February 28, 2008
The Truth About Autism
David Wolman in Wired (I highly recommend watching the video):
The YouTube clip opens with a woman facing away from the camera, rocking back and forth, flapping her hands awkwardly, and emitting an eerie hum. She then performs strange repetitive behaviors: slapping a piece of paper against a window, running a hand lengthwise over a computer keyboard, twisting the knob of a drawer. She bats a necklace with her hand and nuzzles her face against the pages of a book. And you find yourself thinking: Who's shooting this footage of the handicapped lady, and why do I always get sucked into watching the latest viral video?
But then the words "A Translation" appear on a black screen, and for the next five minutes, 27-year-old Amanda Baggs — who is autistic and doesn't speak — describes in vivid and articulate terms what's going on inside her head as she carries out these seemingly bizarre actions. In a synthesized voice generated by a software application, she explains that touching, tasting, and smelling allow her to have a "constant conversation" with her surroundings. These forms of nonverbal stimuli constitute her "native language," Baggs explains, and are no better or worse than spoken language. Yet her failure to speak is seen as a deficit, she says, while other people's failure to learn her language is seen as natural and acceptable.
And you find yourself thinking: She might have a point.
More here. [Thanks to Harry Walsh.]
Posted by S. Abbas Raza at 02:55 AM | Permalink
Comments
I have been following Amanda's blog for some time and her writing and example have changed the way I think about people.
Posted by: John Ballard | Feb 28, 2008 7:23:04 AM
I'm glad to see this piece circulating the influential parts of the 'Net.
Very glad.
Posted by: Damien | Feb 28, 2008 12:45:22 PM
This is provocative and informative, and certainly Amanda Baggs is helping people who pay attention to her to unlearn many assumptions.
However, her acquired if not natural language -- English, via keyboard and synthesizer -- is useful to her, and she may feel her life is the richer for bothering to acquire it and use it with such command. It's how she keeps current with her network over the Internet, so it can't be without interest for peer-to-peer communication. And it's how she educates the rest of us, who would otherwise be in the dark.
I believe her when she tells us her "native language" that we see in the video allows her to keep in "constant conversation" with her surroundings, and that this is both natural and right for her in ways the neurotypical among us don't fathom, but I cannot help observing it isn't the language she opts for when she wants to be in dialogue with other sentient beings, including other differently-abled beings, rather than in uninterrupted interaction with her physical surround. I think she's in a superb position to know the uses of conventional language better than those of us who simply use it, and I would be interested to know if she views its benefits as enriching to her life, or as a concession to norms she has no deep wish to participate in.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Feb 28, 2008 9:38:36 PM
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