Indeed, there is an Art to Autism – not the myths or extra-ordinary gifts of visual art, the written word or performing arts. What is meant by the Art of Autism is the derivative qualities, the hidden subtle communications amongst the growing autistic population that make ‘autistic communications’ an Artful quality yet to be tapped. Last Saturday on the N.A.A. Radio Show, Autistic People – People First, a young autistic woman suggested ‘…it would be interesting to see what is MORE developed in the autistic brain’ rather than looking at what is less than or different when compared to the baseline of what is perceived as typical people.
The Art of being autistic presents an opportunity to view the autistic population as a group of people with qualities that we can all learn. Qualities such as heightened sensitivities to surrounding environments and people, absorbed recorded and embedded files of physical experiences available at the tip of an association, a trigger and the ability to associate past experiences with new experiences. Hence the old inference that an autistic person cannot filter new people [they naturally associate to someone in their past]. I.e. Little 5 year old Johnny has a 30 year old Aunt, called Mary, who always wears clothing with flowered prints, she smells of roses and wears glasses. When Johnny encounters new environments with unfamiliar people and meets women with one or more associations in the Aunt Mary profile, he will likely refer to the new woman as Aunt Mary. This can be viewed as unnatural, odd, different, to be fixed, corrected, not normal etc… OR society can begin to view this as part of the Art of Autism, the Art of being autistic.
Experience this as a mature autistic person in society, several decades the senior of little Johnny, one can observe oneself, connect to consciousness, over-ride the compulsion to call the new person by a past association i.e. Aunt Mary as in Johnny’s case. This provides opportunity to recognize the associative identities compiled in years of filing systems in the paradigm of the autistic processing mind. One can view the cliché unfiltered process as a negative or make it a point of HOW the unfiltered process can enable one to learn to be more conscious of the derivatives of the human mind. Learn how the baseline typical person can develop to be in the Art of Autism, rather than an observer.
Comments