You might not have considered it, but some of the folks who read your blog are probably autistic. Blogs make information accessible to people with autism in ways the auditory information is not.
Being a teacher and a peculiar person myself, I’ve more than a passing interest in how blogging has found a place in the lives of autistic people. Estee Klar-Wolfond is a blogger and the parent of a child with autism. I’ve been following Estee’s blog for a while now. She explains the blogging connection in this quote from her latest post.
Thankfully, the blog is an equalizer of humans . . . It is a universe, a ââ¬Åsphereââ¬? without rules, without barriers ââ¬â faceless, sometimes nameless. It transcends some physical and attitudinal barriers and in this realm, one cannot judge another based on appearance or so-called levels of ââ¬Åfunctioning.ââ¬?
Great Find: The Blog and Human Equality by Estee Klar-Wolfond
Type of Article: an editorial discussing the current views on autism and the impact blogging has had on the community of persons with autism
Permalink: http://joyofautism.blogspot.com/2006/04/blog-and-human-
Target Audience: Anyone who wants to know more about how blogging can change the lives of a population
Content: This is a serious read by a sincere author who knows the subject intimately and has done the research. I include it here because I know autistic people are among our readers and because knowing how others process what we write is valuable information. To access the article, click on the quote below by an autistic blogger taken from Estee’s article.
ââ¬ÅZilariââ¬? of Part Processing makes a number of comments on her processing time with colleagues at work:
Thanks Estee for sharing what you know with Successful Blog readers.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Estee is right. Blogging is a great leveller. Autistics don’t always have much money, it’s hard for even very talented autistic people to get hired because of how we tend to interact with people (it’s non-standard, by definition). Since we don’t have lots of money to start a campaign to end ignorance and bias against autistics … or share a keen idea on how to help and autistic child deal with something … or share an idea on how to deal with shopping or eating with other autistic adults … whatever, a blog is a great way to get that information out.
In general most autistim spectrum people are more than willing to give away important information (see: Linux, Unix).
One more thing, without autistics you wouldn’t have electricity in your homes and offices. Without autistics you wouldn’t have computers or the Internet. Every single time you blog something or make toast, thank an autistic person.
Hi Autism Diva,
What a fine comment. There’s so much great information here. I can imagine how hard it is for talented autistic people to get hired. Social conformity is a hard problem in society. I’ve hit my head against that wall enough times to know what it can be like and I’m just a little bit weird. Okay well a lot, but you know what I mean.
I’m not sure what you’re saying in that last paragraph. All of those things came from folks with autistic talents?
Re. Autism Diva’s last paragraph:
– Nikola Tesla, turn-of-the-20th-century electrical engineer, father of the alternating-current power generation and transmission mechanisms that made electricity economically possible as a utility, was almost certainly autistic
– Bill Gates is almost certainly on the autism spectrum
– Alan Turing, mid 20th-century mathematician, who laid the foundations of modern theoretical computer science, and architected the first digital computer in the UK (concurrently with the development of the first digital computer in the US by John von Neumann), was almost certainly on the autism spectrum
– and there are many less-famous others in the relevant fields.
— Phil Schwarz, vice-president, Asperger’s Assn of New England (www.aane.org)
Thank you, Phil.
Welcome.
What you add is important information to the discussion. We need to know the contributions of important folks with these unfamiliar talent spectrums.
I appreciate your stopping by to fill us in.
Liz