New Video: Alex Plank speaks at Asperger lecture series

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thanks. You'd be surprised what you can do when opportunity presents itself, however.

I'm currently uploading part 2 of the video which consists of my girlfriend talking. It will be available soon.

Here's Katie's video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKrqzgg6xws[/youtube]

Should I get the committee enquiry off the ground here in Australia I will certainly be making sure I get my presentation onto You Tube.

I'll look at this when I get a chance. Nevertheless - good work, Alex! It's always good to get to do this sort of thing.

his girlfriend is cute. and ive seen her artwork, while i dont like it, (i am more of a picasso fan) i think she is a very talented artist.

Well, the fidelity on my speakers wasn't that great. I couldn't figure out what rooms he felt were best because the people hated the sounds worse than he did. But Alex DID crack at least ONE joke! He spoke of how NO club asks you to join, EXCEPT for the religious ones! That created a lot of deserved and warranted laughter. BTW, that had NOTHING to do with autism!

yes the religion joke was exeptionally funny

One of my parents went to this, I think. Was it last Thursday? If so, then yeah. Sorry, I'm not really able to focus at the moment, I might watch it later, though.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, this was also how I found out about WP.

Not trying to go off topic (and although you may not remember), but didn't we meet at Ike's once in the early 2006 fall semester (I was the blond guy eating alone at the time)(seeing a video of you/the voice reminds me of someone who looks similar to you if not)?

yeah, that sounds about right.

I get it! Yellow Sneakers! (I had said earlier that I didn't understand why the camera person focused on Alex's sneakers,) Yellow Sneaker media!

Alex I am glad that you are our spokes person.

Hei Alex

Does ur girlfriend have Aspergers? She did great in her presentation to the audience.

As did you - I was very impressed at your style, charisma, communication abilities, facial affect/expression, enthusiasm, connection with the crowd, organization of thought and speech.

I'm new to learning from others with Aspergers - haven't met many either - i had thought most were pretty "impaired" like I - I could never do what you two did - not just a matter of learning to do it - I just couldn't - like I couldn't run a mile in so and so time - impossible - lack of abilities.

Suppose there's degrees of Aspergers. You have a real low degree of Aspergers right? What about yourself do you consider Asperger?

The lack of inflection in his voice, and the swaying gives it away.

Talking to a crowd of people on a set topic (see: seminar) can be far easier than talking to a single individual or a small group away from the crowd for someone with Asperger's. It's more structured, the topic is [usually] set, one prepares themselves beforehand. Eye contact really isn't.

Social difficulties won't present themselves in this environment, other than peculiarities of speech, movement and other nuances one must know to look for.

yup. She definitely has Asperger's.

Dude, what makes the people wierd because they're laughing? They're laughing because Alex is using humor. Whether it was intentional or not, his personal experiences lend themselves to humor. Even the comment about religious clubs is funny and true, if you know what I mean.

I can understand how some people with Aspergers may not be able to connect the dots as far as humor goes. But, that doesn't make those who can wierd. I was always told that the way you win your audience is to get them to laugh. It keeps their attention and breaks that uncomfortable barrier. I've been to lectures where people couldn't do that. Even people without Autism and their speeches were so dry, folks were falling asleep.

I didn't have time to watch the whole thing, but I will. I was very impressed with what I saw and think this man is a good role model, despite his stand on Autism Speaks, which I am completely at odds with him and most people on this board. I think he's a good role model and since he's on the Asperger circuit radar, I'd like to see him work with organizations like that to better help Asperger people who want treatment and better servies out there in society, while respecting the wishes of those who don't.

I know someone who's autistic, and gave a speech that had lots of jokes in it. She got really nervous, terrified by the end, because nobody was laughing. It turned out that the speaker before her had told them that autistic people have no sense of humor. So they thought her jokes were unintentional, and were trying to be polite by not laughing. Instead, they made her absolutely mortified because she thought it meant her jokes weren't funny.

Be aware that "cure", "treatment", "assistance", "education", and "services" are often very different things, and that most people don't have a unilateral stand on all of them. Most people I know who don't believe in cure, for instance, believe heavily in assistance, education, and services. "Treatment" becomes tricky, not just in terms of whether or not a person believes in the things that get called that, but also in terms of whether the person thinks that they should be called that. For instance, my parents' use of pictures of facial expressions to teach my brother how to understand them. Most people these days call that "treatment", but they just (and I agree) considered it teaching. I don't think that autistic people's needing to learn in a different way than usual, or learn different things than usual, means that learning is a medical process, and "treatment" always sounds medical to me. (At the same time I understand that sometimes services that are not really all that medical, are covered under medical things for funding purposes. For instance, wheelchairs are no more inherently medical than bicycles really, but are considered medical for the purposes of insurance.)