Discussions
Autism, Childhood psychology, WHO WE ARE NOW
Posted by kaorispoon • 8/11/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: alice miller, art therapy, autism, developmental psychology, Psychology, psychotherapy, temple grandin
I just recently started reading books and wanted to seek for other psychology bloggers who are interested in psychotherapy, art therapy, developmental psychology etc. I am currently a BFA undergrad, but counting down the months and credits left until I can finally graduate and start my Masters for Art Therapy. I plan on spending my next two years studying as much as I can on these topics and would love to meet other bloggers out there who could help me widen my perspective.
I am also a spiritual blogger and I enjoy talking about astral projections and subconscious law of attraction. But I try not to get too zen and universe talky about my psychology studies!
User Comments
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Isn't art therapy just catharsis?-
It is. I feel like in this world we lack the communication with our subconscious and have the tendency to live repressed. We live by morality and traditional beliefs but I want to find out more ways to free our minds. By studying psychology, it could help me to figure out what is it our minds initially set on before we are conditioned to live certain ways.
I also always get made fun of for being the zen girl that speaks about the universe all the time. I want to make a more physical sense to what this whole spirituality is about by being able to find a clearer link with psychology.
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Thanks for your answer. Your thirst is natural.
I'd say psychology studies what conditions a person, whereas (first) philosophy/metaphysics looks at what determines a person. -
BC abounds with spirituality/self-development blogs. Check the search feature. -
The search link is found on every BC page and when you click it you will find filters you can use to narrow your searches www.blogcatalog.com/search
www.blogcatalog.com/topic/spirituality/
www.blogcatalog.com/topic/psychology/
www.blogcatalog.com/topic/autism/
www.blogcatalog.com/topic/developmental+psychology+/
www.blogcatalog.com/topic/early+childhood+development/
www.blogcatalog.com/topic/+psychotherapy/
www.blogcatalog.com/topic/astral+projections/
www.blogcatalog.com/topic/law+of+attraction/-
Haha sorry I must've sounded like a lazy person. I don't go on this site often so thanks for that tip, helped a lot!
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My son who is now 22 and doing great was diagnosed with a form of autism, if there is such a thing. We adopted him at 3 days old and he had severe allergies to all forms of milk, cow, goat, soy. We started him on cereal and juice which we later found he also was allergic to. Later we found out he had a reaction to dust, and all airborne allergens. The big find was chemical allergies. One which caused him to become autistic was formaldehyde. This can be found in everything manmade-wallpaper, paint, carpeting, glue, formboard, drywall and especially the brand name Magic Marker. He still has this reaction at 22. Has anyone in the medical field ever found a link to chemical allergies and autism?-
I have only started reading up on autism just recently but so far all I know is that there has not yet been a cure but many moderate to high functioning autistic children have been able to attend their 1st grade after recently used therapies. The UN conference 2008 on autism was only able to share its resources on latest hypotheses and hopes in projecting to govts for more support.
But I have heard of allergies being one of the main causes to autism. Autism is a genetic illness and is a neurotic disorder more than a cognitive. It is confusing because a child may continue to grow normally until 24months or so later, the growth stops and this causes low-functioning autism. The growth in all sensory system is uneven. Since autism is more of the functioning of body, I have high hopes that it will accelerate its studies. But it is going slowly since observations for autism is extremely detailed and young of age to start with. They are not even sure of how exactly they should distinguish between types of autism. -
Interesting issue even I'm not really into psychology tho... so if autism is more like genetic mutation, could it be detected since the start of fetal stage?
Oh..btw, you got interesting blog as well..
Cheers.. -
I'm of the opinion that autism is caused partly by the vaccinations given to babies when they are a month old. This is crazy. Mother's milk will protect the baby from all sorts of bacteria and viruses. This chemical injection to a brand new system is a death trap.
I hope, in your study of autism, you'll try to find how to make the kids connect back to their emotions. It's really a very strange disconnect which is definitely biological but there's gotta be a way. So many kids have autism these days.
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I've heard that vaccinations can lead to autism from other mothers. Not sure how true that is, but I know my son was highly allergic to some chemicals, enough that a simple Hep B shot would send him into a coma. He was highly allergic to glycerin which is a base for most or all injections. He was allergic to yeast-bakers and brewers. And if you are highly allergic to yeast, you can not get the Hep B shot. I don't believe that an autistic child is out of touch with his or her emotions. I believe the child is normal inside, thinks and is emotionally and physically normal. There seems to be a brain function or path that prevents reactions to show as if the child is boxed in. More physical than emotional or mental. And as far as Mother's milk being protected, my son could not have breast milk either. He had an allergic reaction to that which as you know Mom drinks cow milk and develops her own. He was extremely sensitive. Not sure how he managed to make it to 22 yrs old, 6'2" with 172 IQ.
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I read that autistic people seek their own way of expressions such as: through patterns and numbers/sequences, visual thinkers who can picture everything as quickly and precise as computer programs. And they also find it much more understandable when they associate social interactions by levels of good and levels of bad, categorizing everything into patterns or visuals seem to help. If you are familiar with what his style or expression may be, there could possibly be many jobs he can succeed in such as engineering for visual thinkers (industrial design), and chemists for pattern thinkers (able to spot significant things when observing chemicals very quickly, calculations/sequences are all patterns, etc)
I really recommend you to check out Thinking in Pictures by Temple Grendin if you haven't yet. kaorispoon.wordpress.com/2009/08/11/thinking-in-pictures/ She has taught me so much on autism in just 3 days.
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Rashai, although it is genetic by some portion it may also be caused by lots of other external factors. It cannot be evident at birth because autism takes its time to develop itself..
Also not only for finding cures, but I feel that we should all broaden our minds more into finding new traditions into accepting autism in our daily lives such as career paths, education, etc much more ordinarily and without judgments. Autistic people are extremely gifted in exchange for the abilities that they lack.
I also feel that the increase in the # of autistic children are teaching our world today to evolve with love&acceptance and not over greed. They may not understand their parents' love, but they do reflect it back to their parents with hope and trust. -
Do you think that vaccines have anything to do with autism?-
all chemicals could harm them.. but again, autism is so diverse that we wouldn't know until we try after many observational studies
then again, many autistic people can't afford all that time/$$. health insurance does not cover care for autism. And to observe, means noting every object they interact with, or every action they may take. they won't show much to be observed except for tantrum reactions. infants are even more difficult since some of the results after trying new medications may only reveal years later when they are more physically matured.
autistic people are extremely sensitive. not only with what they intake but they also have very sensitive sensory system and nervous system.. so the tantrum reactions can be caused by almost anything! -
Yes my jbug has a sensory problem. Not fit throwing but she is having trouble writing. Her perception is off. She can write and id all letters,but has trouble
putting them in order
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Well I'm far from an expert in the field, ole buddy, but I'm always interested to hear what Chicago's finest has to say.
Regarding autism, a thought that crossed my mind the other day watching my child play video games...
Is it possible that the rise of such activities (i.e., single player video gaming experiences where a child plops down and spends hours essentially playing alone, rather than interacting with other children) might play a role in a developmental challenge such as autism?
Probably not, but the thought did cross my mind...and I quickly moved to send him outdoors to play with the other ruffians. :-)-
Kdawg!!!!! I was just thinking about messaging you! How are you doing?
You'd be surprised, autism kids do so well with programming stuff so video games are really fun and no harm at all for them. They adapt to routines, and so games help them gain skills in learning sequences and patterns, distinguishing characters of pro&antagonists, etc. That's why many autistic people are extremely gifted and intelligent in specific fields such as chemistry (use of patterns), industrial design (instant image of how to build a structure/machine!). But some autistic people with really high sensory sensitivity might hate it because of the outrageous noise and super bright colors that shoot in their eyes.
And you're absolutely right. For normal kids, (I'm also reading up on borderline disorder right now) its really so so sooo important that they constantly interact with people and not always zone into their own world with a programmed friend (normal kids should learn from variety and not patterns). Because otherwise they will struggle emotionally in the future- building relationships, self esteem/trust, etc. -
Fascinating. I was wondering the other day what you've been up to - looks like you've been doing quite a bit of reading/research.
By the way - Randy still asks to play the card game you sent him on a near daily basis...and you'll get a kick out of this - I showed him who you were (since he's never actually met you) on FB, and he now refers to you as "beautiful Ms. Kaori" - so you've got a 5-year-old seriously crushing on you at the moment.
Of course, he's far from a one woman guy and also seems to be crushing on "Stephanie" from "Lazy Town" (a kids show), Brenda Song, and the girl from the Transformers movies - but you're still up there on his list! :-)
Back to your point at hand - definitely agree. I would say it's even more important for the massed social interactions for young boys. Just thinking back to the old days in the schoolyard playground - the girls tendeded to pair-up and break off into much smaller groups, while the boys tended to mass together (usually around some sort of ball) and begin organizing "team" activities.
I have a suspicion this goes back into how we are hard-wired from thousands of years as hunter gatherers. That is to say, if the boys would grow up to be the primary hunters, it was important that they be able to communicate with large numbers of people directly and effectively (especially on-the-fly, as happens quite a bit in sports) so as to complete a successful hunt.
One of the things we all seem to talk about at work is that as kids, during the summer we'd all be outside ALL day long, playing every game imaginable. And when those got boring, we'd invent new ones.
Nowadays? You see kids inside, or when they are outside they've got their mobile gaming devices.
It's like we're raising future "Borg" (gratuitous Star Trek: The Next Generation reference) who are constantly hooked up to their personal gaming units rather than socially interactive organizers.
With that in mind, I guess it's "Little League" time for sir Randall. :-) -
AWWWWW! I'm SOOOO Glad to hear Randall is still enjoying the cards!!! and please let him know that I adoooreeeee him even though I've only seen him on my computer screen hahaha, he's super adorable!!!!!!
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I just typed up a whole explanation on autism and it all got erased..... ANYWAYYY. I was just explaining how a lot of the books I've read did mention exactly what you said about " this goes back into how we are hard-wired from thousands of years as hunter gatherers. That is to say, if the boys would grow up to be the primary hunters.." I find it so fascinating because I think autistic people prove that humans survive even just with their own sensitivity. Today, morality blocks our capacity of thinking but autism proves to me how much our true sensitivity alone can teach us.. autism is so difficult to research on because (I think!) their inner intelligence is beyond ours today.
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Ah yes, the "fine line between ability and disability" - that is to say, those who tend to develope socially inhibiting things like autism often exceed the capacity of "normal" folks in other areas - like math, reading comprehension, etc.
In my experience, some of the brightest males you'll meet tend to be riddled with what we'd refer to as "learning disabilities" in other areas.
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Well, actually my son was bored with video games, never liked them. What he did like, starting from age 3, was to take apart appliances and put them back together again. If you can imagine a 3 yr. old taking the electric top of the washing machine apart, wires handing everywhere. Really freaked me out until I noticed he did unplug it first. At 6, he was watching a video tape of Eric Clapton perform, watched it over and over again. Then picked up my husband's guitar and played it. He started reading diagnostic charts for wiring radios and electronics at 8. But still, video games were boring. At 13, he took apart a 3 cylinder 90 hp boat motor, replaced the wiring, waterline, and one piston. The motor needed work when I bought it at a garage sale. The middle was shot. He worked on it for 48 hours, would not eat or sleep and fixed it. Had it tested and compression was almost equal between the three. That is his impulsive, compulsive nature. The big thing is when he took something apart, he would leave bolts, nuts, wires spread out on the carpet, all over his room. He would get extremely upset if I moved any of them. And he could tell in an instant if just one had been moved. So the pattern thinking holds true. Brilliant, but no common sense and used by some many bad people in his live. He finally has it straighten out.
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That is truly amazing.. You should definitely encourage him with music and engineering. He can grow to become such an amazing part of developing in industry! Wow that's what truly fascinates me over and over again about autistic people. They're level of thinking is just way way ahead of us. I hear autistic people with more visual thinking is really into video games because of all the flashy lights and patterned events that happen in the games. But your son seems to be a visual thinker who can picture machine works and industrial design in his mind at an instant while we would require computer programs. He could do so much!!!! I hope he will continue with this!
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I post about spirituality and that is sometimes related to psychology, check out my blog and i hope u find something you like.-
Yeah I just linked you on my blog! I'm glad I am finding a lot of really interesting blogs here. Thanks for letting me know
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this is serious, I'll be back
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I don't think vaccines cause autism. The reason for this is 2fold:
1) There is massive epidemiological evidence that it doesn't
2) The scientific explanation for how it would do so is not solid science
For instance, 500,000 kids vaccinated in Denmark were compared to 100,000 who weren't, and no increase in autism risk was found. What's likely is that increased rates are due to greater reporting and identification of symptoms, along with other factors.
I wrote an article on it and other autism issues:
healthlifeandstuff.com/2009/08/do-vaccines-cause-autism/-
Great post! Really helpful. Vaccine may not be a cause of autism but do you think vaccine can trigger parts of nervous system to worsen the conditions of autistic children, such as their extreme sensory sensitivity?
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@IK44,
Is this the study you are referring to?
Doesn't look so rigorous.
www.vaccineinfo.net/immunization/injury/autism/DanishMMRAutismStudy.shtml
""It is important to note that the study only focused on the MMR vaccine, and not vaccines also implicated in autism which contain the mercury preservative thimerosal," explains Sallie Bernard, executive director of Safe Minds. "The study also failed to investigate whether the MMR vaccine might be interacting with the thimerosal from other vaccines to increase the severity of symptoms in children who already have autism. Finally, the study did not differentiate between regressive autism, which is the type being linked to MMR vaccine, and the more prevalent early onset autism, which is the type being linked to thimerosal."
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Thimerosal hasn't been used in about nine years. And there are a NUMBER of studies stating that there is no link between vaccines and autism.-
@nycgirl,
Then why have the families of 1322 children who have suffered brain damage ffrim vaccines been awarded compensation?
childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/2009/06/14/juliawinsmmrcase/
And what of the studies that DO show a link?
childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/2009/06/03/japvaxautism/
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As the first article states, Julia does not have autism.
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The quote form JF Kennedy says: "In many other successful cases, attorneys elected to steer clear of the hot button autism issue altogether and seek recovery instead for the underlying brain damage that caused their client’s autism.”
Also, there is an option to have thimerosal free vaccine of your choice, but it has not been shelved.
www.naturalnews.com/011764.html -
Hi all. I have a 11 year old daughter with ASD - milder form of autism of which I am currently blogging. In my own opinion, vaccines did not affect her condition. She was born autistic, however I believe that for some children they worked as a trigger. Yet again there is no official proof either way.. Autism is neurological impairment where information is processed in different parts of the brain than usually. I do not like the term normal. I don't think my daughter is abnormal. It's others who are nurologically typical (NTs). Normality is relevant.
Going back to your studies kaorispoon, during the time when my girl was restricted verbally to a few words, her pre-school teacher applied both music and art to deal with tantrums and communication.
Emotions are the most difficult to express, they are confusing and unpredictable. Feel free to read about our experiences and methods. Although my blog is not scientific, but personal maybe you can find some pointers and ideas to persue.
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