Amanda Baggs Breaks the Silence

I saw this on CNN this past weekend. While it is not technically about the subject of art, it is a wonderful story I had to share. Amanda Baggs is a woman with autism who communicates through a computer keyboard and a voice generator. She even makes her own videos and has a website. She calls her website a "non-site" and has some pretty entertaining and compelling FAQs on it.

She seems to be on the same page as I am as it regards to the "medicalization of deviance." CNN is definitely not.

"At its core, autism is a developmental disorder of communication. There is no cure. No one knows the precise causes, but recent science points towards a genetic component with a possible environmental trigger."

If something is different, we have to figure out what's wrong. Why is that? Perhaps Autism is a yet not understood form of kinesthetic or synesthetic communication that we can't decipher. Sure, their functioning in THIS WORLD is impaired, but what about in other "worlds" or other groups. Some have an uncanny knack with understanding and communicating with animals. Shouldn't that be considered a superpower? *

She made a video called "In My Language" in which she gives us a glimpse into what her world is like. Frankly, it's almost mystical and definitely artful.



* Read Dr. Temple Grandin's statement on thinking in pictures. She has a form of autism and has been able to understand cattle and developed innovations in farming and slaughter that calm the animals as well as applied the knowledge to changing environments to calm autistic children.