The children’s room - a minefield as usual :)

Matthew’s extreme rote memory

Forbes’ first article about living with autism was rightly criticized for not having talked to any actual people on the spectrum in its research. Now, the magazine offers this follow-up as consolidation. Includes criticism of Autism Speaks.

…are of course still a mystery. According to this article, scientists discovered exact opposite causes for two rare disorders on the spectrum. Admittedly I hadn’t even heard of these diagnoses, but I guess we’re back to square one. I don’t believe we’ll discover a single cause for any ASD anytime soon.

During my teenage life and a couple of years beyond I was very “seeking”; investigating different religions and belief systems, and trying to find the right one for me. I’m sure many young people - on and off the spectrum - likewise are trying to find their own understanding of life and the world in the same way. But instead of settling on my parents’ religion or any other after this period, I remember telling people that I was a (and the only) believer in a self-made belief system, which included all the parts from different religions and philosophies that made sense to me. Nowadays I prefer telling people that I’m an atheist just to avoid lengthy discussions, even though I believe in “something”. I always realized how different that made me, but I never considered it to be such a common theme for people with HFA.