Open Society

Autistic parent and teacher advocating for a better understanding of neurodivergence and mental health in education.

This cohort study including all individuals with autism diagnoses recorded in health administrative databases in Ontario examines sex-stratified rates of self-harm events and suicide death among autistic individuals vs nonautistic individuals, as well as associated sociodemographic and clinical risk...

Addressing some of the many common myths that you may have heard about trans people This document is also available as a PDF and an epub file. Preamble.Sex is not binary.Gender is (at least partly)…

Connecting adolescents' concrete work to big ideas may help shape their neural networks over time.

Dr. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang⁠ studies the psychological and neurobiological bases of social emotion, self-awareness and culture and their implications for learning, development and schools. She is a Professor of Education at the ⁠USC Rossier School of Education⁠, a Professor of Psychology at the Brain and Creativity Institute, a member of the Neuroscience Graduate Program Faculty at the University of Southern California, and Director of the USC ⁠Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning and Education (CANDLE)⁠. Mary Helen was elected 2016-2018 president of the International ⁠Mind, Brain and Education Society⁠ by the society’s membership. She is serving as a distinguished scientist on the Aspen Institute’s National Commission on Social, Emotional and Academic Development and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Committee on the Science and Practice of Learning. Mary Helen is also associate Editor for the award-winning journ…

Total View | Uptake of Open Access (OA)     Between 2012 and 2022, the percentage of OA articles made available via gold has increased from 9% to 35%, an almost four-fold increase. In contrast the percentage of journal articles, reviews and conference papers available to read via subscription-only fell from 73% (2012) to 51% (2022)....

Noted journalist and scholarly communication observer Richard Poynder explains why he has given up on the open access movement.

Whilst there have been a handful of studies into autism and dreaming, it remains a potentially under-researched area. Studies that have been carried out with autistic participants have demonstrated that there are differences in the sleep architecture that produces dreams and in the content of those dreams. Research into the dreaming experiences of other atypical groups or loosely affiliated communities have shown that this activity may indicate a change in their underlying conditions or may be used to monitor the effectiveness of any therapeutic intervention. If correlations between dreaming and the impact on well-being of autistic people can be demonstrated then this same potential for therapeutic support could be applied. To investigate this gap in knowledge, a Thematic Analysis (TA) approach was used which was later supplemented with an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Three participants were recruited using a Semi Structured Interview Questionnaire (SSIQ) and the interviews transcribed for analysis. Following a review of the feedback around this initial pilot, the data collection was moved to an on line survey based on the SSIQ. This reached a wider group of potential participants and a further 90 questionnaires were completed. These responses were prepared for a parallel analysis, all the responses were explored in the descriptive TA and 6 of these were selected for the idiopathic IPA. The data provided by the on line questionnaire offered some quantitative data which was used to highlight the qualitative findings. Initial findings have shown an appreciation of the therapeutic benefits of dreaming and links to waking well-being in a variety of ways. An unexpected finding has been the role of dreaming in the construct of a sense of personal identity and how it is perceived in the sense of an autistic self-hood. The study will provide suggestions for further research in the area.

Personal Perspective: Parallel movements of lived experience.

Enhanced perception of detail has long been regarded a hallmark of autism spectrum conditions (ASC), but its origins are unknown. Normal sensitivity on all fundamental perceptual measures—visual acuity, contrast discrimination, and flicker detection—is strongly established in the literature. If individuals with ASC do not have superior low-level vision, how is perception of detail enhanced? We argue that this apparent paradox can be resolved by considering visual attention, which is known to enhance basic visual sensitivity, resulting in greater acuity and lower contrast thresholds. Here, we demonstrate that the focus of attention and concomitant enhancement of perception are sharper in human individuals with ASC than in matched controls. Using a simple visual acuity task embedded in a standard cueing paradigm, we mapped the spatial and temporal gradients of attentional enhancement by varying the distance and onset time of visual targets relative to an exogenous cue, which obligatorily captures attention. Individuals with ASC demonstrated a greater fall-off in performance with distance from the cue than controls, indicating a sharper spatial gradient of attention. Further, this sharpness was highly correlated with the severity of autistic symptoms in ASC, as well as autistic traits across both ASC and control groups. These findings establish the presence of a form of “tunnel vision” in ASC, with far-reaching implications for our understanding of the social and neurobiological aspects of autism.

Research indicates autistic people have a sharper spatial gradient of attention. As an autistic, can you imagine how a neurotypical sees the world?

One of the most powerful ways to engage your players in a game is to immerse them completely in a fully holistic environment and…

When I took the Values-Based Integration training, I hesitated to engage with the concept of unmasking again. I had already tried unmasking, and it went really badly. The only reason I showed up wa…

A blog about indie publishing, urban fantasy, and geek culture.

In which I share a brief introduction to monotropism and an article how it makes task switching more difficult for autistic people. Spoon theory is a great for describing energy capacity issues, but this article describes the particular way that task switching takes a lot of spoons and more time tha

Understanding how deeply connected emotions are to learning can help reframe the conversation around what works in schools.

ArtsHERE invests in organizations that have demonstrated a commitment to equity within their practices and programming, with the goal of increasing arts participation for underserved groups/communities, and sharing insights that may inform similar funding programs in the future.

Learn about ability, capability, and capacity in AAC. Jamie + Lion shares insights for improving communication and overcoming challenges for disabled people

Not Fine in School is a parent-led organisation empowering families & raising awareness of school attendance barriers (school refusal/ anxiety/ SEND/ bullying)

Emotionally-based school non-attendance (EBSNA) is believed to impact one to two percent of children and young people (CYP): it is understood to present as severe emotional upset at the prospect of...

Why autistic play (solitary, stimmy, etc.) is not "wrong," and can have an important function in supporting relaxation and recuperation.

There are many ways of thinking and talking about autism - Here are some of the different ways of thinking about autism and disability.

Nick Covington & Michael Weingarth call for a moratorium on using "The Science of Learning" to describe one aspect of how the brain works in relation to the multiple goals of school. Published by Human Restoration Project, a 501(c)3 organization restoring humanity to education.

Scottish Green Party votes to ban practices sometimes described as ‘conversion therapy for autistic people’

Two new gold-standard studies provide compelling evidence that project-based learning is an effective strategy for all students—including historically marginalized ones.