Monday, October 30, 2006

Whats the point

I have been absent from Blog Land a while, I have not even been bothering to comment on other peoples blogs.

Well partly it is because I have been wasting my efforts on the awares site until recently and partly because my studies are taking up more of my time.

I think it gets a bit pointless after a while, all the email and blog exchanges, in that when all is said and done, we on the spectrum can be as devoted to our own pet ideas about what autism is, how it came to be, who called it what and who deserves to be in and who outside the spectrum as any of the Mercurians and curebies out there, and I am fed up with it.

It is bad enough having to defend a position when I read the rot that passes for research and scholarship in the professional literature. Academically speaking I am not altogether convinced that any of the “names” are as "high functioning" as their credentials and position make them out to be in the social ladder of research fellow, PHD or what have you. The memes just pass from one paper to another like Chinese whispers and never a thought as to where they come from and what validity they did not have to begin with. There is just so much sloppy thinking. Take a paper on prosody for instance, written by American’s studying Americans, well American English prosody is different from UK English prosody, Caribbean English prosody and never mind all the non English languages out there, yet the authors universalise from what they know over to what they don’t even know they don’t know. That’s Volkmar and his pals for you.

Why do I feel so angry right now. I don’t know, you would think I would be rather pleased with myself, I have got I wanted and been transferred from undergrad to masters level on my University course, that’s got to be some acknowledgement at least.

However I just think the way the course is structured is not ideal for me at all, but I have to make the best of what is available if I want that “glittering prize” at the end. No I don’t think I will ever be happy till I am writing a course myself and teaching it. And then I shall just have to put up with people criticising me, well nothing new there at least.