The timeless and universal architecture of safety
Picture by Ulku Mazlum It is wise to ignore discipline boundaries when engaging in knowledge archaeology. Many of the observations resulting from a transdisciplinary or anti-disciplinary approach d…
Open Society
Very Ordinary Men | The Point Magazine
I know that I’m supposed to hate Elon Musk.
Hypersensitive, Hyperfocused and Ready for 'Hijack': An Autistic Experience of Sensory Anxiety - Reframing Autism
Why and how do Autistic individuals experience sensory anxiety? In this guest blog, AuDHD Counsellor and Founder of Finding Autism, Amy Adams, explores the intricate world of Autistic sensory processing differences, and how monotropism shapes these experiences, leading to heightened sensitivities and overwhelming responses to stimuli. She shares her strategies for navigating a world where sensory overload is a constant challenge, emphasizing the importance of environmental accommodations and support.
An Honest Assessment of Rural White Resentment Is Long Overdue
We say very clearly that rural America is hurting. But we refuse to justify attitudes that some scholars try to underplay.
Magic and the Weird - Weird Pride Day
On wonder, weirdos and the quest for meaning The weird and the magical have always been deeply tied up. When the term ‘weird’ first entered English, it meant ‘fate’ (or in some accounts, ‘having the power to control fate’). The three Fates from Greek mythology are also the Norns of Norse myth, who are also […]
The weird and the magical have always been deeply tied up. When the term ‘weird’ first entered English, it meant ‘fate’ (or in some accounts, ‘having the power to control fate’). The three Fates from Greek mythology are also the Norns of Norse myth, who are also the Weirds, or Weird Sisters. Eventually, they became the witches in Shakespeare’s play Macbeth.
From them, we get the modern sense of ‘weird’ as something or someone out of the ordinary. A bit unsettling, a departure from the mundane. You know: like a witch… or possibly a fairy, as in Shakespeare’s main source text.
The Case Against B.F. Skinner
The Noam Chomsky Website.
Whatever function “behaviorism” may have served in the past, it has become nothing more than a set of arbitrary restrictions on “legitimate” theory construction, and there is no reason why someone who investigates man and society should accept the kind of intellectual shackles that physical scientists would surely not tolerate and that condemn any intellectual pursuit to insignificance.
the claims are becoming more extreme and more strident as the inability to support them and the reasons for this failure become increasingly obvious.
In fact, Skinnerian translation, which is easily employed by anyone, leads to a significant loss of precision, for the simple reason that the full range of terms for the description and evaluation of behavior, attitude, opinion, and so on, must be “translated” into the impoverished system of terminology borrowed from the laboratory (and deprived of its meaning in transition).
In fact, there is nothing in Skinner’s approach that is incompatible with a police state in which rigid laws are enforced by people who are themselves subject to them and the threat of dire punishment hangs over all.
Such a conclusion overlooks a fundamental property of Skinner’s science, namely, its vacuity.
Skinner’s book contains no clearly formulated substantive hypotheses or proposals.
Sanctions backed by force restrict freedom, as does differential reward.
Skinner confuses “science” with terminology.
He appears to be attacking fundamental human values, demanding control in place of the defense of freedom and dignity.
His speculations are devoid of scientific content and do not even hint at general outlines of a possible science of human behavior.
Furthermore, Skinner imposes certain arbitrary limitations on scientific research which virtually guarantee continued failure.
As to its social implications, Skinner’s science of human behavior, being quite vacuous, is as congenial to the libertarian as to the fascist.
There is little doubt that a theory of human malleability might be put to the service of totalitarian doctrine.
In general, Skinner’s conception of science is very odd. Not only do his a priori methodological assumptions rule out all but the most trivial scientific theories; he is, furthermore, given to strange pronouncements such as the assertion that “the laws of science are descriptions of contingencies of reinforcement” (p. 189) — which I happily leave to others to decode.
Worse, we discover that Skinner’s a priori limitations on “scientific” inquiry make it impossible for him even to formulate the relevant concepts, let alone investigate them.
Skinner does not attempt to meet this criticism by presenting some relevant results that are not a monumental triviality. He is unable to perceive that objection to his “scientific picture of man” derives not from “extinction” of certain behavior or opposition to science, but from an ability to distinguish science from triviality and obvious error.
Skinner does not comprehend the basic criticism: when his formulations are interpreted literally, they are clearly false, and when these assertions are interpreted in his characteristic vague and metaphorical way, they are merely a poor substitute for ordinary usage.
At this point an annoying, though obvious, question intrudes. If Skinner’s thesis is false, then there is no point in his having written the book or our reading it. But if his thesis is true, then there is also no point in his having written the book or our reading it. For the only point could be to modify behavior, and behavior, according to the thesis, is entirely controlled by arrangement of reinforcers. Therefore reading the book can modify behavior only if it is a reinforcer, that is, if reading the book will increase the probability of the behavior that led to reading the book (assuming an appropriate state of deprivation). At this point, we seem to be reduced to gibberish.
In every possible respect, then, Skinner’s account is simply incoherent.
Skinner’s “science of behavior” is irrelevant: the thesis of the book is either false (if we use terminology in its technical sense) or empty (if we do not).
But the thesis, in so far as it is at all clear, is without empirical support, and in fact may even be empty, as we have seen in discussing “probability of response” and persuasion. Skinner is left with no coherent criticism of the “literature of freedom and dignity.”
Autistic Doctors International | Linktree
Outputs from our members
2024 CRAE Annual Lecture - Autistic professionals and the triple empathy problem - Mary Doherty
Autistic professionals and the triple empathy problem. Dr Mary Doherty, founder of Autistic Doctors International, on leveraging insider perspective for com...
An open framework for neuroqueer learning spaces
Neuroqueering is open to everyone but requires a lot of unlearning, relearning, creating and recreating. Deep learning is rhizomatic.
Systems: What warms the heart? - Anil Dash
A blog about making culture. Since 1999.
Jane Costello, Duke University - Sharing the Wealth - The Academic Minute
Does profit sharing improve the community at large? In today’s Academic Minute, Jane Costello, a professor at Duke University’s Insitute for Brain Sciences, profiles an experiment involving just that. In 1994, a tribe of Cherokee Indians opened a casino and shared the profits directly with the community. Jane Costello is professor of medical psychology in […]
Fish in a barrel: Berliner’s case against NPR is based on false and out-of-context facts
Nearly 40 years ago I heard a lawyer tell a jury something in court that has stuck with me: If there’s a rotten fish floating around the top of the barrel, you’re under no obligation to…
Autism, off-label chelation & the antivax movement: The beginning
On a cold and rainy night in January 2020 a group of autistic activists stood together protesting the screening of VAXXED 2, an anti-vaccine film, at the Kingsway Theatre. I was there, holding a sign that read “Memo to Antivaxxers: Pandemics are Real. We Don’t Want Them”.
An Experience Sensitive Approach to Care With and for Autistic Children and Young People in Clinical Services - Elaine McGreevy, Alexis Quinn, Roslyn Law, Monique Botha, Mairi Evans, Kieran Rose, Ruth Moyse, Tiegan Boyens, Maciej Matejko, Georgia Pavlopoulou, 2024
Many support schemes in current autism clinical services for children and young people are based on notions of neuro-normativity with a behavioral emphasis. Suc...
Anarchism and Education: the Rebel City Teaching Project | The Political Studies Association (PSA)
The popular misconception that anarchy means ‘chaos’ not only opens the door to the idea that anarchy is a kind of aggressive anti-politics, but also that it has little to contribute to discussions of social policy.
Eyeglasses for Students Boost Academic Performance, Raise Test Scores
Trust in Human Scale
Autistic ways of being are part of a culture that deserves the same respect as any other culture. Over the course of months and years, de-powered dialogue and omni-directional learning amongst Auti…
The online blog format is a great way for catalysing de-powered dialogue and omni-directional learning, one or two steps away from corporate controlled social media environments.
Over the course of months and years, de-powered dialogue and omni-directional learning amongst Autistic, Artistic and otherwise Neurodivergent people results in trustworthy relationships, and in a diverse network of evolving intersectional ecologies of care.
@snittypolitty • Today in class I decided to change up my normal lecture & instead have a discussion. I asked my s... • Threads
Today in class I decided to change up my normal lecture & instead have a discussion. I asked my students why they think their generation (Gen Z) has suicide as the number 1 cause of death. They...
Facebook
FULL PANEL up on our YouTube channel now!. opensaucelive · Original audio
Mx. D.E. Anderson: "And the thing about how white evangelical Christianity manifests is in the insistence that cruelty is love, that empathy and understanding are dangerous, and that authoritarianism is freedom. And when you're in it, it's so hard to see anything else as good." — Bluesky
#175 Special Education is Under Threat
From huge voucher programs that shift funding to private schools that don’t have to accept kids with disabilities to a backlash against funding, special education and the students who rely on it are n
The Diary of a Superfluous Bugbear
On Losing my Best Gig Ever, and Finding the Strength to Keep Going
Inherently cruel systems have a tendency to make people hate themselves. If the social mechanisms to produce those feelings weren’t in place, after all, how would those systems survive?
That’s sadly the state of more and more careers these days: both that they are becoming even more competitive than they always were, and that they are falling apart.
I never wanted to be an entrepreneur. I especially didn’t want to be an entrepreneur in a hyper-competitive area where everything is falling apart, but that’s sadly the state of more and more careers these days: both that they are becoming even more competitive than they always were, and that they are falling apart.
Our society shouldn’t be a quasi-Darwinian fight for a shrinking pool of resources (because they’ve all been scooped up by the rich) or a Hobbesian war of all against all. The limited universal basic income experiments that have already been done show the opposite of the capitalists’ feverish fears to be true: given resources “for free,” humans, by and large, act responsibly with them. Which might mean maaaaaybe, just maaaaaybe, it’s the perverse incentives of capitalism that turn so many of us into heartless ghouls. Maybe.
I wish we lived in a society where we all had the time and the means to realize ourselves. Where our basic needs were met by a functional non-sociopathic government, so that we’re housed and have universal healthcare and affordable higher education.
Human meaning is found in the context of a healthy community, not capitalist competition. I hope we all can find that despite the harsh conditions we live in.
Barriers to healthcare and a ‘triple empathy problem’ may lead to adverse outcomes for autistic adults: A qualitative study
Why "PDA Profile of ASD"/ "Persistent Drive for Autonomy” (PDA) are intrinsically ableist terms?
TRIGGER WARNING.Filicide, suicide, and preventable deaths of autistic persons are discussed in the video on slides: 12,13, 14, 38, & 41.Most of the material ...
Lara Ferguson 🇪🇺🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ on X: "Yesterday I had an assessment with a DBT unit called Hope House run by @elysiumcare (Yes I’m naming and shaming them). I’d like to highlight 2 practices they openly brag about within their treatment for women with ‘EUPD’. 1) behavioural incentive pathway 2) blank face 1:1…" / X
Yesterday I had an assessment with a DBT unit called Hope House run by @elysiumcare (Yes I’m naming and shaming them).I’d like to highlight 2 practices they openly brag about within their treatment for women with ‘EUPD’.1) behavioural incentive pathway2) blank face 1:1…— Lara Ferguson 🇪🇺🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ (@Lara_Fergie99) April 13, 2024
#CAMHSDontCareIfAutisticKidsDie The Reality of CAMHS for Autistic Kids - Emergent Divergence
Please join us and make #CAMHSDontCareIfAutisticKidsDie g9 viral.
“So, we kind of started from scratch, no pun intended”: What can students learn from designing games?
Much research attention has been focused on learning through game playing. However, very little has been focused on student learning through game making, especially in science. Moreover, none of the ...
In a constructionist learning environment, game designers engage in generating an artifact, iteratively test and refine it through playtesting by peers, and keep the goal of public communication in the forefront (Laurillard, 2020; Wilson, 2020). Wilson (2020) notes that “the active work of the learner is evident and activated in the building of ‘public’ artifacts” (Wilson, 2020, p. 17) as a key characteristic of constructionism.
In a related study, we report that spontaneous critiques allowed students to be knowledgeable authorities and helped to facilitate iteration as students worked to improve their games (Tucker-Raymond et al., 2019) both with respect to climate content and to the player experience. This study extends these findings by documenting other instances where peer-to-peer interactions supported learning and additional skill development. For example, Jack's comment on Danny and Stavros' disagreement about Boolean operators in Scratch (Screenflow 20161114) resulted in further research and learning while problem-solving discussions within Sharon, Allie, and Nate's group resulted in debating what components of the carbon cycle to include (Screenflow 20161104).
Kafai and Burke (2016) point out that constructionism equally situates “cognition not just in the head but also in space” (p. 86). Furthermore, there is evidence that, as Kafai and Burke (2016) note, systems thinking as instantiated in this study aligned with “growing interest in using complex system thinking as a framework to approach science learning and the notion of CT as designing a system” (p. 33).
As the evidence shows, in this constructionist learning environment students took responsibility for their own learning. Peer programming and collaboration on production of a shared artifact are key features of these learning environments (Dishon & Kafai, 2020; Papert & Harel, 1991). Constructionism afforded students autonomy and agency; students in this study freely chose the science topic and how they would model it in the design of their games. In addition, we saw many instances of their drawing on multiple resources, consulting peers who had more Scratch expertise, and sharing their developing games with others. We observed all three groups conducting Google searches to obtain additional science information on an as-needed-basis.
The students' high level of engagement, persistence and agency was noteworthy for us. The novice group in particular persisted in trial-and-error and thence to more purposeful troubleshooting, only asking for help from peers and the researcher when completely stuck. All groups worked on their games outside of class time; progress on their games was often evident to us on several of the mornings as we entered the classroom.
As Mambrey et al. (2020) and Samon and Levy (2019) point out, a focus on interactions among system components is critical to recognizing and understanding emergent systems behavior.
This study has shown how a thoughtfully designed learning environment shaped by constructionist theory can support meaningful engagement and learning by students with a range of programming experience. The Building systems from Scratch curriculum allowed for multiple entry points for students; all students were expected to grow from the place at which they started; all did.
understanding systems is a critical component of science literacy
We define systems thinking as “a set of analytic skills used to improve the capability of identifying and understanding systems, [and] predicting their behaviors” (Arnold & Wade, 2015, p. 675). Identifying systems components and the interactions among them are very common elements in various systems frameworks and are essential for student understanding of systems in science (e.g., Nguyen & Santagata, 2020; Rachmatullah & Wiebe, 2022; Samon & Levy, 2019), particularly in studying climate change (Bhattacharya et al., 2020). Furthermore, focusing student attention specifically on interactions among system components is needed to support them in understanding causal mechanisms (Mambrey et al., 2020; Penner, 2000; Samon & Levy, 2019; Yoon et al., 2018) and in recognizing emergent behavior, particularly in climate systems (Pallant & Lee, 2015). In addition, understanding which aspects of climate change are anthropogenic is essential and still a challenge for both teachers and students (Lundholm, 2019).
In Building systems from Scratch, students are tasked with applying systems thinking as they identify the components of the system (e.g., greenhouse gases, solar radiation, carbon sources [fossil fuels], carbon sinks [sequestration by trees], and anthropogenic actions that exacerbate or mitigate global warming). They explicitly explore the nature of connections among components and focus on the dynamics or behaviors of the system, including feedbacks (Yoon et al., 2018). They construct systems diagrams to depict systems dynamics, and thus enhance their understanding of causal mechanisms (Khajeloo & Siegel, 2022).
Key and defining features of a constructionist learning environment for game making are that game designers engage in generating an artifact, usually collaboratively (Papert, 1980; Papert & Harel, 1991). Designers iteratively test and refine their games through playtesting by peers, thus considering the player's perspective during design (Dishon & Kafai, 2020). Building a public artifact intended for used by others is an end goal, thus communication is a key design consideration (Laurillard, 2020; Wilson, 2020).
They found that designing educational games allowed students to represent their understanding of science in a personal and meaningful way, while democratizing participation in the classroom through supporting peers.
A unique feature of the Building systems from Scratch program is the inclusion of an established systems-based constructionist framework, triadic game design (TGD), as a heuristic to support the design of serious games (Susi et al., 2007), that is, games designed for a primary purpose other than entertainment. In this program, the purpose of game design is to teach others about some aspect of climate change. We leveraged the TGD framework (Harteveld, 2011) to support student game creation since this framework sets up a system consisting of three interacting game design dimensions: Reality, Meaning, and Play. Reality represents the connection between game and real worlds, suggesting that any game contains an underlying model of reality (Troiano, Schouten, et al., 2020b). This is often deployed through the representation of real objects in-game (e.g., CO2 molecules, bicycles), or through the implementation of real-life physics and mechanics (e.g., ice melts at 4°C; cars go around buildings not through them). Meaning represents the underlying learning goal, for example, to change a behavior or to educate players (Puttick et al., 2018; Troiano et al., 2019; Troiano, Schouten, et al., 2020c). Play represents the genre (e.g., narrative, puzzle, simulation) or gameplay mechanics of a game, which define the experience of the player.
Kafai and Burke (2016) point out that systems-thinking skills are an integral part of programming; making a successful game also involves system-based thinking. For example, in a comparative study of Dutch middle school students in a language class learning from designing versus playing games, Vos et al. (2011) found that game designers showed significantly deeper engagement in systems analysis than students in the play only group.
How do the conceptual interconnections among systems in science, systems representations in a game, and systems thinking in the computational sense act synergistically to support student learning?
Homepage
The role of informational support in online groups for people on the autism spectrum - White Rose eTheses Online
Background and aims: Over the past twenty years, there has been an exponential increase in the numbers of people believed to be on the autism spectrum, both diagnosed and undiagnosed. People on the autism spectrum are known to be a vulnerable group who experience marked health and social inequalities, and the need for more effective support is widely recognised. This research aimed to investigate informational support within online groups for people on the autism spectrum in the UK. Methods: The research consisted of two qualitative studies, firstly, a thematic analysis of posts to an online group for people on the autism spectrum, and secondly, semi-structured interviews with fifteen people who identified as being autistic, and had used online groups for autistic people, which were also analysed thematically. Results: Thematic analysis of the online group posts and semi-structured interviews with online group users resulted in five overarching themes: the world is a hostile information environment for autistic people; making sense of autism; distinctive autistic information needs and information behaviours; online groups are a valuable autistic resource; and balancing the benefits of online groups with risks and downsides. These results were used to develop a model of the participants’ autism information journeys. Conclusions: Informational support plays an important role within online groups for autistic people. The online groups provide information, in addition to emotional and social network support, that some users cannot find or access elsewhere. In particular, the informational support found and shared within the online groups forms an important part of some users’ autism information journeys. Informational support helps group users to make sense of autism and life experiences, and to share strategies and advice for coping with life difficulties. However, online groups do not replace the need for specialised professional support and information.
Thematic analysis of the online group posts and semi-structured interviews with online group users resulted in five overarching themes: the world is a hostile information environment for autistic people; making sense of autism; distinctive autistic information needs and information behaviours; online groups are a valuable autistic resource; and balancing the benefits of online groups with risks and downsides.
Informational support plays an important role within online groups for autistic people. The online groups provide information, in addition to emotional and social network support, that some users cannot find or access elsewhere. In particular, the informational support found and shared within the online groups forms an important part of some users’ autism information journeys. Informational support helps group users to make sense of autism and life experiences, and to share strategies and advice for coping with life difficulties.
The Cass Review’s final report: The implications at the intersection of trans and neurodivergence — Neurodiverse Connection
Neurodivergent academic Abs S. Ashley critiques the ‘insidious mobilisation’ of neurodivergence to undermine the agency of transgender people in the UK’s recently published Independent review of gender identity services for children and young people’.
the report selectively mobilises neurocognitive, neurodevelopmental, and psychosocial disabilities including autism, emotionally unstable personality disorder (EUPD) and Tourette’s, to undermine the credibility of transgender people’s testimony about gender-related distress.
Autistic subjectivities of gender and sexual identity are collapsed in terms of impairment, and recall the harmful rhetorics of Theory of Mind discourse. Theory of Mind frames autistic people as deficient in their understanding other people’s desires, mental states, and beliefs, but also in terms of self-awareness. As autistic researcher Remi Yergeau, writes, ‘god theories’ such as these, ‘transpose facets of autistic personhood into sterile symptom clusters’ (2017:11). Such facets, they explain, are viewed in terms of totalising defect: ‘intent, feeling, sexuality, gender identity, and sensation […] all of that which might be used to call oneself properly a person’ (4). In discrediting trans people by pathologising non-normative emotional responses to gender-related distress, the Cass review is both ableist and transphobic in its gatekeeping of how gender identity ‘should’ be expressed.
Anti-gender imagined fears of trans contagion are re-mobilised through the report’s invocation of highly misogynistic cultural stereotypes of neurodivergence, whilst capitalising on a general fear of social media as a vehicle to contagion.
It positions neurocognitive, neurodevelopmental, and psychosocial disabilities as pathological causes of gender-distress, rather than as legitimate intersections of human experience. As a result, trans youth, and adults up to the age of 25 seeking affirming healthcare are stuck in a double-bind. They are obliged to story their experiences of gender-related distress in neuronormative ways, at the risk of being discredited. Yet, this ideal cannot be grasped if gender-related psychological distresses are, in turn, pathologised as ‘symptoms’.