There are three pregnant women on my block.
I’m terrified for them navigating the full year before their babies can get vaccinated for measles, now that it can be anywhere again.
9 in 10 chance of infection.
20% get hospitalized.
Then the threat of agonizing encephalitis death years later.
I’m comfortable suggesting friends with obvious symptoms get an ADHD screening, especially as the wheels come off the bus in for women in midlife. I can talk about how it helped me to know and treat.
But as with your daughters, it feels intrusive to suggest a friend explore an autism diagnosis.
I’d love to hear more about this.
I’m ADHD, and all my life I’ve been drawn to autistic friends, some of whom are surprised by a late diagnosis.
Sometimes I’m not sure if friends know that they (seem to) have neurodivergent traits and struggles.
Would you have wanted a friend to ask?
She’s the best!
And I appreciated Langdon’s throwaway answer to why they worked in the ER: “Because we all have ADHD.”
She’s surrounded by short attention spans and even brusqueness—but he also spots what she uniquely brings, and values it.
A quiet call for “Nothing about us without us.”
We also saw Dr. Langdon immediately learn from her, and change his own approach (turning down the lights for Mel’s sister, etc.)
Nice example of how Theory of Mind goes both ways—and also of the solidarity I often see as ADHD and autistic people learn from each other navigating a tough world.
With great economy, Season 1 of The Pitt showed how Dr. Mel had immediate and practical empathy for the needs and interests of her autistic patient, which her non-autistic colleagues did not.
Somehow I missed this! Ready to read now.
Excellent piece challenging claims of overdiagnosis in autism and neurodivergence.
Dermot, this is excellent. I printed it out to re-read.
Yay! I helped organize @bikeeastbay.bsky.social’s #PotholeChallenge week in January & have been holding my breath after, hoping for a quick response from the city so participants will be encouraged to keep sending in reports.
Neighbors on that block saw our big group of kids do the reporting so they’ve been giving them props. Lots of positive reinforcement all round.
Thank you so much, Robert! We ran out with snacks to thank the workers.
Please pass on our thanks to everyone involved. It’s a big win for the kids to see they can make a direct impact.
The Autism Spectrum (Guest Post)
This response to Dame Uta Frith’s comments was originally written by Dr. Natalie Engelbrecht of Embrace Autism and is shared here with permission. These comments were originally shared on Facebook. For transparency, I conduct evaluations with Embrace Autism and…
WTAF. I couldn’t get through this catalogue.
Beginning to think we should regulate steroids more tightly.
Old men often chat as I’m
loading up the cargo e-bike outside Trader Joe’s.
Today’s fella wanted to know how fast my Tern goes, then told me about the Norton he drove in West Texas in ‘72.
He felt safer in a car “because I’m blind in one eye”(!)
But the gas prices had him looking at e-bikes.
I don’t see how democracy can come back from Citizens United.
Forced my 10-year-old to watch To Catch a Thief.
She asked me twice if he died of skin cancer.
There was so much I learned against my will from ambient family TV and radio.
It’s a SLOG to see that my tween learns about broad culture in an age of personal screens and AirPods. I have to remember to make her watch movies, or listen to music outside her time.
And he was right.
In the summers, my teacher dad would take me to his home place to hang around while he helped his family save the hay (with scythes), and cut and turn the turf they used for fuel.
Exhausting and boring. And that was in the few months when it wasn’t also pouring rain and dark 16 hours a day.
“It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France ordering a plain drip coffee at Versailles…”
This puts me at 10 people released. I filed my 1st habeas petition 29 days ago. I am an incredibly small-time, nobody lawyer who knew nothing about immigration law the day I submitted that case. I barely know any more today. I had never sued the federal government and now I've beaten them 10 times.
It’s wild how much autistic people have shaped and dominated the last 50 years of culture.
In a 2014 interview with The Guardian, Numan commented on the song's lyrics: "All my early songs were about being alone or misunderstood. As a teenager, I'd been sent to a child psychiatrist and put on medication. I had Asperger's and saw the world differently. I immersed myself in sci-fi writers: Philip K Dick, JG Ballard. The lyrics came from short stories I'd written about what London would be like in 30 years. These machines - "friends" - come to the door. They supply services of various kinds, but your neighbours never know what they really are since they look human. The one in the song is a prostitute, hence the inverted commas. It was released in May 1979 and sold a million copies. I had a No 1 single with a song about a robot prostitute and no one knew."
Belated happy birthday to the pioneering Gary Numan, who asked ‘Are “Friends” Electric?’.
Sometimes I ponder that what Eric is to Trump, Trump himself was to Fred Trump.
The embarrassing failson who keeps losing all the money you spot him until you make Roy Cohn babysit him.
This is incredible. Up there with the Galway accents preserved in Newfoundland.
IMO, the best way to appreciate Irish is to read 20th century books in English by Irish authors.
Whatever is charming, striking, quirky, or vivid is often because of the Irish language underpinning Hiberno-English.
As we all learned to our cost slogging through classes from 5 to 18. Brutal grammar. Regional dialects. Most people left school still unable to speak it.
As long as they’re sharing the load.
