Ableism refers to systemic discrimination and prejudice against individuals with disabilities, including autism, often manifesting through societal norms, policies, and practices that marginalize and devalue their experiences and abilities.
PlainSpeak: Ableism is when people with disabilities, like autism, are treated unfairly or seen as less capable, because of biased attitudes and rules in society.
Most Posts on [Ableism]
The MTT task is a neuroscience measure designed to assess an individual's capacity for mental time travel. Participants are presented with event cues, such as "graduation" or "vacation," and asked to recall a specific past event or imagine a specific future event related to each cue. This task distinguishes between personal events, which are specific episodic memories from one's own life, and general events, which are more abstract and can be shared by multiple people, such as public holidays or significant historical moments. In this task, the individual's present moment serves as a reference point from which they situate and retrieve personal versus general events.
MTT involves several cognitive processes, including memory recall, imagination, and prospective thinking. Neuroimaging studies reveal that MTT engages a network of brain regions which include.
Studies have shown that individuals with autism may exhibit differences in episodic memory and future-oriented thinking, which are key components of MTT.
For example, research suggests that some autistics may have difficulty recalling specific personal events and constructing detailed future scenarios, possibly due to challenges in episodic memory retrieval and imagination . However, the variability within the autism spectrum means that these experiences can differ widely among individuals.
Investigating MTT in autism could provide valuable insights into how autistics perceive and engage with time-related cognitive processes. Future studies could explore,
Something Professor Carissa Cascio shared with the lab today. So appropriate.
Also accompanied by a message encouraging us to "be confident in asking questions and not worried about what they don't know. If you already know everything, you're not learning!"
Thank you for this assurance cuz my rather atypical educational path leaves me wondering (more often than not) if there are things I have missed out (through the typical NT education path, NT social experiences/interactions/networking) which is now maybe impacting my knowledge and work.
I have been a participant in the Assert (All Stakeholders Engage in Research Together) project this semester, run by Prof Beth Malow's Sleep Lab. https://www.vumc.org/sleep-in-autism/assert-resources
Its been a good experience, listening to everyone's perspective and being able to contribute, though I could not make last few sessions as it clashed with the new meetings at my new lab rotation.
The disability rights mantra has long centered around Nothing about us without us. And I am glad that to see this idea trickling down with respect to research which will (hopefully) lead us to solutions. And this effort is at happening at many places now - at universities and research centers.
If you are an autistic, please do consider getting involved by emailing assert@vumc.org. It is important that our voices are heard.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/06/01/schizophrenia-autoimmune-lupus-psychiatry/
YES. I believe there are parallels for autism. There is probably some other physiological stuff going on that is causing all the SIB, meltdown and even struggles with talking ability which fluctuate on a day to day basis - all stuff which what makes or breaks your inclusion in society and gatekeeps opportunities. I bet after a few decades when I am a very old man, i will find out that what I had was some INFLAMMATORY PROCESS that and treatable as a baby itself and I could have had a better quality of life instead of struggles, exclusion and rejections at every step.
Markx and his colleagues discovered that although April’s illness was clinically indistinguishable from schizophrenia, she also had lupus, an underlying and treatable autoimmune condition that was attacking her brain.
... a complex autoimmune disorder where the immune system turns on its own body, producing many antibodies that attack the skin, joints, kidneys or other organs. But April’s symptoms weren’t typical, and there were no obvious external signs of the disease; the lupus appeared to only be affecting her brain.
After months of targeted treatments — and more than two decades trapped in her mind — April woke up.
ERGO: underlying autoimmune and inflammatory processes may be more common in patients with a variety of psychiatric syndromes than previously believed.
undergone many courses of treatment — antipsychotics, mood stabilizers and electroconvulsive therapy — all to no avail.
