https://www.thestreet.com/retailers/apple-reveals-a-powerful-new-feature-that-absolutely-no-one-asked-for
This is so cool
Essentially apple is coming out with AI generated feature which will create a text-speech voice that sounds like you rather than a third party foreign voice.
[Concepts in Sensorimotor Research]
Personal Space v PPS
Personal space refers is a social construct - refers to the physical or psychological distance individuals prefer to maintain between themselves and others. It is the immediate area surrounding a person that they consider as their own.
Peri-personal space is a neuroscience construct to describe the area immediately surrounding the body that is within reach of the individual. It encompasses the space where individuals feel they can manipulate/reach using their limbs / body parts.
Past research has indicated autistics as having a very constrained PPS.
A poem written many years ago that captures the mind-body and depersonalization
Me or We?
If I were a math expression I’d be
Irrational Number Body
Perfect Square Mind
A body that acts quite on its own
A mind that can only watch and mourn
Body, the numerator, mere flesh and bone
Irrational number like, a math anomaly
Visible to all, pure absurdity
Mind, the denominator, profound and wise
Perfect square like, just ecstasy
Hidden from sight, pure tragedy
Body just limited by space, movement and time
Mind without boundaries, infinite times
Two seeming identities in one unreasonable body
Perchance, I should be a 'We' and not 'Me.'
I crave the 'Me' and not the 'We'
How do I go from 'We' to 'Me'?
Another example of private equity (valuation) driving ABA therapy. This does not bode well for the marginalized groups within autism and furthers the exploitative and profit hungry nature of autism therapy.
When the focus is on $$$$, companies will turn away the "non-easy" cases (aka, autistic kids with behaviors) and take up cases they perceive are easy, so that they can show quick results to the investors. Given the heterogeneity of autism with the dx ratio now at 1:36, there are enough non-behavior kids to fill any amount of supply. There is irony in behavior agencies turning away kids with behaviors who need help.
There is focus on valuation but not on quality control in ABA, because in autism if a kid does not improve, the fault is all on the kid, never the therapy. The one industry where there can be profits with no accountability.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.10.532036v1
Dedicated to the EXTRAORDINARY MOMS and DADS and PARENTS out there,
I wrote this poem sometime during high school. But I feel it is still so relevant even today. This poem is dedicated to all those wonderful and amazing moms and dads and parents out there who did not give up on their disabled child. Thank you for your dedication and fortitude, in rolling up your sleeves and taking on the world for us, without even knowing how to go about it.
I think back to the story of the frog who climbed to the top of the well amidst discouragement from the crowd that the task was impossible; turns out the frog was deaf so had not heard the discouragement, so made it all the way to the top.
This is what parents of the children seen as having more challenging disabilities face every day. From the get go, they are nudged to tone down expectations of their children, not to expect much. Lady Liberty did not hold up her torch of the American Dream for that child.
Over the years, I have seen many of my peers disappear one by one into the void of the system (out of sight and out of mind of society), as the once eager and enthusiastic parents reach a state of burnout and exhaustion, with this constant barragement of discouragement and lack of support. Other adult peers who have aged out of the special education system are sitting at home with their aging parents as adult day programs want “easy to manage” adults (sheep!!), even as there is a dearth of support systems for the ones with “behaviors.” It is like a battle for the classroom placements and supports during the school district years, starting all over again in adulthood for many.
Thank you to all the extra-ordinary parents out there, for your support and embrace, when the world seems to abandon us at every new stage, not just when we were children but as adults and possibly even when we are middle aged. For many with more significant disabilities, our parents and siblings are likely the only family we will ever have. I wonder who will be there as this lifelong pillar, when we are senior citizens ourselves, where we are not just battling aging issues but also the nature of our disability may mean that not all of us reach a level where we are able to take care of ourselves and have to depend on the largesse of paid staff for a decent quality of life.
Parents, Yours is truly a dedication of a lifetime. Thank you.
