Comments on: A long-delayed reply to the Schafer Report

By: Teresa

Teresa — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 03:31:31 +0000

I also ran across your blog by accident, but find what you have to say interesting. I’m the mother of an eleven year old boy who has autism. He speaks, but doesn’t communicate well yet. I struggle to understand what’s going on inside him and to help others in the community, particularly his teachers, understand what he is capable of. My son’s relationship skills and communication skills have improved dramatically in the past couple of years. I know there are so many adults with autism who have come through what he is experiencing right now and any insights you or others out there have that can help steer us to effective supports, curriculi, or therapies would be appreciated.

Thank you.

By: Florian

Florian — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 17:41:22 +0000

Hi,
I found your blog via google by accident and have to admit that youve a really interesting blog :-)
Just saved your feed in my reader, have a nice day :)

By: Ballastexistenz » Blog Archive » Let’s play Assumption Ping-Pong!

Tue, 26 Sep 2006 21:16:31 +0000

[…] In my last post, A Long-Delayed Reply to the Schafer Report, I touched on something that I’ve described before as like watching a ping-pong game. […]

By: Ettina

Ettina — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 15:01:00 +0000

It reminds me of one movie I saw at http://www.autism-recoveredchildren.com/ where at one point one “recovered” autistic boy is asked what autism is and he says “autism is this, and this, and this” doing some of the stims he used to do. To which I wonder if he’s aware of how autistic thought patterns differ. I don’t know that kid well enough to know, but I know in my casde I was rereading a diary I kept at 11 and I knew I was different but not how much. I attributed much of the differences I actually noticed to having been abused, and there were plenty I didn’t notice at all.

By: ballastexistenz

ballastexistenz — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 21:48:00 +0000

Yes, I remember that Brad was someone who’d plagiarized, and that also bothered me. It bothers me that some people still reprint it without the note that it’s plagiarized, too.

By: Bronwyn G

Bronwyn G — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 21:30:00 +0000

Do you remember a guy named Brad Rand from Jypsy’s website? He plagarised experiences of autists.

By: ballastexistenz

ballastexistenz — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 21:27:00 +0000

Jim Sinclair’s been around too long, and is too obviously and consistently (to my eye) autistic, for it to be xem. Xe’s just one of those people who’s been rumored about a lot, like Donna Williams. Jim is a very private person, but xe isn’t hiding something of that nature.

I don’t know anything about it other than what ABfH said on her blog. I always worry, too, about wondering too hard which of us is “real” and which is not, I’ve seen people get caught up in that and see “fakes” everywhere, not my thing at all (see next post for reasons why I tend not to jump to that conclusion very rapidly about others). I used to know two people, one autistic and one non-autistic, who were convinced that there were no “real” autistics on the Internet at all. And I have been accused of more than my share of misleading when it was really people’s minds that were misleading them.

But… yeah. It does worry me a lot. I am worried in particular about whether anyone’s personal experiences are going to be stolen for the monetary gain of this person.

By: Bronwyn G

Bronwyn G — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 19:35:00 +0000

Everybody should be held accountable for what they say. Marty Murphy said something very poisonous as well as not true about autistic people in particular those who do not use verbal means of communication. It is just as bad as Lenny Schafer shaming some people for speaking in public. I think David was coached. It was pretty powerful for him, a reinforcer, so to speak. When I speak in public I try to speak my own words where possible and have them in writing again where possible, so people know I am saying my truth.

As for the journalist, I went like a chook with a bad head thinking it was Jim Sinclair. It could not be he has not done journalism. Is it a big nationally read newspaper in the United States? These issues affect us internationally as I am sure you will appreciate.