Illusion Explained

Sorry to have left this picture up here without any explanation. I was just using the blog as a bulletin board to tack it up. It was the follow up to comments I made on Whose Planet Is It Anyway. You see, my esteemed fellow blogger, the Autistic Bitch From Hell, posted a link to an article about moving version of this. The article said that the dancer spun in one direction for some people and in the opposite direction for others.

The thing is that, when I watched it, it spun first in one direction and then in the other. The timing seemed random. Looking at the comments on the main article, I noticed that I was not the only person to have spotted the truth. It was, in fact, quite clearly spinning in both directions with a random timer determining when the direction would shift. Gullible people would see it moving in one or the other direction and think that, because different people saw it at different times, there was some kind of weird perceptual thing going on, when in reality it was just a bit of cleaver programing.

I was so convinced of this -- after all, I had seen it with my own eyes -- that I posted a comment to that effect. Then it occurred to me to take it apart and find out how the trick worked. So I did.

It turns out that there was no trick. It's an animated gif that presents a 36 image sequence in the same order each time. The still bellow is one of the images. My brain just happens to processes that sequence as moving in both directions, and just happens to reverse the direction it thinks it is moving in every few seconds, in a way that looks random.

What is really fascinating about this is how absolutely sure I was of the veracity of what I saw. It did not fit with the explanation I had been given and, say what you like, I had seen it with my own eyes.

You know what this reminded me of? MK's teacher from last year. She'd seen what she had seen, and you could talk until you were blue in the face, she had incontrovertible evidence in the form of her own observations that things could not be as MK's parents claimed.

The next time I set out to educate someone, I'm going to try to keep in mind that seeing is believing.

I don't usually do this but....

You've got to read this post!

This entry in chaoticidealism's Reports from a Resident Alien says so much of what needs to be said so well, including this wonderful aside:

"(Digression, but what's so important about a "normal life" anyway? The President doesn't have one; neither does the bum on the street corner; neither did Beethoven or Luther or Joan of Arc. I don't have a normal life; but why would you want a normal life? Go to school, get married, work, have 2.5 kids, retire, and die. How is that any better than any other life, simply because more people, at least in America, live like that than any other way?)"

Go enjoy it, if you haven't already.

Who is running the Hub?

Does anyone know? I know Kevin has turned it over to someone, but I don't know who. I've never been able to find any contact information on the Autism Hub site itself. I wanted to point out to whoever is running it that The Beach on Autism Island has been hijacked by a porn site, which is probably not the kind of content that the Hub wants people being directed to. Any ideas about who to write to?

What's in a name?

Learning the names of the kids in his class was a big challenge for MK last year. They don't take attendance at the beginning of each day in this school, so name learning is harder than it was at his old school. At last year's IEP meeting MK's aid suggested that this year, she take pictures of everyone in the class so that MK could work on learning their names.

She did that and then, at home, we printed the pictures out and made flash cards out of them. The actual memorization took quiet a while. MK is good at memorization (go ahead and ask him any fact contained in the Pokedex if you don't believe me) but he has an aversion of deliberately learning things. He considers it unnatural -- like a sort of violation of his head space. Apparently, it's one thing for knowledge to appear in your head in a natural manner, but another to try and force it in. I can kind of see where he is coming from, but this is one of those cases where I take the very nuanced parental approach of, "Oh, yeah. Tough." Actually, in this case, I bribed him. A couple of weeks later he learned the names that go with all 30 pictures and received his bribe.

This has been really good in terms of talking about what goes on at school. It is also our theory that it will: i) make it easier for him to think about his classmates as individuals, which hopefully will ii) make him more likely to treat them as individuals, which in turn would iii) predispose his classmates to treating MK like an individual.

It seems to be working out. The other day at MacDonald's we bumped into three people from his school. He greeted each of them by name, even though only two were in his class (so knowing the third kid's name was a bonus). Tonight, we met yet another classmate at the video store and, once again MK responded to "Hi, MK," with "Hi, XX." He then went even further by actually asking the kid what movie he was getting. The appropriateness of it blew me away. The other thing that really impressed me was that, while MK asked this question with his back turned to XX (as he is wont to do), XX not only answered, but didn't seem to mind having an exchange with the back of MK's head. Looks like we may be having some iii) going on already.

Late Bloomers, Loners and Sensitive Types

When was the last time you heard one of those expressions used? These words from my childhood seem to have disappeared from the language and been replaced by various medical terms. Jitterbugs, handfuls and dreamers have all been replaced by ADHD cases. Rowdy kids who talk back now have oppositional defiant disorder. One reads about three year olds being diagnosed with social functioning levels equal to 1 year and 8 months. What outstanding accuracy! How precisely we have come to understand human development. The path that leads to (presumably homogeneous) adulthood has been drawn so narrowly that any child who does not march straight down the statistical center is plastered with labels.

In my son's class last year, the teacher confided that there were three kids with diagnoses and five more that needed to have diagnoses, but hadn't got them yet. That is to say that eight out of thirty (about a quarter) of the kids had pathological developmental disorders. I went on field trips with these kids, and I can assure you that none of them seemed any different from the kids I went to school with. Some were goofy, some were quiet and some you had to keep your eye on -- in other words, it was a group of thirty children.

In a meeting with some people from the PTA and the Vice Principal, we discussed "gray area" kids. I'd never heard of the problem before, but everyone was very worried about it. It seems that about 30% of the kids would not actually qualify for diagnosis under today's standards, and yet are failing to keep up academically and socially. The horror! No matter which way I crunched the numbers, the truth was inescapable -- nearly half the kids were bellow average! Whatever are we going to do?

Please excuse the rant. And, no, the next thing I say is not going to be, "All these kids need is a good old fashioned spanking." What set me writing about this was all the brouhaha over the fact that Jenny McCarthey's son, who was not developing typically when he was two (he was having epileptic seizures) was developing more typically at the ripe old age of four. We are told that, in that two year span, the young gentleman had autism and then was cured from it. How exciting.

Diagnostic labels have their uses. They help get access to services. They can predispose some people to acceptance and accommodation, instead of judgment. In some cases they can be useful in terms of giving an indication of what sort of help is likely to be useful. But these sorts of labels also present problems. First, unlike the folk-labels in the title of this post, they narrow the boundaries of what we are willing to consider as natural variation. What was once considered acceptable and even welcomed in the general community tends to be seen as something that, being pathological, requires correction. It also takes away our confidence in our children's ability to work things out as a natural part of growing up.

Recently, at a support group for parents of autistic kids I mentioned how MK still did not speak in proper sentences at age six. A parent asked me how he went from being non-verbal to his current verbal state. My answer was that he was never non-verbal, he just didn't know how to talk, and that this had changed as he learned how to talk. Of course we did what we could to help, but the bottom line is that, as a natural part of growing up, he has got better at things that were difficult for him earlier on. Kids do that.

It's very nice when a late bloomer does well but, by calling it a miraculous cure, we raise the stress levels for all the other kids who are taking their time. It's a good thing for loners to get some support in making friends, if they want it, but do we have to tell them they have a disorder before we are willing to help out? Likewise, sensitive types will benefit just as much from activities that promote sensory integration, such as swinging, swimming and bouncing on a trampoline, whether we refer to it as therapy or just getting out there.

We've come a long way from the days when intervention was limited to curt demands that kids snap out of it and quit acting up. Hopefully, as we move forward, we can drop the notion that everything that benefits from help and understanding first has to be considered pathological.

Music to My Ears

I don't often listen to music because, although I really like music, I can't do anything else very well when it is on in the background. So, for me, listening to music is only possible when I am relaxed enough to sit around doing nothing but listening. After my last meeting with MK's teacher, I suddenly find myself very relaxed. So I set up an iTunes account and started downloading. I got a lot of stuff by David Byrne. He's pretty well my all time favorite musician. (I once saw him perform with just an acoustic guitar in a small church in Brooklyn -- major high point in my life.)

Anyway, listening to his stuff this time, I remembered that I had heard about him being on the spectrum. So I Googled that and I came up with this video by Christschool. You've got to watch the interview at the end. The cadence and logical/narrative structure is soooooo familiar to me. It is any surprise that I like this man's art?

More Good News

In October we are going to Japan (that's good news, but it's not the good news I'm talking about). The thing about that is that it comes right when fall IEPs are usually scheduled. So I went into the school today to ask various people whether they wanted to schedule the IEP before or after our trip. The VP and the Resource Coordinator felt that things were going really well, so there was no rush and we might as well have it afterwards.

I was OK with that, but I had one reservation. Last year, MK's teachers had refused to give him letter grades in anything but math, and I do not intend to allow that to continue. I particularly did not want to let the IEP meeting slide and find out at the meeting that this year's teacher also wanted to withhold letter grades. I have lined up a legal challenge to use if the school tries that again, but these things take time to implement, so if I was going to be getting a lawyer, I wanted lead time.

So I went to the teacher and asked what he thought about the timing, saying that, if he didn't think MK was keeping up academically then we should have the IEP meeting earlier rather than later, but if he thought MK was more or less keeping up (which, by definition means eligible for letter grades) we could schedule the IEP later.

Imagine my surprise to hear the teacher say that he wanted the IEP meeting sooner, rather than later, not because MK wasn't keeping up, but because he was completely up to speed in all areas, his behavior was really good, he is happy and engaged in class, and last year's IEP doesn't cut it anymore because he's doing so much better than that. (To quote Sweet M, who was herself quoting Austin Powers) Oh yeah, baby, that's what I'm talking about!

As I have blogged, MK has made great progress recently and is doing better in general, but he's still a particularly unique young man with a number of challenges. The big difference is that this year he has got a teacher who doesn't mind the "inappropriate" questions, or the unusual postures, gestures and facial expressions that his teachers complained about so much last year. He's eager to look at what MK can do, instead of obsessing on what he can't do, or what he does differently. And that's all it takes. It's just takes an open mind (... that and the one-to-one aide that MK has this year, but let's not start talking about details that might detract from an otherwise highly poetic argument).

Sixteen Bits

Kristina, over at Autism Vox, once asked how are you and your autie alike. I had a bunch of things to say about that. But there is one way in which we are different.

MK is required to eat two or three mouthfuls of vegetables at each meal. On days other than the days on which carrots are served, these naturally fall into the category of foods that MK really hates. There used not to be any hope of getting him to eat from a plate that had been contaminated by non-approved foodstuff, but MK is growing up and will now try just about anything on request (he doesn't always succeed in swallowing, but he does try). MK always leaves these veggies until last. Not me. I leave the yummiest morsel to the end. I always want the meal to end on a high note. And I am no different when in comes to reading.

Every day, I read the blogs on Autism Hub and everyday I leave Whitterer on Autism to the end. I know I'll be left with the fine aftertaste of particularly good writing and a positive attitude. So, when Mcewen herself tagged me for the Eight Random Things meme this week, the last thing I wanted to do was to risk looking unappreciative by replying with the cold and boring truth that I did, in fact, already post one such octet back in July. Having reviewed the rules, I see there is nothing against repeat performances. Nonetheless, knowing that --lacking star power-- my own re-tagging of previously tagged people is unlikely to be met with much indulgence, I have decided to forgo that part of the meme. So, without further ado, here are eight more things:

1. I don't own a car. I usually rent one on the weekends, but during the week I am a cyclist.
2. I am a political junkie. For example, I had downloaded the Supreme Court Ruling on Bush v. Gore within ten minutes of it being published and sat in bed guzzling it down the way other people might read the last pages of a mystery novel.
3. I don't like team sports, either as a spectator or a participant. (Mostly because I am really bad at them.)
4. The country that I would most like to visit for a holiday is Cambodia.
5. I am exceptionally good at peeling potatoes. When I peel potatoes in public, people gather around to watch. I'm not kidding.
6. More than once, people have turned off sound systems when I have tried singing karaoke.
7. My father taught me how to plow with a horse, fell trees, take care of honey bees, build fires, navigate at sea with a sextant, make candles, catch fish with my hands and all sorts of other things that I never actually need to do -- but I feel confident of my chances of survival if modern civilization were to come to an abrupt end for some reason.
8. My desk is a terrible mess and I loose my reading glasses several times a day.

Compassion: your mileage may vary

Recently, Joel, whose blog I read regularly and very much like, wrote a post at NTs Are Weird about what should be required of autism advocates that included the statement, "If I laugh at people who don’t exercise, because they are unathletic, I’m also laughing at people who are unathletic for other reasons..." This is an extreme position. By the same logic, I would not be able laugh at a foolish decision made by George Bush because I would also be laughing at people who make foolish decisions due to an intelectual handicap. Similarly, I couldn't titter at old ladies dressed in clashing colors for fear of offending the color blind, or rib friends who invested in condos in Florida in 2006, out of respect for those with dyscalculia. In fact, taken to its logical conclusion I could not even look down on people who look down on other people, because that would be unfair to psychopaths.

Not that there is anything wrong with that.

There is a lot to be said for seeking to act in a way that causes the least offense and the least suffering in others. That's not generally how I hang (for example, see my other blogs: george-bush-is-a-moron.blogspot.com, old-ladies-who-crack-me-up.blogspot.com and funny-florida-flippers.blogspot.com) but I have plenty of respect for those have chosen that path. The Dali Lama and Jesus come to mind, but there are plenty of ordinary, run-of-the-mill nice, friendly people who live by the same lights. (For that matter, my son is one of them. If I rail at divers engaged in unsafe and illegal maneuvers in the road ahead, he will chime in with, "It's not their fault. They probably just don't know how to drive very well.") I'll be the first to admit that compassion in word, deed and thought makes the world a more pleasant place and does wonders for the general psychological wellbeing of the compassionate themselves. I just don't see the need to tie it to disability. I think that Joel and some other people in the disability rights movement may be hanging too many coats on one peg.

If you are going to be understanding and accommodating of every difference out there, there is no reason to perceive this solely in the framework of disability rights. You can go ahead and just be a really nice guy in general. By the same token, there is no need to see this sort of generalized compassion as a prerequisite for advocating for specific disability rights. I know a quadriplegic fellow who is a very effective advocate for wheelchair access who disses his opponents by saying things like, "Unlike them, my disability is from the neck down." This is very rude to people who have a genuine intelectual disability, but the person in question still gets ramps built. He's just a jerk. That's all. Just as one can be friendly and autistic, or be physically disabled and be athletic, one can also be a disability advocate and a jerk.

People are complex and imperfect, disability advocates are no different.

@#!&*@#$$%!!

No, the title is not indicative of my mood, but rather a polite way of expressing what MK has been saying recently.

As recently as March, MK was very upset by swearing. Hearing people swear, and especially children (even on TV) would bring him to tears. I think it might partially have been a cognitive dissonance thing -- if it's against the rules, then why on earth are they doing it?

At the same time, he was fascinated with it, especially as he was hearing more and more of it in the school yard. I myself don't swear often, but not often is not the same thing as never. And I have always explained that swearing is an easy (or even lazy) way to add impact to language and express familiarity.

In his typical way, MK began experimenting by editing videos. He learned from his YouTube Poop colleagues that much fun can be had by taking a perfectly innocent phrase, such as "That's a nice red dress," and adding censor beeps, so it comes out, "That's a nice *beep* dress." MK produced dozens of such videos. There are grammatical and semantic issues in this editing trick, so sometimes his videos sounded natural and funny, and sometimes they made no sense. I gave him feedback and explained some of the theoretical underpinning of four letter words, and he kept experimenting. Within about three months most of the beeped videos made sense.

As he was doing this, MK also began experimenting with actually saying some of these naughty words. I had given him permission to say them around me, as long as no one else was present to be offended. Having never in his life blurted out so much as a single syllable, there is not much risk of him doing so with off-limits vocabulary. There are few people who spend more time weighing their words than my son.

At first he only said them in the car. We would be talking, he would get half-way through a sentence and then stop and ask me to roll up the windows. After a few furtive glances around to make sure there were no lip-readers in nearby cars (or perhaps perched on rooftops or overpasses with binoculars), he would whisper the expletive, ask me if it was grammatically correct, and then sigh like a golfer who has just completed a difficult putt.

By now he's relaxed a lot. He'll come down and watch Jon Stewart with me, just for the hilarity inherent in potty-mouthed newscasters. He has even developed certain amount of panache in his delivery. Yesterday, he asked me what "contemptible corpuscle" meant. I explained a length, covering etiology and implied meaning. He listened to the whole explanation and then said, "So it's basically a stupid f****er."

I'm always amazed by what I end up considering as progress.