Open Society

The stereotypical image of the anthropologist venturing to a remote land has often been evoked to illustrate the disorientation and confusion exp...

Physicians say the process to get approval from insurance companies before treating patients has gotten out of hand.

Tommy Concrete tackles internalised ableism on a brand new single.

Abstract Background: This article addresses a gap in current research by considering perceptions of gender within autistic adults raised as girls. Methods: We report on an online focus group, in which 21 individuals who had been raised as girls discussed their gender identities. This discussion was part of a larger study, involving 43 participants from eight countries. We used an emancipatory approach wherein participants set their own agenda, thereby highlighting directly that gender identity was significant for them. The discussion was open for 2 weeks, after which the transcript was analyzed using Applied Thematic Analysis. Results: Participants reported not identifying with typical presentations of the female gender for a variety of reasons, linked both to autism and to sociocultural expectations. Participants described childhoods of being a tomboy or wanting to be a boy, having difficulties conforming to gender-based social expectations and powerful identifications with their personal interests. Conclusions: Consideration is given to the ways in which autistic individuals conform to, or resist, gendered roles, as well as the implications for identity formation within autistic individuals raised as girls. The innovative emancipatory design proved effective in giving voice to a group who have had little presence within the academic and medical communities and, through its use of online platforms, in engaging a large and internationally based participant sample. This article highlights both the importance of approaching autism from an intersectional perspective that takes greater account of context, and the unique contributions that autistic individuals can make to current understandings within autism research. Lay Summary Background: This article tries to look at a new part of autism research. It reports on what autistic adults who were raised as girls say about their feelings in relation to their gender—whether they feel more like typical women, more like typical men, or feel differently to both. Method: The research used online discussion groups. Forty-three individuals who had been raised as girls chose to join the group and be part of the research. Participants from eight countries decided what they would talk about. This means that they chose the topic of gender identity as one that was important to them. We analyzed the comments that people made in the discussion about gender. Results: Most said that they did not feel like they were similar to typical women and they gave different reasons for this. Some thought it was because they were autistic and some thought it was to do with people around them putting pressure on them to be more “girly.” Participants often said they had been tomboys or wanted to be a boy growing up and their personal interests were very important to them. Conclusions: The discussion looks at how autistic people are sometimes forced to act in certain ways to fit in, and how this can make them feel confused and depressed. The research design was led by the participants and this meant that a group who have rarely been asked their opinion were able to have a say. Because the research was all online, the participant group could be larger than usual and came from all over the world. This article shows that it is important to understand a person's environment, to really understand how autism affects them. It also shows that autistic people can give important information that helps others understand them better, and the only way to get this type of information is to ask autistic people.

The other day, someone on Twitter – an autistic person who doesn’t experience them – asked me what it feels like to have a meltdown. It’s not a subject I especially like talking a…

Just because a disability can be prevented doesn’t mean it should be.

I would like to never hear about The Bell Curve ever again. Contact: https://twitter.com/shaun_vids https://www.patreon.com/shaunfromyoutube Section time codes: 6:15 Intelligence 17:18 The Bell Curve 30:03 General Intelligence 57:21 IQ Tests 1:41:15 IQ vs Environment 2:02:34 Politics Content warning: discussion of racism, ableism, misogyny, Nazi ideology Extra special thanks to Nate Frost from Portland State University and Thea for their help sourcing studies. Also extra special thanks to Olive & Kav P for all their script editing help: https://twitter.com/coherentstates https://twitter.com/RealKav_P Books: The Bell Curve (1994) The Mismeasure of Man (1981) Inequality by Design (1996) Intelligence, Genes & Success (1997) The Bell Curve Debate (1995) The Nazi Connection (1994) Articles & Studies: Lewis M. Terman: The Uses of Intelligence Tests (1916) Ned Block: How Heritability Misleads about Race (1996) Ewan Birney, Jennifer Raff, Adam Rutherford, Aylwyn Scally: Race, genetics and pseudoscience: an explainer (2019) Zack Z. Cernovsky: On the Similarities of American Blacks and Whites: A Reply to J. P. Rushton (1995) Richard Lynn: Race differences in intelligence: A global perspective (1991) Byrnes, Rita M., Library of Congress. Federal Research Division: South Africa : a country study (1997) Mallory Wober: The meaning and stability of Raven’s Matrices test among Africans (1969) D. H. Crawford-Nutt: Are Black scores on Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices an artifact of test presentation? (1976) John C. Raven: Standardization of progressive matrices (1938) K. Owen: Test and Item Bias: The Suitability of the Junior Aptitude Tests as a Common Test Battery for White, Indian and Black Pupils in Standard 7 (1989) K. Owen: The suitability of Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices for various groups in South Africa (1992) Fred Zindi: Towards the Development of African Psychometric Tests (2013) Links: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/27/ai-facial-recognition-used-first-time-job-interviews-uk-find/ https://tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations http://ewanbirney.com/2019/10/race-genetics-and-pseudoscience-an-explainer.html https://www.loc.gov/item/96048983/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_college_admissions_bribery_scandal https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/linda-gottfredson https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/pioneer-fund https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/jean-philippe-rushton Picture credit (dancers): Raina Peterson & Govind Pillai; (photographer) Anandh Bala At 17:56 I say 'IQ' instead of 'g'. Whoops! Note about Zimbabwe: Rhodesia’s minority-rule government issued a declaration of independence in 1965, but Zimbabwe did not gain recognised independence until 1980.

Video here. Sources here. CONTENT WARNINGAbleism, discussion of eugenics [Frank Stephens] “Is there really no place in the entire world for us?” [LESLIE] No, there isn’t. But we can make one. [Intr…

A Q&A with one of the leading researchers on mental health and violence.

If you want to stop gun violence, it may be better to focus on anger management or alcohol abuse than on mental health.

ASAN condemns the introduction of the RESPONSE Act in the Senate. While this bill frames itself as an attempt to prevent gun violence, in reality, this legislation does not address gun violence at all. Instead, it yet again scapegoats people with mental health disabilities. It is impossible to address the…

What do people with mental health disabilities think about being blamed for gun violence? We asked them to watch media clips and give their reactions.

The real threat isn’t “madmen”—it’s accessibility.

[ Full report – PDF ] [ Plain language version – PDF ] Introduction Algorithmic technologies are everywhere. At this very moment, you can be sure students around the world are complaining about homework, sharing gossip, and talking about politics — all while computer programs observe every web search they make and every social media […]

Ex-nurse, B.Sc. (tech) & hoping to finish my Master's thesis in usability and accessibility engineering as soon as the pandemic allows (my son, husband and I are all vulnerable and my daughter works in health & social care, so we need to be careful). Also: professional translator since 2006, experienced academic proofreader, and (co)author of 20+ peer reviewed articles, mostly about information security. Languages: Swedish, English and Finnish, translations in any direction. Areas of experience: healthcare, recruiting & training, organizational learning, business processes, safety, security, information systems, communication networks, usability in software procurement, and learning & teaching in tertiary education. You can reach me if you decipher these two interleaved identifiers: firstname +358 at 40 iki 502 dot 8050 fi

The ontological status of autism has been a subject of considerable debate and philosophical approaches of it have been recent and sparse. On the one hand, from its conception, autism has been historically heavily located in the fields of psychiatry, psychology and neuroscience, which often assume access to an “objective,” neutral and infallible reality that is external to the research process and is based on the autistic person’s biology and behavioural characteristics, which can be scientifically observed and studied. On the other, proponents of the neurodiversity movement argue against medicalised and pathologising approaches to autism and toward approaches that consider social constructions of autism and relations of power. The Critical Realist philosophy can help reconcile the two positions. Critical Realism conceptualises objectivity as a statement about an object, rather than a neutral and infallible reality. Consequently, Critical Realism suggests that access to reality can only occur through fallible theories. It also suggests that effective theorising goes beyond appearances and phenomena and may even contradict them, which can help challenge dominant behaviourist approaches on autism. I then explore how the tenets of Critical Realism can help strengthen autistic-led theories of autism, the arguments they make, as well as how they support the importance of community autism knowledge. Finally, I present how Critical Realism’s approach to knowledge itself as well a...

The Republican party has a white Christian nationalist vision for the US, and is stopping solutions to gun violence

After repeated exposure to a piece of information, people will start assuming it’s true, whether or not it actually is, simply because they’ve heard it...

State leaders have campaigned in 2022 on "saving" Texas kids from threats real and imagined. All the while, we've been selling them out.

By Jorn Bettin & Ulku Mazlum The need to be resilient is something that Autistic people unlearn over time. We need to learn to be gentle with ourselves. With the concept of Autistic whānau we a…

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A new tool that blends your everyday work apps into one. It's the all-in-one workspace for you and your team

People who do not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth are three to six times as likely to be autistic as cisgender people are.

UEL's Educom academic Dr Rebecca Wood's new book launching in April

Autistic Inertia is an autism experience that makes it hard to start, stop, and switch tasks.It somehow doesn't get talked about enough - so I made this comic!#AutisticComicTakeover pic.twitter.com/pk07NFBIqt— Cy Popps (@cypopps) April 15, 2022

This study, called for by autistic people and led by an autistic researcher, is the first to explore ‘autistic inertia,’ a widespread and often debilitating difficulty acting on their intentions. Previous research has considered initiation only in the context of social interaction or experimental conditions. This study is unique in considering difficulty initiating tasks of any type in real life settings, and by gathering qualitative data directly from autistic people. Four face-to-face and 2 online (text) focus groups were conducted with 32 autistic adults (19 female, 8 male, and 5 other), aged 23–64 who were able to express their internal experiences in words. They articulate in detail the actions they have difficulty with, what makes it easier or harder to act, and the impact on their lives. Thematic analysis of the transcripts found four overarching themes: descriptions of inertia, scaffolding to support action, the influence of wellbeing, and the impact on day-to-day activities. Participants described difficulty starting, stopping and changing activities that was not within their conscious control. While difficulty with planning was common, a subset of participants described a profound impairment in initiating even simple actions more suggestive of a movement disorder. Prompting and compatible activity in the environment promoted action, while mental health difficulties and stress exacerbated difficulties. Inertia had pervasive effects on participants’ day-to-day acti...