, so the two week window is extended.....

This is a very difficult thread to write on, as there is some discussion of people who have appeared in videos, so one wants to keep it as general as possible, and yet many of these people, the documentarians and the participants, especially those who are speaking and giving their own point of view about autism and "neurotypicals," are presenting a particular point of view to the public, which is fine, but in some cases are presenting this view by virtue of their own story, which is also fine, even beautiful, but I think it is going a tad too far to expect evreryone to believe in this story, and if you say, do not discuss this---it is ME and who I (am saying) I am, so do not violate it, then you are in effect saying that this story is presenting a view about reality that is true. I have only watched a very few documentaries on autism so far, and I do not really hear anyone exactly saying this, but it is subtly implied.

As far as story goes, each human being has a right to his particular story, even if there are false elements in it, imo, the story is to be honored, and this thread is not about taking apart various people's stories, but rather to find a way to use these two and perhaps other documentaries about autism as a learning tool and a stepping stone toward processing material in a new way, and when this story is making a social slant and this slant is being presented to a large population of people, to some degree expect there to be some kind of scrutiny.

In any case, it is up to question exactly why an obviously smart child would fail third grade and as an adult not be able to bear human touch, and, as I recall, something was mentioned about kicking people--will have to go back to the audio tape I made, but this isn't really the point. I think what is being expressed in this documentary and very articulately and genuinely by this one person, is that he is who he is and these other people in the documentary are who they are, and society should accept them as being unique and of value. With this I surely agree, but the sticking point is that everybody is unique and of value., so therefore what exactly is the functional value of this particular documentary, Neurotypical? That is a question I have..

Again, this is a very difficult subject to write about....

Yes, some people are less typical than others, and from this perspective these others could be considered "neurotypical," but each person is very special and unique. If you cannot see it in adults, and I know it is harder, then look at any young child. I am with the general public several hours a day so get to observe various children with their parents, and it is fascinating. Each child is unique, and, sadly, if you look deeply at a very young child, you can often see how his conditioning is beginning to affect him. It is heart rending. The child has no power to do anything about it. It is not only happening to him without he himself having any control at all over it, but without his own knowledge that it is even happening as he has no contextual basis into which to place various data which his brain is not yet able to consciously organize into various content, Just about anything and everything could be happening to this child, as unconscious adults, even though they are taking cars of this child with an altruistic motivation, are working out all sorts of anxieties and aggressions upon him. This is not just this or that kind of children, but it is happening to all children, and it has happened to us.It To contemplate this is horrifying.

Again this is a kind of an unpleasant topic, but what is the general gist of this documentary, Neurotypical (and if anyone sees it differently please feel free to post your comment here)---it is that some people are saying "Be nice to various people (meaning "me":-) because they are (I am) unique and have special problems (and I do not even think most of the people in this documentary are consciously saying this--they are just presenting themselves as honestly as they can--, but this is the implied gist of the documentary. Are these people in this film unique? Well, yeah, and should people be nice to them and accept them as whoever they are, human beings with certain difficulties, perhaps in adjusting socially? Sure, no problem with that, and should the public be able to better recognize that certain people are like this? Sure, and this is, I believe, intended to be the functional value of such a presentation, but the value from this angle is limited. It is kind of difficult to talk about this, as it touches on the subject of subtle framing and the creation of social tendencies.

This is a difficult thread to understand, as you have to tilt the picture sideways to catch even a glimpse of what I am trying to touch upon.

Also, what is the functional value in the instance of "autism" of putting people on a spectrum? Explain that, please. There are these two obviously different kinds of people, as seen in these two documentaries, and you can probably see this contrast in many current documentaries easy to find on the web. These people do share certain characteristics, I suppose, such as repetitive behavior. I get the idea of calling certain patterns autism, but I do not understand the functional value of grouping people who cannot speak at all or at most, whose mouth and jaw armature cannot even physically form the sounds, and/or whose brains cannot connect with the mouth in such as way as to be able to without very great difficulty form the sounds, with people who are articulate, even eloquent speakers and writers--and then saying all of these people are born this way and it is hard-wired into their brains.That is ridiculous/ It just makes no sense, especially from the perspective of the articulate group who are forming various autism cultures around thinking this way about themselves.. Imo it is very self defeating. And then many people from this latter high functioning group, as I mentioned before, get angry at people from the general population for grouping them with the former group, which of course the general public is going to do because the latter group is not so recognizable,,and then a lot of energy is spent to make a documentary pointing out that the latter group is also "autistic." But what is autistic? It just makes no sense, or only a little sense. As I see it, this method of sorting and grading leads to chaos, though superficially it may seem to be sorting things out, whereas, as mentioned, the documentary Best Kept Secret does appear to have a functional value. Will write on this next time....

I think 'framing' in this sense has a lot to do with what society currently considers to lump in the category of 'disabled'.
It's like deciding where to draw the line between intellectual disability and low, but normal IQ, where one point can push you over the edge of being considered normal. A person with low but normal IQ will probably struggle more with education and job placement than someone with a high IQ.

Does struggling more with sensory hypersensitivity, executive function, social inabilities, etc. entitle one to government compensation, or do we struggle more and find our own ways of compensating or settle for a substandard life because life is not a level playing field and never has been.

There are all kinds of reasons, environmental and hereditary, that can make life more difficult for some people than for others.
The only thing really normal about humans is human variety, even between autistic people.

HFA has always existed and has always been discriminated against in certain cultures even before it was a known disorder. In other human cultures it may have been considered a gift, because it was recognized that the person had a different way of seeing and being.

I have never considered myself disabled because I didn't know any better. I didn't understand societies' expectations of social normality and was oblivious to the social workings of normal society outside of my own little world, and yet I am a whole and complete human being.

I think that what is considered disabled has more to do with the beliefs and structure of a particular human culture and whether a person can find a niche to fit into within that culture.
Perhaps the disability lies more within the culture than within the individual.