As I was reading the news today, I saw an article about an autistic woman, Amanda Baggs, who has posted a video on YouTube that describes her "language." One of my brothers has autism, so I found both the article and this woman's video very interesting. I wanted to share it with the class because she shares some very profound thoughts during the second half of her video, pointing out that society does not value people who do not think, speak, and act in a typical way. I'm not going to even begin to say it the way she does, because she does such a fantastic job summing it up herself. I really think that it goes along with the themes of the class, even though we have not discussed disabilities in an in-depth way. It is a good illustration of how people judge others who are different from themselves and do not always appreciate the gifts that these exceptional individuals possess. I think it is important to think about this as teachers, since we will all have many different learners in our classrooms.

This is kind of long, but stick to it till the end. The second half really made me think.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=JnylM1hI2jc

We watched this in my personality of psychology class this morning. I found this very interesting. I hope that everyone sees this. She has other videos on you tube where she communicates with other people whom are austistic.

I'm glad that you shared this video clip because I have not known anyone with autism so I do not know what it is like for someone who has autism. I do agree that our society does not value people that are different from the norm. There is so much you can learn and appreciate from others who are different from yourself.

I worked with a 6 year old with Autism, he was not as bad as the boy on the video but he would stare off into space and not be able to pay attention to anything for long also when he got upset it was a scream role around on the floor kind of upset. From what I saw I believe he was in a normal classroom which suprised me a little. The other children seemed to accept his behavior and realized that he was different, but did not judge him for it. I was very impressed with them.

This was a very interesting video. It's funny how, like she says, we don't really consider autistic people as people at all, but something entirely different. I have worked with an autistic child, and he was very difficult to understand and communicate with. I know that we (we being the average people) don't understand autistic language, but I also know that there are different types and stages of autism that make classification even harder. The kid I worked with was quite different from the person in the video, and yet another child I knew with autism was even more different. In addition to this, every person, whether autistic or not, has different interactions with, and thoughts about, the things around them. Wouldn't it be nice to have an interpretive language for each type of autism; or better yet, for each individual?

Leah,

I can't thank you enough for posting that! I am in a group of professors here who are doing something called a "Disabilities Studies Research Cluster." I have forwarded the link to all of them, as it is so relevant to our (and my) work!

This video taught me more about autism than anything I have learned in classes. Personally, I make judgements about people by first sight or action and until I understand that persons point of view or history, I am perplexed by them and not sure why they are the way they are. I can accept that people are different but until I understand their point of view, I'm afraid I have trouble understanding them. I wish I could get this type of insight for all disabilities.

This video was very eye opening for me. I really can look at things in a different light now. What is normal to me, may not be normal to others. Just like how what is normal to the lady in the video, is not normal to me. Honestly at first, I was a little scared for some reason. It was almost scary for me to watch. It created a weird feeling inside for me. It was such a weird feeling that I had in my stomach. I wonder if anyone else felt the same way? I think the second part of the video was so valuable. I bet that some people watch the first little bit and think that that is all it is going to show. I am glad that we got to watch the whole thing. I think this video is going to make me think twice now about things that are not normal to me. Instead of disregarding unsual or foreign view points or actions, I will look beyond. Thank you Leah and Gayle for sharing this.