Archives: 2006 August

A genius explains – [excerpt]
“Daniel Tammet is an autistic savant. He can perform mind-boggling mathematical calculations at breakneck speeds. But unlike other savants, who can perform similar feats, Tammet can describe how he does it. He speaks seven languages and is even devising his own language. Now scientists are asking whether his exceptional abilities are [...]

Neurodiversity is bound to come – but it will take some time. Reminds me of that quote by Schopenhauer about truth:
“All truth passes through 3 stages: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident.”
And then people are going to go – ‘oh yeah, neurodiversity, sure, not all [...]

Omigosh! It’s her! The woman on the site Getting the Truth Out: http://www.gettingthetruthout.org/ is the very same woman who maintains the blog Ballastexistenz, Amanda Baggs: http://ballastexistenz.autistics.org/?p=52
This page is my favourite. You can say – oh my – some sort of splinter skill in that video. http://www.gettingthetruthout.org/pagee001.html
But I say – Oh wow – and now check out her blog. Doesn’t seem so [...]

Found these great articles by Thomas Sowell, and although I’m liberal, not conservative, and I don’t entirely agree with all his views, I really admire his no-nonsense style. Here are excerpts from two articles he’s written for Capitalism Magazine on the expanding definition of autism.
http://capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1762
Expanding Definitions and Suspicious Statistics Thomas Sowell (July 30, 2002)
“…A child who is likely to be diagnosed [...]

When I wrote that there really are some good psychiatrists out there, I meant people like Dr. Sami Timini who writes with such sincerity and integrity. He’s written this superb book: Pathological Child Psychiatry and the Medicalization of Childhood
For a synopsis of this book, from Google: 
“Currently, it is common practice among the child psychiatric establishment to prescribe powerful [...]