Stephen Hawking: Inspiration and Aspiration
In the Daily Californian
Stephen Hawking: Inspiration and Aspiration.
Along with the world, I mourned the passing of Dr. Stephen Hawking. A tribute and how he influenced my life.
This is the sixth of my series of 10 articles for my weekly opinion column "The Person Inside" for the Daily Californian.
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Headline: Stephen Hawking: Inspiration and aspiration
It made me wonder: What if Hawking had been born 40 years earlier, when such technology was not available? His brilliant mind and his contributions would be lost to the world. Technology really has been a blessing in disguise for him and many others like me who have no other avenue of communication.
I find it really confusing at times. It can be a lesson in frustration. A brilliant mind such as Hawking’s must have had thoughts churning out faster than the physical movement of his cheek muscle. To be able to achieve Hawking’s level of output through a communication device at the rate of just four words a minute is for me the epitome of perseverance, dedication and effort.
The world lost a brilliant mind last week in Stephen Hawking. He has been a hero and inspiration to me ever since I was 14 years old.
I had just newly emerged as a typer-communicator, and I was finally getting access to mainstream education through a charter school. What I saw on TV was an individual in a wheelchair and pretty severely affected by his disability.
But he was communicating, and the words being spoken from his device were on a different level and on a different plane. He was oozing knowledge.
Later into the TV program, I learned that he was the Stephen Hawking, one of the most brilliant minds of our time after Albert Einstein.
I remember being perplexed and quite curious as to how he managed to communicate despite the significant challenges posed by his amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. I really wanted to learn more about his communication system. After all, communication is so fundamental to our functioning in society, and it is an area that we nonspeakers struggle with.
Hawking had completely lost his voice by 1985 and had to rely on a series of software systems to help him communicate. His initial system involved a hand switch, and his later system involved an infrared switch that detected cheek twitches, which allowed him to select words and letters as they scrolled by on screen. He typed at approximately 15 words a minute with the initial system and four words a minute with the latter system.
I am constantly struck by the sheer willpower that would be required to control a dysfunctional body to get any sort of output, let alone at the quality he was able to produce.
“The human race was so puny compared to the universe that being disabled is not of much cosmic significance,” Hawking said in a Q&A session on his website.
That really helped put things in perspective for nonspeaking individuals like me. He literally reached out into the infinity of space in his field of cosmology.
As a nonspeaking individual, I experience every day how frustratingly slow it is to type with my sensorily dysregulated body. Math and science equations are especially hard, as I have to switch between a word processor and a math font software called MathType just to complete one problem.
My mind was just boggled at the thought — this is the system he has used to write his books, create TV shows, give speeches, attend conferences and do his amazing scientific work. On TV shows, his voice output appeared to be smooth and fluent only because he had prepared a speech ahead of time. At live conferences, it would take him significantly longer to respond to a question.
Life is a challenge, and he met it full on.
He inspired differently abled and nonspeaking folks like me to aspire to reach beyond our bodily human limitations as well as to try to achieve much much more than the lowest expectations that society places on us.
While I greatly admire Hawking, his illness came about slowly with age, so he had time to establish his brilliance and intellect. Nonverbal individuals like me, on the other hand, struggle to prove our cognitive abilities as children with communication challenges.
Regardless, the fact that Hawking was able to accomplish so much despite his significant communication challenges encouraged me to think that perhaps nontraditional paths and careers are a possibility for nonspeaking and sensorily disorganized autistic individuals like me.
The lesson I took away from Hawking was that a life of meaning is one where you are productive and contribute to society in whatever small way you can.
Life is a challenge whether or not your physical body imposes limitations. But Hawking’s journey makes me feel like my own autism challenges are less of a limitation. He has inspired me to strive to do some good in my own small way.
Berkeley Time
Opinion Cubicle at The Daily Californian
Fingers strumming, heels clicking
Waiting...
Tomorrow is another column
Edit Meeting is to happen
Rain pelts the roof.
Editors on Berkeley Time
Chai or Kappi?
The South Indian Society at Cal had a Chai Chat.
They sold out. I'd don't drink chai anyway.
BUT
They sold out. I'd don't drink chai anyway.
BUT
The preferred drink for South Indians is coffee (pronounced as Kappi) not tea (Chai)
They should have a "Kappi Chat" next time.
I'm looking forward to the planned "Sambar Social"
Online is a critical disability accommodation for education access
The article below highlights how online and hybrid options are a critical but overlooked disability accommodation that makes education accessible to many in the autistic/disability populations.
https://www.onlinecollegeplan.com/can-someone-with-nonverbal-autism-attend-online-college/
"Communicating their needs is something that almost everyone with ASD struggles with so for someone who doesn’t communicate in a typical way, those struggles can be exacerbated, especially in school. "
"Colleges and universities across the country offer online programs and more and more of them are implementing support programs to help autistic students transition into college life more smoothly and to excel. These two things can come together and absolutely transform the future for students that can’t speak. The minimized interaction in a self-paced distance-learning degree program allows the student to focus on the things that they can do instead of having to consistently confront the things they can’t as they try to navigate their coursework. The support programs in place at many colleges are there for all students whether they are learning on campus or online and they can help to provide proper resources to students that need them, to help them stay motivated and organized, and to be there for the times that college gets to be a bit overwhelming. A nonverbal autistic student would be able to get the full college experience regardless of what method they chose to complete their degree, but it seems that online college would help reduce the stress of going to college and make communication between advisors, professors, and classmates a lot simpler."
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