One of my personality quirks is that I like clear delineation of my space in the world. I don’t like fuzzy barriers between the bits of the world I occupy and the rest of (human) world. I don’t mind if my yard leads into a forest. That’s great. But I do…
The Autistic Me
As a professor, sometimes I am faced with conflicting impulses: positive advocacy vs. negative reality. Like many advocates, I wish to remind people that most autistics are not violent, bullies, or any more risky than other people in classrooms or workplaces. If anything, people with special needs are more likely…
Perfection and compulsive organization drive me to over-prepare for the courses I teach. I’ve found that some instructors, especially at the college and university level, are comfortable with a loose seminar approach to teaching, I like to have lots of notes, outlines, slides, and handouts. Without the structure, I would…
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…
My wife and I are from Central California. The region is hard to explain to outsiders, because people assume “California” means L.A. and San Francisco, yet geographically those are little dots within a sea of socially conservative counties. To this day, it feels more like the Deep South (circa 1976)…
Autism has a genetic foundation; it likely has many genetic forms, each with its own set of mutations. Press Release: Using New Statistical Tools, Carnegie Mellon’s Kathryn Roeder Finds Genetic Risk for Autism Stems Mostly From Common Genes -Carnegie Mellon News – Carnegie Mellon University I’ve written before about spontaneous, de…
This is why I haven’t been blogging a lot this summer (2014). I’ve been working on several new plays… A NEW DEATH A World Premiere By C.S. Wyatt Directed By Kaitlin Kerr Assistant Directed By Sarah McPartland Presented by Throughline Theatre Company July 18 – July 26,…
Autistic traits can contribute to being abused and exploited by others, as the following survey data suggest: Half of [UK] autistic adults ‘abused by someone they trusted as a friend’ A startling 44% of those questioned admitted they stayed indoors as much as possible for fear of being harassed. Almost…
I was recently asked whatever happened to my planned update to Spectrum of Relationships. The simple answer: I have been distracted by more interesting (to me) things and didn’t really push to get the book updated. I’m not nearly as involved in autism advocacy in Pennsylvania as I was in…
A reader asks, “If you don’t think about the autistic traits, what about your wife? They tend to notice what husbands fail to see in the mirror.” Is my wife more aware of my autistic traits than I am? Probably. I suppose the above is true of all friends and…