Prepare yourself for a treat.

[pnwmom]

A mind altering treat.

This video was made by an autistic woman. The first three minutes follows her through "typical" autistic activities. What happens next is amazing.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/the-language-of-autism/?em&ex=1205380800&en=a017f11ab0f43d50&ei=5087%0A

More information about Ms. Briggs is in this Wired Magazine article:

http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-03/ff_autism

The writer of the article met her and spoke with her, via a computer and voice synthesizer.

"Baggs lives in a public housing project for the elderly and handicapped near downtown Burlington, Vermont. She has short black hair, a pointy nose, and round glasses. She usually wears a T-shirt and baggy pants, and she spends a scary amount of time — day and night — on the Internet: blogging, hanging out in Second Life, and corresponding with her autie and aspie friends. (For the uninitiated, that's autistic and Asperger's.)

"On a blustery afternoon, Baggs reclines on a red futon in the apartment of her neighbor (and best friend). She has a gray travel pillow wrapped around her neck, a keyboard resting on her lap, and a DynaVox VMax computer propped against her legs.

"Like many people with autism, Baggs doesn't like to look you in the eye and needs help with tasks like preparing a meal and taking a shower. In conversation she'll occasionally grunt or sigh, but she stopped speaking altogether in her early twenties. Instead, she types 120 words a minute, which the DynaVox then translates into a synthesized female voice that sounds like a deadpan British schoolteacher."

SNIP

[lonestarnot]

1. Whoa... fantastic!

[aikoaiko]

2. I'm am doubful that this is an accurate portrayal, but anything is possible

:toast: Amanda.

[pnwmom]

3. Why are you doubtful? I assume you didn't read the Wired Magazine

article, here:

http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-03/ff_autism

The writer of the article met her and spoke with her, via a computer and voice synthesizer.

"Baggs lives in a public housing project for the elderly and handicapped near downtown Burlington, Vermont. She has short black hair, a pointy nose, and round glasses. She usually wears a T-shirt and baggy pants, and she spends a scary amount of time — day and night — on the Internet: blogging, hanging out in Second Life, and corresponding with her autie and aspie friends. (For the uninitiated, that's autistic and Asperger's.)

"On a blustery afternoon, Baggs reclines on a red futon in the apartment of her neighbor (and best friend). She has a gray travel pillow wrapped around her neck, a keyboard resting on her lap, and a DynaVox VMax computer propped against her legs.

"Like many people with autism, Baggs doesn't like to look you in the eye and needs help with tasks like preparing a meal and taking a shower. In conversation she'll occasionally grunt or sigh, but she stopped speaking altogether in her early twenties. Instead, she types 120 words a minute, which the DynaVox then translates into a synthesized female voice that sounds like a deadpan British schoolteacher."

SNIP

[aikoaiko]

9. Mostly because it is unusual for someone with such severe symptoms

in in some areas of Autism have such a mastery over written language. Usually when Autistic persons acquire language is much more stilted. I recognize that there are exceptions but its unusual and/or a savant ability.

And I don't trust Wired to conduct critical journalism of autism. For example, the writer just seems to go along with Amanda describing what she does as her native language where she converses with her environment. With the exception of some symbolic communication, that behavior does not meet the usual definitions of language which include grammar.

[pnwmom]

10. The Wired article addresses the doubters. For example:

"I tell her that I asked one of the world's leading authorities on autism to check out the video. The expert's opinion: Baggs must have had outside help creating it, perhaps from one of her caregivers. Her inability to talk, coupled with repetitive behaviors, lack of eye contact, and the need for assistance with everyday tasks are telltale signs of severe autism. Among all autistics, 75 percent are expected to score in the mentally retarded range on standard intelligence tests — that's an IQ of 70 or less.

SNIP

"After I explain the scientist's doubts, Baggs grunts, and her mouth forms just a hint of a smirk as she lets loose a salvo on the keyboard. No one helped her shoot the video, edit it, and upload it to YouTube. She used a Sony Cybershot DSC-T1, a digital camera that can record up to 90 seconds of video (she has since upgraded). She then patched the footage together using the editing programs RAD Video Tools, VirtualDub, and DivXLand Media Subtitler. "My care provider wouldn't even know how to work the software," she says."

______________

And also, this:

A cornerstone of this new approach — call it the difference model — is that past research about autistic intelligence is flawed, perhaps catastrophically so, because the instruments used to measure intelligence are bogus. "If Amanda Baggs had walked into my clinic five years ago," says Massachusetts General Hospital neuroscientist Thomas Zeffiro, one of the leading proponents of the difference model, "I would have said she was a low-functioning autistic with significant cognitive impairment. And I would have been totally wrong."

[aikoaiko]

11. Yeah, I read those parts and they don't really address my doubts.

[hootinholler]

4. I'll have to look tonight, meanwhile, here's a kick n/t

[pnwmom]

6. Thank you, hootinholler! n/t

[boobooday]

5. She is a talented producer!

I respect her work. She really does take you there and show you truth.

[timtom]

7. FWIW

"...voice that sounds like a deadpan British schoolteacher."

It sounds Irish to me. That makes it friendlier, somehow.

[pnwmom]

8. Yes -- Irish, kind of. That's what it reminded me of, too. IF

Irish-English were spoken in a monotone.

:)

And her singing reminded me of some forms of religious chanting.

[onethatcares]

12. sorry, but WTF?

I'm in my 50s, if I wanted to stop talking tomorrow, I probably could, of course I'd like someone to prepare my meals cause I'm a bit on the lazy side, and I wouldn't mind a female nurse to help me with my showers, I can type 100 wpm., and I wouldn't mind reclining on a red or blue futon in someone elses apartment. But where and how could I get enough dinero to live like that? I just don't understand how she became "autistic" in her twenties. Sounds to me like she just quit.

Sorry, I just don't get it.:evilgrin:

[pnwmom]

13. She didn't "become autistic" in her twenties.

She was born autistic, but developed some limited ability to speak. Then, in her twenties, she "regressed" and lost what little ability she had -- which is common among autistics. I put the word regressed in quotes because she would probably disagree with the idea that this was a regression -- especially because of her ability to communicate with the keyboard.

Have you ever seen the typical housing available to impoverished elderly and handicapped? Would you really want to live there? I doubt that.

I am shocked that someone would think that she was some kind of malingerer, but you're probably not the only one who might have this reaction. How sad.

[varelse]

14. "Sorry, I just don't get it."

You know what? You are absolutely right. You don't get it, and the loss is yours :(

[varelse]

15. Thank you for posting this

I admit I almost didn't make it through the first three minutes, but I'm glad I stuck with it. Two of my friends have children with autism - one has a young son with "severe" autism and the other's boy is earning top grades in high school (he has "high functioning" autism).

[rucky]

16. Wow.

paradigm shift ahead