Posts tagged autism

thefullmetalbitch:

Don’t Mourn For Us by Jim Sinclair

flutterflyinvasion:

sherlocksflataffect:

sinshine:

Parents often report that learning their child is autistic was the most traumatic thing that ever happened to them. Non-autistic people see autism as a great tragedy, and parents experience continuing disappointment and grief at all stages of the child’s and family’s life cycle.

But this grief does not stem from the child’s autism in itself. It is grief over the loss of the normal child the parents had hoped and expected to have. Parents’ attitudes and expectations, and the discrepancies between what parents expect of children at a particular age and their own child’s actual development, cause more stress and anguish than the practical complexities of life with an autistic person.

Some amount of grief is natural as parents adjust to the fact that an event and a relationship they’ve been looking forward to isn’t going to materialize. But this grief over a fantasized normal child needs to be separated from the parents’ perceptions of the child they do have: the autistic child who needs the support of adult caretakers and who can form very meaningful relationships with those caretakers if given the opportunity. Continuing focus on the child’s autism as a source of grief is damaging for both the parents and the child, and precludes the development of an accepting and authentic relationship between them. For their own sake and for the sake of their children, I urge parents to make radical changes in their perceptions of what autism means.

I invite you to look at our autism, and look at your grief, from our perspective:

Autism is not an appendage

Autism isn’t something a person has, or a “shell” that a person is trapped inside. There’s no normal child hidden behind the autism. Autism is a way of being. It is pervasive; it colors every experience, every sensation, perception, thought, emotion, and encounter, every aspect of existence. It is not possible to separate the autism from the person—and if it were possible, the person you’d have left would not be the same person you started with.

This is important, so take a moment to consider it: Autism is a way of being. It is not possible to separate the person from the autism.

Therefore, when parents say,

“I wish my child did not have autism,” what they’re really saying is, “I wish the autistic child I have did not exist, and I had a different (non-autistic) child instead.”Read that again. This is what we hear when you mourn over our existence. This is what we hear when you pray for a cure. This is what we know, when you tell us of your fondest hopes and dreams for us: that your greatest wish is that one day we will cease to be, and strangers you can love will move in behind our faces.

Autism is not an impenetrable wall

You try to relate to your autistic child, and the child doesn’t respond. He doesn’t see you; you can’t reach her; there’s no getting through. That’s the hardest thing to deal with, isn’t it? The only thing is, it isn’t true.

Look at it again: You try to relate as parent to child, using your own understanding of normal children, your own feelings about parenthood, your own experiences and intuitions about relationships. And the child doesn’t respond in any way you can recognize as being part of that system.

That does not mean the child is incapable of relating at all. It only means you’re assuming a shared system, a shared understanding of signals and meanings, that the child in fact does not share. It’s as if you tried to have an intimate conversation with someone who has no comprehension of your language. Of course the person won’t understand what you’re talking about, won’t respond in the way you expect, and may well find the whole interaction confusing and unpleasant.

It takes more work to communicate with someone whose native language isn’t the same as yours. And autism goes deeper than language and culture; autistic people are “foreigners” in any society. You’re going to have to give up your assumptions about shared meanings. You’re going to have to learn to back up to levels more basic than you’ve probably thought about before, to translate, and to check to make sure your translations are understood. You’re going to have to give up the certainty that comes of being on your own familiar territory, of knowing you’re in charge, and let your child teach you a little of her language, guide you a little way into his world.

And the outcome, if you succeed, still will not be a normal parent-child relationship. Your autistic child may learn to talk, may attend regular classes in school, may go to college, drive a car, live independently, have a career—but will never relate to you as other children relate to their parents. Or your autistic child may never speak, may graduate from a self-contained special education classroom to a sheltered activity program or a residential facility, may need lifelong full-time care and supervision—but is not completely beyond your reach. The ways we relate are different. Push for the things your expectations tell you are normal, and you’ll find frustration, disappointment, resentment, maybe even rage and hatred. Approach respectfully, without preconceptions, and with openness to learning new things, and you’ll find a world you could never have imagined.

Yes, that takes more work than relating to a non-autistic person. But it can be done—unless non-autistic people are far more limited than we are in their capacity to relate. We spend our entire lives doing it. Each of us who does learn to talk to you, each of us who manages to function at all in your society, each of us who manages to reach out and make a connection with you, is operating in alien territory, making contact with alien beings. We spend our entire lives doing this. And then you tell us that we can’t relate.

Autism is not death

Granted, autism isn’t what most parents expect or look forward to when they anticipate the arrival of a child. What they expect is a child who will be like them, who will share their world and relate to them without requiring intensive on-the-job training in alien contact. Even if their child has some disability other than autism, parents expect to be able to relate to that child on the terms that seem normal to them; and in most cases, even allowing for the limitations of various disabilities, it is possible to form the kind of bond the parents had been looking forward to.

But not when the child is autistic. Much of the grieving parents do is over the non-occurrence of the expected relationship with an expected normal child. This grief is very real, and it needs to be expected and worked through so people can get on with their lives—

but it has nothing to do with autism.

What it comes down to is that you expected something that was tremendously important to you, and you looked forward to it with great joy and excitement, and maybe for a while you thought you actually had it—and then, perhaps gradually, perhaps abruptly, you had to recognize that the thing you looked forward to hasn’t happened. It isn’t going to happen. No matter how many other, normal children you have, nothing will change the fact that this time, the child you waited and hoped and planned and dreamed for didn’t arrive.

This is the same thing that parents experience when a child is stillborn, or when they have their baby to hold for a short time, only to have it die in infancy. It isn’t about autism, it’s about shattered expectations. I suggest that the best place to address these issues is not in organizations devoted to autism, but in parental bereavement counseling and support groups. In those settings parents learn to come to terms with their loss—not to forget about it, but to let it be in the past, where the grief doesn’t hit them in the face every waking moment of their lives. They learn to accept that their child is gone, forever, and won’t be coming back. Most importantly, they learn not to take out their grief for the lost child on their surviving children. This is of critical importance when one of those surviving children arrived at the same time the child being mourned for died.

You didn’t lose a child to autism. You lost a child because the child you waited for never came into existence. That isn’t the fault of the autistic child who does exist, and it shouldn’t be our burden. We need and deserve families who can see us and value us for ourselves, not families whose vision of us is obscured by the ghosts of children who never lived. Grieve if you must, for your own lost dreams. But don’t mourn for us. We are alive. We are real. And we’re here waiting for you.

This is what I think autism societies should be about: not mourning for what never was, but exploration of what is. We need you. We need your help and your understanding. Your world is not very open to us, and we won’t make it without your strong support. Yes, there is tragedy that comes with autism: not because of what we are, but because of the things that happen to us. Be sad about that, if you want to be sad about something. Better than being sad about it, though, get mad about it—and then do something about it. The tragedy is not that we’re here, but that your world has no place for us to be. How can it be otherwise, as long as our own parents are still grieving over having brought us into the world?

Take a look at your autistic child sometime, and take a moment to tell yourself who that child is not. Think to yourself: “This is not my child that I expected and planned for. This is not the child I waited for through all those months of pregnancy and all those hours of labor. This is not the child I made all those plans to share all those experiences with. That child never came. This is not that child.” Then go do whatever grieving you have to do—away from the autistic child—and start learning to let go.After you’ve started that letting go, come back and look at your autistic child again, and say to yourself: “This is not my child that I expected and planned for. This is an alien child who landed in my life by accident. I don’t know who this child is or what it will become. But I know it’s a child, stranded in an alien world, without parents of its own kind to care for it. It needs someone to care for it, to teach it, to interpret and to advocate for it. And because this alien child happened to drop into my life, that job is mine if I want it.”

If that prospect excites you, then come join us, in strength and determination, in hope and in joy. The adventure of a lifetime is ahead of you.

 
  Reprint permission: All articles published in “Our Voice” may be freely copied and shared for personal use, and reprinted in other publications, provided the original author and publication credits are included in all copies or reprints. If you reprint any of my articles, I would appreciate being sent a copy of the publication containing my article. My mailing address is:
 

Jim Sinclair
P.O. Box 35448 
Syracuse, NY 13235

[This article was published in the “Our Voice,” the newsletter of  Autism Network International, Volume 1, Number 3, 1993. It is an outline of the presentation I gave at the 1993 International Conference on Autism in Toronto, and is addressed primarily to parents.]

Essential reading.

GO.  READ.  NOW.

(via bluntlyblue)

I usually pass as…something not autistic. Shy or weird or quiet. But after a weekend of insomnia (8-9 hours total for 3 days, now), going home from work on the tram was hilarious. I can’t stop the echolalia (which is almostalwaysinternal otherwise—think like having a song stuck in your head, except mine can be anything at all I’ve ever heard), I’m dancing, everything is a nonsequitur. Kit couldn’t stop laughing (not in a mean way).

thefaulknerian:

Prior to receiving your diagnosis with autism/Asperger’s/PDD-NOS, were you misdiagnosed with something else? What was it? What was your psychiatrist’s reasoning behind it? 

I’ve had a couple diagnoses, some of which were legit. I’ve been “gifted” since I was about 7 or 8, and was diagnosed with generalized anxiety and depression when I was 16. Those are all fairly accurate, though the depression and anxiety are intermittent now.

When I first started pursuing an autism diagnosis in my 20s, after lots of reading and being quite sure it was an accurate fit for me (and joking about book writers following me around to write down my life for their diagnostic descriptions), I unwisely saw a psychiatrist who primarily did testing for kids for LDs. I figured there was enough overlap that it would be okay, and he was partly covered by my insurance. Ha. He spoke to me for 20 minutes and gave me a series of bullshit tests like the rorschach, and proclaimed social anxiety and a personality disorder. He refused to actually do any of the autism schedules like the ADOS because I present as a girl, and adult women “have to be retarded, basically—look, you’d have been institutionalised, at your age, if you were actually autistic.” He was a real charmer, that man.

Joke’s on him, though, because one of the best autism centres on the east coast of the US diagnosed me as being definitely on the spectrum and only somewhat reluctantly gave me an AS label. Had I not spoken and written so early (was hyperlexic, reading by 2), they’d have gone with plain old autism. I think I did make a convincing argument about the lack of clear boundaries on the spectrum and got them excited for the ASD group label, at least.

allies-person:

Because I feel a lot of things, especially in relation to the comments of this blog post.

It really, really bothers me to hear non-autistic people complaining about how autistic people should be grateful to their parents, how their parents must have raised them well if they’re an advocate, and so on.  No.

You knowfuck allabout an individual autistic person’s experience with their parents.

Not all parents are “good” ones.  And not all “good” parents were completely “good” all of the time.

We should be able to talk honestly about our experiences and thoughts.  And we shouldn’t have to disclaim everything with an apology of “I know this isn’t applicable to all parents…” blah blah.  For goodness’ sake.

Based on my past experiences of talking about my parents in discussions with non-autistic autism parents, I am extremely reluctant to do so.  I don’t consider it at all safe.  Iknowthat most of them will, when I talk about my experiences, automatically identify with my parents rather than me.  It’s likely that they’ll try to tell me how I ought to feel about it.  And I just refuse to deal with that.  And until I find a group of parents willing to acknowledge a few basic tenants, I won’t.

We have the right to our pain. 

We have the right to be “ungrateful.”  (Funny how parents who chafe at us supposedly “tell [them] how to feel about autism” see no problem with tellingushow to feel.)

Because of our experiences we may have very strong opinions about what constitutes good parenting of an autistic child and we have a right to express them.

For many of us, there is no clear demarcation between “good” and “bad” parents.  We’ve experienced this firsthand.  And we are notgoing to pretend as though being a “good” parent (whatever that means) exempts one from criticism.

There is more to good parenting of an autistic child (or any child, really) than good intentions.

That last one is particularly important.

If we aren’t even allowed to talk about our own experiences openly and honestly, there is little hope for meaningful dialogue between two groups of people who are very much unequal in terms of social power.

sherlocksflataffect:

I have a story for those of you who are creaming your undies about Autism Speaks, who supposedly want to help autistic people. They don’t at best they want to use us, and that is the opposite of helping.

Story below the cut. It’s long, but if you actually care about autistic people, you’ll read it anyway. If you support Autism Speaks, read it. I want to know what makes this behavior on their part acceptable.

Read More

thefullmetalbitch:

I don’t want to hear how hard it is to be the parent of an autistic child.

I don’t want to hear how you don’t like labels.

I don’t want to hear your euphemisms, your “special needs” and “challenged” and “handicapped” and “differently able”.

I don’t want to hear about your kindness and generosity in not murdering your child.

I don’t want to hear how you almost aborted.

I don’t want to hear your dreams of the Holy Trinity of Killing Autism.

I don’t want to hear your cries for “awareness”.

I don’t want to hear how upset you were when your child was diagnosed.

I don’t want to hear your voice.

I don’t want to hear you talk over people you could murder.

I don’t want to hear it.

(via kantala)

autiecommie:

With April drawing ever nearer, the likelihood that you will be asked to donate money to Autism Speaks approaches one. I encourage you not to give them your money, and this is why:

1) Very little money donated to Autism Speaks goes toward helping autistic people and families: According to their 2010 annual report, only 4% of Autism Speaks’ budget goes towards the “Family Service” grants that are the organization’s means of funding services:

While 44% of Autism Speaks’ budget goes toward research, only a small percentage of these funds go towards research into improving the quality of life of autistic people. Most of the research which Autism Speaks funds is devoted to issues of causation and “prevention,” including the prospect of prenatal testing.


2) Autism Speaks talks about us without us. Not a single autistic person is on Autism Speaks’ Board of Directors or in their leadership. Autism Speaks is one of an increasingly few number of major disability advocacy organizations that refuse to include any individual with the disability they purport to serve on their board of directors or at any point in their leadership and decision-making processes.


3) Their fundraising strategies promote fear, stigma, and prejudice against autistic people. Autism Speaks uses damaging and offensive fundraising tactics which rely on fear, stereotypes and devaluing the lives of people on the autism spectrum. Autism Speaks’ advertisements and “awareness” campaigns portray autistic adults and children not as full human beings but as burdens on society that must be eliminated as soon as possible.


4) Autism Speaks is not financially responsible. Although Autism Speaks has not prioritized services with a practical impact for families and individuals in its budget, its rates of executive pay are the highest in the autism world, with some annual salaries exceeding $400,000 a year. Additionally, their fundraising expenses exceed their spending on most of their core programs. Given these facts, Charity Navigator rated their financial health as 2 out of 4.

If you would like to donate money to organizations which help autistic people, I recommend:

- The Autistic Self-Advocacy Network (ASAN), which provides support, community, and public policy advocacy, by and for people on the autism spectrum.

(via misohead)

deaf-aspie:

geekybitch:

evolvingwithautism:

I’m hesitant to even enter into this, but it’s hard for me to see misinformation being spread to innocent people looking for answers.

I just saw a post where someone asked “I see a lot of posts about Autism Speaks, mostly from people who are actually on the spectrum, complaining about the organization. Why is that?”

The first lie-filled paragraph of the response was “Firstly, they’re extremely anti-science. They seriously believe that autism is caused by vaccines, and they think it can be cured by ABA, chelation, veganism, a gluten-free diet…”

I don’t know either of these people and I have no connection to Autism Speaks. But the fact is, Autism Speaks makes their stance on vaccines very clear, and it couldn’t be more different than what was portrayed there.

As per this page, Autism Speaks has this view of vaccines: “Many studies have been conducted to determine if a link exists between vaccination and increased prevalence of autism, with particular attention to the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and those containing thimerosal. These studies have not found a link between vaccines and autism. We strongly encourage parents to have their children vaccinated, because this will protect them against serious diseases. It remains possible that, in rare cases, immunization might trigger the onset of autism symptoms in a child with an underlying medical or genetic condition. Autism Speaks is funding studies on the underlying biology of autism, including studies to better understand medical and genetic conditions that are associated with autism.”

So please, please, if you are looking for information about a medical condition (or pretty much anything), do proper research and do not get your answers from people on Tumblr.

They’ve only changed that recently, as I know people who’ve been involved in the organization, and they say that they support the likes of Jenny McCarthy. I’ve heard that they changed it because the lady who wanted to commit murder-suicide (she was employed by Autism Speaks, and a quite important employee) disagreed with them; she didn’t think autism was caused by vaccines. I was giving brabomb the actual facts, not the facade Autism Speaks puts up to avoid people quitting.

Also, my source isn’t Tumblr, it’s ASAN and RationalWiki.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. I’m siding with Geekybitch on this one…..assuming we can see the sources (if possible)? I just like to see this stuff

Alison Singer, the mom in question, has actually had a radical change in heart that caused her to leave Autism Speaks. She is now one of the heads of the Autism Science Foundation, which provides grants to people doing legit autism research. She’s a pretty amazing example of how education and patience can change a person’s mind, when you have actual facts on your side.

While Autism Speaks has historically put out anti-vaccine messages, they’re certainly media savvy enough to know this isn’t the most profitable line anymore. Wakefield has been totally discredited and isn’t allowed to practice medicine in the UK anymore, plenty of studies refute any connection, and the proposed mechanism is a joke. I do think they are probably eugenicist (the heavy emphasis on prenatal testing) and are fruitlessly researching for things they could call a cure (how can you cure an entirely different neurological set up?), and are generally a bunch of hateful bigots who I would never give money to. Part of the confusion, I think, comes from Autism Speaks eating smaller autism groups, many of which were actively anti-vaccine, like Cure Autism Now. We just have to remember to separate out the official message from the individual ones. If we would like to discuss groups that are anti-vaccine, DAN! and its ilk are still with us.

(via )

allies-person:

1. Call your speculation a “theory” even though it does not meet the scientific standards for being considered a true theory.

2. Couch your speculation in lots of detailed information about homo sapiens and Neanderthals that hardly anyone knows well enough to counter.

3. Disguise the fact that many of the “facts” you are relying on are hotly contested by specialists in this area of study.

4. Steadfastly ignore any evidence suggesting the cultural biases of IQ testing or diagnostic rates for any neurological condition.

5. As your main data, use a quiz which hasn’t been subjected to any kind of peer review process and which only you have the data for.  Also, the data is not from a randomized sample, but rather self-referral to the quiz.

6. Make the quiz available only in European languages.

7. In the quiz itself, use a bizarre, antiquated view of ethnicity which requires participants to select only one “race” out of a bajillion different options.

8. Pretend that everyone has equal access to take the quiz.  A person living in Zaire has just as much of a chance of coming across this quiz as a white, middle class American!

9. Use the data from said quiz and numerous unprovable assumptions to fashion a racist theory which pretends to be neurodiversity (while ignoring autistic disabilities).

10. Support “theory” with erroneous assumptions about the histories of non-European peoples.

Voila!  Just follow those ten steps, and you too can erase autistic people of color while being a racist masquerading under the banner of neurodiversity.

This is an excellent summation of everything I found icky about that without being able to articulate it.

allies-person:

MAJOR TRIGGER WARNING FOR RACISM, ABLEISM: Murder of Black autistic teenager

There is a lot that Stephon Watts’ murder tells us about how young, autistic men of color are (not) valued by the people who are supposed to be protecting us.  But this point probably won’t be emphasized nearly enough in most discussions.

There is no good reason why parents are encouraged by supposed autism “experts” to contact the police during difficult moments.  This is a really, really bad idea.  And it is especially awful for “experts” to give this advice to parents of young autistic men of color, whose lives clearly are not valued by law enforcement officers the way they should be.

This is a controversial statement in some quarters.  I’ve been at autism events where calling the police to “deal with” an autistic person is treated as an ordinary, unproblematic occurrence.  And that is fucked up, and it contributes to tragedies such as Stephon’s death.

This should not happen.  Period.

I have a history of “difficult behaviors” myself.  And I know that calling the police during those moments would have made things worse.

Why can’t people realize this?

What the actual fuck? How can these police justify themselves?

This continues to be a side-project of mine. I sometimes really wish it was the 1800s and I could just up and declare myself a scientist and doctor and everyone would go with it. I’m planning to take these to my (autism-specialist) therapist tomorrow. I’ve done a bit of revising, added a few points, and clarified the impairment bit. Thoughts?

A. Differences in perception (at least 3)

1. Sensory defensiveness (ie, complaints or avoidance of any of the following: loud noises or places, bright lights, textures (food or object/clothing), tastes, smells, touch)

2. Sensory seeking (ie, stims or stimming behaviour such as rocking, flapping, finger flicking, hair twirling, spinning objects, etc or actively desiring any of the following: deep pressure or touch, vestibular sensation [swings, spinning in any context, etc], specific smells, tastes, or textures)

3. Auditory processing difficulties

4. Unusual, awkward, or delayed motor skills, or asymmetry between gross and fine motor skills (ie, clumsy but with strong fine motor skills, good gross motor skills with poor hand-writing or table skills, strong skills in a special-interest related area but poor overall [such as an ability to manipulate small objects but poor handwriting])

5. A reduced or lack of conscious awareness and/or use of allistic (not autistic) nonverbal behaviour and communication such as facial expression, gesture, and posture. This criterion should not exclude persons who have learnt to read or otherwise comprehend nonverbal behaviour by rote learning, particularly adults. Intentional learning to overcome an inherent difficulty in comprehension is supportive of this criterion. It should also not exclude persons who have been taught to use nonverbals to be less visibly different. In such cases, internal report of difficulty should take precedence over apparent behaviour.

B. Differences in cognition (at least 3, one of which must be 1 or 2)

1. Difficulty in beginning or ending (at least 1):

• Perseverative thoughts or behaviours  
• Needing prompts (visual, verbal, hand-over-hand, etc) to begin or finish a task
• Difficulties planning complex activities
• Catatonia
• Difficulty switching between activities
• Lack of apparent startle response
• Preference for sameness (same food, same clothes, same travel routes, etc)

2. Difficulty in using language (at least 1, not necessarily present at all times):

• Problems with pronoun use that are developmentally inappropriate
• A reduced or lack of awareness of tone in self (ie, speaks in a monotone, childish, or otherwise unusual manner) and/or others (ie, does not perceive sarcasm or follow implied prompts, responds to rhetorical statements and questions in earnest)
• A reduced or lack of awareness of volume (ie, speaks too loud or too quietly for the situation)
• No functional language use (includes sign, PECS, spoken, written, and any other communicative language regardless of form)
• Echolalia
• Mutism in some or all situations
• Uses scripts instead of spontaneous language (these may also be delayed echolalic in nature)

3. At least one special interest in a topic that is unusual for any combination of intensity (ie, does not want to learn/talk about anything else, collects all information about the topic) or subject matter (ie, unusual, obscure, or not considered age appropriate). Topics may be age appropriate and/or common (such as a popular television show or book), but the intensity of interest and/or specific behaviour (such as collecting or organising information as the primary focus) should be taken into account.

4. Asymmetry of cognitive skills

5. Talents in any pattern recognition, including music, mathematics, specific language structures, puzzles, and art (any one meets this criterion, not all must be present)

6. A tendency to focus on details instead of the broader picture, across contexts.

C. These differences cause impairment and/or distress in at least one context (ie, school, work, home), which may be variable over time. Impairment or distress may be defined variably, including meltdowns, anxiety, depression, a pervasive sense of not fitting in, and compulsive behaviours. It is necessary to remember that while the symptoms are not necessarily disabling in themselves, the social response to these symptoms can be disabling. The impairment or distress may be historical, with appropriate evidence to support this claim (ie, a documented history of meltdowns as a child, and only mild anxiety as an adult), as distress may decrease over time and with education.

D. Symptoms should be present in early childhood, but may not be noticable until social demands outpace compensatory skills, at any age

youneedacat:

“There are three basic levels of conceptual thinking:  1) learning rules 2) identifying categories, and 3)  inventing new categories. Category-forming ability can be tested by placing a series of objects on a table, such as pencils, notepads, cups, nail files, paper clips, napkins, bottles, videotapes, and other common objects. A person with autism can easily identify all the pencils, or all the bottles. He can also easily identify objects in simple categories, such as all the objects that are green or all the metal objects. Conceptual thinking at this basic level is generally not a problem. 

Where the person with autism has extreme difficulty is inventing new categories, which is the beginning of true concept formation. For example, many of the objects in the list referenced above could be classified by use (i.e., office supplies) or by shape (round/not round).  To me, it is obvious that a cup, a bottle and a pencil are all round. Most people would classify a video cassette as not-round; however I might put it into the round category because of its round spools inside.”

—Temple Grandin, The Way I See It

Something about this feels ‘off’ to me.  Some of the components seem right, but the way they’re put together has me really confused.  If the above sequence is truly real for a large number of people, then there’s clearly more than one way to come at conceptual thought. 

It says that autistic people don’t have trouble with things like ‘pencil’ or ‘bottle’, and can also figure out which things are green or made of metal.  But those things aren’t easy to me. And the easier of the two is the one that relies on sensory aspects of the object rather than the identity of the object. Although things like “what’s green?” are difficult because the cutoff for various colors can be subjective. 

The problem with all this is that it assumes that forming rules is the most basic, then simple categories is also basic. And that’s just so very much not even close to the level of basic that I start off at. Besides the confusingness of what they mean by rules and why it is put beneath simple categories in the first place. I wouldn’t think those things would have to be in a sequence like that. 

Unfortunately, at this moment I’m not even close to a state of mind where I could possibly translate the category-less sensory modes of experience I identify as basic, into the language of categories and words that other people speak. Let alone lay out the hierarchy of those modes, first of perception and then of categorization, that I experience quite differently from Temple Grandin. 

Suffice to say you don’t get this sort of painting from any kind of category-based or rule-based thought, nor from Temple Grandin’s visual but also clearly heavily conceptual mode of thought (yes, even before she figured out how to tell cats from dogs):

I can identify somewhat with what Grandin is saying, I think, but I don’t struggle with creating categories. Other people struggle with understanding my awesome categories.