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Anne Corwin
Santa Clara, CA
Anne loves being alive, and focuses on autistic self-advocacy, disability rights, longevity advocacy, and social justice.
She is part of the Academic Autistic Spectrum Partnership In Research and Education (AASPIRE) project team, which works toward developing research projects relevant to the needs of autistic adults.
She also has a longtime interest in biogerontology and longevity advocacy. She volunteers with the Methuselah Foundation, a medical charity devoted to developing and funding research into health problems affecting the elderly.
Finally, Anne is quite concerned with sustainability. She firmly believes that keeping the planet liveable for a diverse array of animals and plants need not mean the curtailing of technological progress, but rather taking a more mindful approach to progress.
Recent Activity
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Anne commented on the article |What Cody said. When I read some things from some parents where they sound really frustrated, I very much want to say something that might help explain something or offer a perspective maybe they didn't think of. It just seems like all this subject matter is so volatile it is hard to say anything and I really do not have the kind of communication skills that work in arguments very well so I often just do not say anything.
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Anne commented on the article |Dora: Good point(s). I think one of the things that tends to get missed in discussions of "inclusion" is *autonomy*, and the fact that each of us has different things we'd prefer to be doing, etc. I had a professional try and force me into unnecessary and potentially harmful treatment at one point because according to that professional, my life did not include enough "normal" social activity. At that point I figured it was probably a good idea to stop seeing that professional as they had obviously gone beyond the goal of helping me and had moved into a position of wanting to "mold" me into normativity.
And speaking of malls (mauls! hehe), I was in one of the nasty things this past December, and at one point a group of disabled teenagers (some of whom were probably autistic) came into a store I was in, tailed by several folks who looked to be "staff". Some of the teens looked interested in shopping, but others did not, and in particular there was one guy who was playing some sort of hand-held video game the whole time. (Which I could identify with because as a youngster one thing I used to do to manage overload in stores was walk around with my nose in a book or magazine I'd picked up).
Anyway, this guy kept trying to leave the store...and one of the staff people kept bodily pushing him back in! He (the young guy) did not make a fuss, he just kept turning around and trying to leave the store, video game in hand, and I kept wondering why the heck the staff were treating this very very obvious communication like some sort of random aberrant behavior.
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Anne commented on the article |Of course all kids need to learn to do some things that aren't necessarily what they'd most prefer to do at a given time but seriously, learning to manage downtime onesself is a skill that often gets neglected. This isn't a scientific statement on my part but a speculation: that is, that sometimes when someone appears to be having severe prolonged difficulties, it is because they really NEED downtime but don't know how to manage it when they have it, which makes the people around them respond by "over-structuting" their days.
This can lead to a vicious circle in which the person is totally exhausted but keeps "going" anyway and ends up eventually crashing or melting down.
(And I do speak somewhat from experience here, as I am *still* learning to take breaks as a 30 year old adult)
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Anne commented on the article |Kristina: In addition to the icons, Proloquo2Go lets you load in any photograph you want and associate it with a word or phrase.
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Anne commented on the article |Amanda: Yeah, the De Anza disability center was pretty excellent, at least in the sense that if it hadn't been there I doubt I would have gone on to transfer and graduate. I was seriously at my wit's end when I walked in there.
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Anne commented on the article |
Wow, that's all local to me -- I've actually seen (but not been in) that donut shop. And I also attended De Anza College for a while circa 1998-1999. In any case, I actually read about "Psycho Donuts" about a month ago elsewhere online and my impression was definitely that it was probably going to be extremely difficult to explain why objecting to the theme/decor is not just a matter of being "oversensitive". Because, well, I know people who have spent time in psychiatric wards and my guess is that they probably wouldn't enjoy eating near straitjacket props, etc. :/
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Anne commented on the article |I am only *now* (at age 30) getting a bit better at arithmetic; I was pretty terrible at it in grade school, failed algebra the first time around, but then when I (happily) got to take geometry lots and lots about math suddenly "clicked" for me and I went on to do reasonably well in calculus, etc. Somehow having shapes to associate the math with made it concrete/visual enough for me.
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Anne commented on the article |Dora: this post definitely hits home for me today, as I spent the morning working on something that would almost assuredly earn me multiple stereotype violation tickets -- but which, if I actually succeed at it, would in no way negate my verbal communication difficulties or daily living/executive functioning issues and so forth.
One thing that really irks me about this sort of thing is how often we on the spectrum almost feel pressured NOT to succeed in particular ways, (as also noted by the author of "You Have it So Good"). Honestly there are some things I am very, very good at -- probably better than average, and that can in some situations help me do things very well indeed. However, I have definitely noticed that when I do something very well, people tend to presume that this is indicative of some global ability level, which can make it even harder to explain why I might need help in some other area (which in my brain isn't even connected).
Really, I think one of the biggest things that needs to happen in order to actually help autistics is for more people to actually come to terms with the fact that apparent "inconsistency" does not *contradict* autism, but actually (especially if you look at early accounts) *characterizes* autistic people, who were first noticed in the first place *because* they seemed to have atypical patterns of difficulty *and strength*! -
Anne commented on the article |Definitely adult services (and understanding that autistic children grow up to be autistic adults who may need ongoing support) is important. Even for those of us who have managed to get jobs, etc., as adults, things are still very precarious. I have had the same job (which I got in part because my parents helped me set it up when I was in school, and which I did not even have to interview for because I got to do the job-tryout thing via internship) since 2002. And with the economy being what it is especially who knows what will happen.
And also I think right now for many of us on the spectrum, when things are going well it is because there are so many little things all precisely in place - like we can go from "okay" to "crisis" very easily due to support systems just not being there for us, etc.
In any case I think that one of the most important things is to not warehouse people, and to fight against the idea that some people "have" to be institutionalized (and also the idea that an institution is a type of building and not a type of power structure). There is absolutely no reason ANYONE should be put into a living situation where they are essentially treated like a prisoner and it is presumed that cognitive and other disabilities mean they cannot actually be taught about agency and self-respect. -
Anne commented on the article |I am getting ever more curious about trying something like this. I got to play with an iPod Touch recently for the first time and it definitely seemed like a nice, portable size and a convenient interface. And in hearing about the battery life....wow, that's pretty amazing. My little netbook laptop can go for about 4 - 5 hours, and has some TTS capability right now, but definitely doesn't meet a lot of Joel's criteria per the list you linked (which is a really good list). It actually only recently occurred to me that more effective communication might even be *possible* in situations other than quiet office settings where I could sit down with a computer...wow. Am very glad to see such promising developments in this area.
