The world needs all kinds of minds

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eikonabridge
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22 Apr 2017, 12:38 am

https://www.ted.com/talks/temple_grandin_the_world_needs_all_kinds_of_minds
Also on YouTube:


I guess by now most parents with autistic children have heard about Temple Grandin, and perhaps even watched the video of her TED Talk. A friend just passed the link to me. Of course I have checked tons of Temple Grandin's videos and books, years ago. So nothing new there.

Temple has been pretty much saying the same things I have been saying. She is a bit more polite and oblique, say, than myself. She has been out there for 20~25 years, talking about autism. The very interesting things is, there has been absolutely no change in our school system, in our ABA approach, or in parents. The net effect of Temple's effort has so far been, sadly, zero (to first approximation). See, people give a round a applause to her, but one second later, nobody remembers what she says... nobody puts it to practice. That's the sad reality.

Anyway, in the comment section of the TED Talk, I found this gem. It totally cracked me up. So true. Ha ha.

Kathy Heyne
Posted a year ago
Brilliant. Of course. It's Temple Grandin. I'm glad she stresses both how vital and how hard it is to learn to think in pictures if you work with visual, autistic people and how hard it is to learn to drop verbal communication. It is. It's bloody hard. But it's possible. It will never come naturally to most of us, it will always feel odd and require a conscious choice to do it and shut verbal language down, but, oh! the dividends it pays!


I can sympathize with her. Even with my wife, I think it took me about two years before I could convince her to draw pictures for our children. Two "bloody-hard" years. And out there in the open, I would say, maybe, 1 out of 50 parents will really draw pictures for their children.

The plain fact is, parents can't draw pictures. Parents can't re-acquire the skills of kindergartners. Parents are totally unable to go back to being children... to be creative. That is a fact.

And then we say autistic children have problems... All this is just too funny. Sad, but truly funny.

So my recommendation stands: cut a piece of packaging tape, put it over your mouth, then you'll know how to communicate with your children. It's "bloody easy." Cheap, too.

-----

See, there is this equation in math

1+2+3+4+... = -1/12

The sum of all natural numbers is, ugh, negative one twelfth. The result is not infinite, not positive, and not even an integer. It's not a joke. Google for "1+2+3+4+..." and you shall see.

For simplicity of discussion, let me use this other example:

1+2+4+8+16+... = -1

That is, the sum of all the natural powers of 2 is negative one. This one is actually easier to see in an "alternative" number universe. See, think of all numbers as grains of sand. What we usually do is to line up the numbers on a straight line. But a straight line is not the only permissible topology. In the "dyadic" number's universe, the partial sums on the left are indeed getting closer and closer to -1:

distance between -1 and 1 (=1) is 0.5
distance between -1 and 3 (=1+2) is 0.25
distance between -1 and 7 (=1+2+4) is 0.125
distance between -1 and 15 (=1+2+4+8) is 0.0625

whereas

distance between -1 and 0 is 1
distance between -1 and -0.5 is 2
distance between -1 and -0.75 is 4
distance between -1 and -0.875 is 8
distance between -1 and -0.9375 is 16

What's the point? The point is, the autistic brain is organized differently from the neurotypical brain.

I am the one parent that does not pay attention to his chidren's verbal or social skills. Yet, my children are more verbal and social than most children on the spectrum. How is this possible? You ask.

When your children are non-verbal and non-social, your instinct is to overwhelm them with speech therapy and socialization activities. You then fail. You don't achieve what you want.

While other parents were busy with providing speech therapy and socialization activities to their children. I was busy drawing pictures and teaching my children to read. To you, I am taking my children farther and farther away from what they really ought to be doing. Strangely, at the end of the day, my children come out ahead of your children: verbally and socially. And you then scratch your head.

Your mistake is that you think the autistic brain works like the neurotypical brain.

Nope. They are different. They are like the Linear space vs. the Dyadic space. You think walking straight from zero to -1 will get you closest to your target. You see me walking in the opposite direction and you think I must be crazy. But I am not. What you don't know is that the autistic brain is simply not what you think it is.

In my opinion autistic children need no speech therapy nor extra socialization activities. They are not sick. They need no therapy. The only thing they need is development. Development in the autistic way. You just need to remember that 1+2+4+8+... actually gets you closer to -1. That's all. There is absolutely no danger that the autistic way of developing your children will make them less verbal or less social. On the other hand, by pushing them into speech therapy and socialization activities, you are causing harm to them. In the name of love, you have achieved to ruin your children's lives. Worst of all, you don't even realize it.


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Jason Lu
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stevewalker
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03 May 2017, 2:45 am

well said!! ! 8) 8) 8) 8)