Hip hip hooray.
He succeeded as far as they let him.
Let's whoop and holler and clap our hands!
My mom was way ahead of like YAI. She taught me to cook before I was ten. I had a bank account by the time I was ten. I had a newspaper route when I was a teenager and I was nominated for good service. We didn't need no YAI.
Did YAI teach Richie to make that face for the camera?
Mom: "If somebody suggests my son get a job in some supermarket I'm going to have that person's head. He's going in to college and he's going through college and he's going out of college just like Dad and I did."
The ABCNews Web site this morning talked about a few people expressing concern for autistic kids getting married (One HFA son expressed concern for himself). Well, if not all women can stand the idea of having a kid with some grade of autism or Asperger, it stands to reason they can't stand the idea of a mate with autism or Asperger either? Make sense? Never mind what kind of man he is.
Plenty of NT guys are welcome to apply, though (and my brother notes with chagrin that this includes quite a few abusive men. You barely open the book Deer Hunting with Jesus, Joe Bageant, and some Winchester-ite (VA) pops off a joke- they say millions of women are battered and I've been eating mine plain?). Winchester is about, um, 60-70 miles up Rt. 7 from us (We call Rt. 7 King Street when it reaches the Potomac River waterfront).
[i]Some moments in time you simply don't forget. For the parents of Richie Clolery, it was when their son - born with Asperger's Syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder - cooked his own meal at the group home provided by YAI. Richie's self-esteem has boomed. He holds a job at a supermarket and has his own bank account.
Ding! Tell Korrigan what she has won!
I am not sure what to say other than that I believe this is a misrepresentation of an "average" Aspie. Maybe I am wrong here...
My personal respect for having intelligence.
I think it is the helping profession syndrome---- even if you have demonstrated abilities they often still treat you as though you have less abilities.
I was in the Community Living Skills Training program at the Maryland Rehabilitation Center in Baltimore for two months in 1999.
I still had to sit in with their mathematics classes even though my last class in mathematics was matrix algebra (the rationale behind the F-test analysis of variance, something about the between sum of squares versus the mean sum of squares). I wasn't the only offended student. A classmate with Tourette's was also offended with being taught down to.
Also the teachers carefully took the time to teach me how to cook, clean, wash clothes, shop, and take public transit, even though I had done all of these things a year earlier living in Greenbelt. Granted, I did learn how to iron clothes.
I- AM- IRON- MAN!
I didn't have all evening to goof off, I was trying to take college-level courses for a new career, but I still got to do the same chores they did.
I got along least well with the MSW on the floor. I have a Master's in sociology, which has very much in common coursewise with the MSW. Can she say, there but for the grace of God, go you or I?
I got to move downstairs after two months.
Well, I saw a YouTube video that talked about stress relieving socially accepted and not accepted ways. It showed Bill Gates rocking back and forth. Perhaps Mr. Gates qualifies as Asperger or HFA, but we can't prove it, nor can we force Bill "out" into the open, even if he is our hero.
Damn, though, some women's mag said "his oversized brain, poor social skills...." make Microsoft seem like "Revenge of the Nerds". I wonder what the ladies think of him now (nerd + rich + famous)
Hell yes, spot on, it is a misrepresentation. Anyone have a fantasy to sue?
All Aspies are important and valuable whether so-called gifted or not, and we stand by them.
I didn't do so well in matrix algebra. I ended up with a C. I'm not sure if you can take one C or two and still graduate
with your Master's at Marshall University. It was hard. But perhaps more importantly than doing calculations by hand I understood the F-distribution analysis of variance well enough to describe its reasoning on a written comprehensive final a semester before I graduated (which I passed, a formality).
Yeah, I was in an emotionally disturbed token economy special ed class for six years in Charles County Maryland (the Emotional Adjustment Program), plus more special ed after kindergarten in Montgomery County before that.
The EAP had no provisions for teaching say, algebra or lab science. One had to mainstream for life science, physical science, arithmetic- I didn't have pre-algebra until I graduated from EAP and was enrolled in my home district Waldorf.
What, don't Aspies sometimes have academic gifts?
Maybe parents who don't teach their kids certain life skills (not just cooking, keeping house, paying the bills, but how to bounce back from say rejection) are neglectful or inadequate. My dad might have been derelict of duty for not providing psychological attention for my brother before he went off to college, or for me when my GPA fell from 3.5+ to 1.5-. When an aircraft carrier in World War II was badly damaged (Yorktown?), it was sent home for repairs. When I was badly damaged emotionally in college, I was still expected to function, not sent home for repairs in dry dock. 1.167 in one semester and 1.83 in the other semester shows how well that turned out. Makes me think of the U.S.S. Carl Stennis in Sum of All Fears.
Captain thinks he can still save the ship but flight ops are definitely out.
Well, by Marsh standards, the supermarket just would not do. You can call it middle class values, Mom's MENSA complex, or whatever you want to call it, but there would be hell to pay if
a. somebody said Mrs. Marsh your son should consider working at a supermarket
b. or one of us did work at a supermarket
I did not say that.
I have worked in light industrial temporary jobs (Manpower). I have also cried at work, silently.
Well, by Marsh standards, the supermarket just would not do.
So, you'd rather be unemployed and live off welfare than lower yourself to work at a job you consider "beneath" you?
You don't have to remain beholden to your parents' values.
I still had to sit in with their mathematics classes even though my last class in mathematics was matrix algebra (the rationale behind the F-test analysis of variance, something about the between sum of squares versus the mean sum of squares).
I keep trying to find a test for a hypothesis I have regarding variances, that it can be meaningful in and of itself whether or not a group or subgroup has a significantly larger variance than does another group or subgroup in the population. Alas, I'm a mere molecular biologist, meaning that I do SAS for amateurs. I've stumped the two pet statisticians our department had for a while searching for this. Sociology, of course, stretches the frontiers of statistics. Have you come across something that would be useful for this sort of hypothesis testing I would like to do?
To be more formal, while two means might or might not significantly differ, the variances of each mean do significantly differ. Is there a formal way to state this beyond the F test? Essentially, I'm looking for a formal test of greater heterogeneity in "group a" vs. "group b" in a given study.
Well, the spectrum idea is that we should not be so attached to "labels", right? And this particular person, that is where he was/is in his life, so I am not judging him. Not at all. I just think this was a misrepresentation, unless right next to Richie's story you offered one about an Aspie that has maybe, run a large corporation, or something along those lines.
Am I wrong here? I could use some thoughts on this!
Why do we have to show an Aspie doing something amazing?
I can understand why you would think this particular example is a misrepresentation, but I think the better idea is to provide an example of someone with AS with average skills, doing average things, like an average human being. Some of us with AS do not have superpowers, you know?
OK I'm on the autistic spectrum. But all I need is a little help (and the same goes for my son) in the area of social relationships, finding our way around new places, and the ability for time out from anxiety / panic attacks which thankfully are rare. Apart from that, little else. Is that too much to ask for? in a career? Just because we are on the spectrum doesn't mean we have to be treated like invalids with some contagious disease which is the impression I sometimes get from various "professionals' to this day.
Yeah, you do need a little bit of help. From me. Your comment in another thread about "aspies being gifted in academics" felt like a broad sweeping statement, and it stings when someone like me--the opposite of the stereotyped Aspie Math genius with a 3.8 GPA at all times--has to read it.
Live and learn. You can't say that aspies are academic geniuses anymore than you can say NTs are.
I agree with Batman that an "average" aspie could have been shown. What I was initially saying was that I did not believe that "Richie" was an average Aspie - and that the ad bothered my husband. I said before that if you are going to show someone on the "low end" of the life skills/job skills spectrum, you should show someone on the high end as well, to balance it out. Honestly, if they could have shown all 3, and then shown how each and every one of them had benefitted from their services. I do understand WHY they showed Richie, however. Does that make sense?
Richie is not on the low end of the life skills/job skills spectrum if he's doing his best. And as atypical explained, he's average, anyway, not on the "low end."
The advertisement that my husband read, in the magazine, was celebrating how he was able to BOIL WATER. That is on the low end of the life skills spectrum.
Well, I'll give you that.
But then there are some intelligent people--non-disabled people--that still live at home past the "acceptable age." Assuming they are employed, does that mean they are on the "low end" of the life skills spectrum?
I know I can't do a supermarket job. I tried. I left. I tried working in a smaller shop and got fired. For years I was underemployed and people would say to me "why don't you get a little job at the supermarket?" and when I tried to explain that it would do my head in and I didn't know how other people coped with those jobs and that I was different, they'd get really angry and upset with me and say "Do you think working in a supermarket is beneath you?" and assume it was some kind of ego trip and that I preferred unemployment.
Totally understand this. Everyone seems to assume that "just getting a little job" would be easy and the right way to pick my feet up. These jobs are not just a breeze for me. Not to contradict myself, tho--I have had such jobs before and have been able to keep them for months and even years (I had one part time job at a small store for a few years.)
I'm able to keep these jobs because, if I work there long enough, it becomes a routine that I cannot break from, because it takes me a while to "get adjusted to all the variables and factors" and be able to predict what I should do in different situations. Once I can do that, it becomes easier and I am inclined to stay. But the times where I cannot predict what should happen (when things change...), I get really stressed out, and go home angry enough that I want to quit.
In summary, these jobs that should be "low-level and incredibly easy" for MANY people (especially NTs) are like hard, manual labor for me. I get worn out by them. And perhaps even worse, I do not create opportunities for myself because I CANNOT take the typical leap from "cashier" to "assistant manager" or any more social position. And then, I stay at the low-level job without doing anything else in my life because ALL I CAN HANDLE is the job, due to no executive functions. (Really, HOW do people work and go to school and have a family at the same time? I can barely imagine such a thing, myself.)