REMEMBRANCE OF A FALLEN PROPHET

Dr. King knew how I might learn hate
For always can I learn to hate THEM—
You know who THEY are
(Do not each of US know?)
THEY who steal my car
THEY who steal my land
THEY who steal my work
THEY who deny me care
THEY who call my baby “slow”
THEY who rape my daughter
THEY who shoot my son
THEY who demolish my towers
THEY who watch as my city drowns
THEY who despise my every dream
Even from the grave, Dr. King asks still:
Will WE hate ourselves—or shall WE overcome?
Shall we overcome?
WE—all groping for knowledge and vision
WE—fearing death and some darkness beyond
WE—at once wronged, and doers of wrong
WE can forgive ourselves and our fellows
WE can mourn loss upon common ground
WE can live as we find grace to live
WE can relearn, repair and rebuild
WE can love
As One who ever is Love loves us
So it is written in the Book
So it was proven upon the Cross
And so we are taught by a certain prophet
Named Martin Luther King, Jr.
How we can overcome
We must overcome
We shall overcome
Someday—can be today
Someday—must be today
Shall someday be today?

From I, In Shades of Gray. Originally copyrighted as
Inconvenient I and Other Gray Matters by Merlin L.
Taylor, Jr. 2009.

ANOTHER GOOD READ

Check out “How to be a Friend to an Autism Mom,” written by Susan Walton on Laura Shumaker’s San Francisco Chronicle blog. Both Walton and Shumaker are (a) mothers of children on the autism spectrum, (b) book authors and (c) blog authors (links to both of whose sites can now be found in Blogroll). Their writing can be characterized in terms of both logical rigor and intuitive insight–in short, the best aspects of the neurodiverse perspective.

PTSD and ASD

A number of links newly have been added on the topic of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Perhaps best known as an affliction besetting combat veterans and survivors of sexual abuse, PTSD is an often-overlooked fact of life for too many of us who live on the autism spectrum. This can be because we process sensory input atypically, causing many stimuli that our more typically-developing peers would barely notice to seem noxious, even threatening, to our selves. This can be also because of how we have been treated: “treated” in the sense of social regard, or “treated” in the therapeutic sense.

Harmful therapy: a phrase that in a more perfect world would be mere oxymoron, but in present reality is another far too common fact of life on the autism spectrum. Could this be because we healthcare professionals (another “we” to which I belong) focus excessively upon curing disorder, forgetting that the individual human being must be healed?

AN OPEN LETTER TO FELLOW AMERICANS

“Obamacare”: the title itself speaks volumes regarding opposition to the Affordable Health Care Act–opposition that is purely political, as opposed to humane. If as a United States Senator, or a constituent, you seek its repeal, then I implore you to reconsider your intended actions.

I am a clinical speech-language pathologist. I have stood at the deathbeds and gravesites of former patients institutionalized due to stroke, brain injury, or developmental disability. I carry within me memories of these innocent and hapless human beings dying the death of slow respiratory failure–a death I would not wish upon a vicious dog. I carry within me incredulous anger at having been denied opportunity to treat them solely because insurance funding had run out.

I am a traumatic brain injury survivor. I found myself fired shortly after my workplace injury, with my health insurance discontinued, Workers’ Compensation retroactively denied, and subsequently was turned away from one aid source after another. Mostly recovered five years later, I carry within my skull an atrophied brain amounting to a sentence of shortened lifespan. I carry the stigma of bankruptcy, and tens of thousands of dollars in undischarged debt, as legacy of what health care I was able to obtain.

The Affordable Care Act was drafted and enacted to right such wrongs as I have witnessed and experienced. Imperfect though it may be, causing its repeal will stain your hands with the blood of countless individuals–individuals who perhaps are invisible to you, but who live and die in plain sight of One who sees all.

For the sake of God, for the sake of humankind, for the sake of our country, and for the sake of your own soul, reconsider your stance. Let Affordable Health Care stand.

Thank you for considering my words. May God guide you, and bless our country.

Merlin L. Taylor, Jr., Ph.D., CCC-SLP

PHAT and the ASD Client

The PowerPoint used in the 9 April 2011 presentation to the National Black Association for Speech, Language and Hearing (NBASLH) Convention in Indianapolis is now available in the media library (http://nuants.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/nbaslh-2011.ppt; also available under “PAGES”–clicking link will download file). PHAT and the ASD Client (full title: Psychologically Humane Assessment and Treatment for Individuals on the Autism Spectrum) contains full reference citations with the exception of the following: (1) works that are in my own curriculum vita; (2) the extraordinary work of Dr. Pamela Rosenthal Rollins, presented to the February 2011 InSpeech conference in Phoenix under the title Social Communication in Young Children with ASD; (3) the Personal Brain 6 software used in developing conceptual maps, accessible at http://www.thebrain.com/products/personalbrain/download/. A corrected copy of the handout will be posted in the near future. Comments will be appreciated.

UPCOMING SHORT COURSE

PHAT and the ASD Client has been accepted for presentation, and tentatively scheduled for 8-11 AM on Saturday 9 April, at the 2011 National Black Association for Speech-Language and Hearing (NBASLH) Convention. The 2011 NBASLH Convention will be held 7-10 April at the Crowne Plaza at Historic Union Station in Indianapolis, IN.

VOICES TO BE HEARD, AND MISSED

Well worth considering: the commentary of Dr. Travis Threats on “The King’s Speech” (by many accounts, an extraordinary movie), accessible at http://www.slu.edu/x44967.xml.

In light of some of the madness that already has marred this new year, one quote in particular seems particularly salient: “…one’s speech does not define what one is inside.” It with no joy that I mark the fact of one more person–my nearly-martyred Congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords–becoming a prominent example of the truth in that statement, but in the truism itself I find much comfort and hope.

Well spoken, Dr. Threats. Godspeed in recovery, Gabby.

PARADOX AND PARADISE

I honestly feel no need to remind anyone of what this date is widely held to represent. While not at all certain of 25 December in historical fact, I nonetheless am personally certain of what the life and death of a certain Judean from Galilee–a life lived and a death died approximately two millenia ago–mean for all humankind. That certainty has in large part defined who I am and how I endeavor (albeit quite imperfectly) to live. That certainty gives me much in common with many, and little in common with many more.

To the many with whom I share a common faith I might convey the greetings of this season; in such greetings Christmas is kept. To the many more from whom I differ in matters of faith, I would wish reassurance that God is love–a love that makes room for many more than can fit into any one house of worship. In such reassurance, Christ is kept, and what Christ lived and died to establish upon this good earth seems all the more likely to become reality.

Merry Christmas, unto all who keep the day.
God is love, unto all.
Peace on Earth–Lord, may it yet come to pass.

aspiehd

UPDATE REGARDING MY CIRCUMSTANCES

Ninety-six hours of enforced bed rest while hooked up to electroencephalographic equipment yielded no conclusive findings. Two courses of action consequently appeared open to me.

I could revisit the possibility of psychosomatic seizure, a hypothetical diagnosis proposed by various clinicians (curiously few of them with any specialized training in psychology) over the past 37 years. That hypothetical diagnosis I occasionally have accepted, inevitably to my own deep regret as psychiatric interventions proved fruitless while seizures worsened.

The alternative was to perform some independent research into what seizure types might exist (besides epileptic seizures and psychogenic seizures). That research proving unexpectedly fruitful, I was able to make some minor adjustments to my seizure control regimen.

Until I have had a follow up appointment with a neurologist, I feel a professional responsibility to withhold my research findings. What I will share is that, over the past 10 days, seizures have cost me less than 8 hours of missed work. Over the previous month, I was missing an average of 16 hours every 5 working days.

What I will add is this: Diagnostics are never intended to make any clinician’s life less complicated. Diagnoses of convenience (e.g., “It’s all in your mind”) constitute perhaps the most insidious form of malpractice.

Many links already have been posted on this site under the heading “Resources,” and in the future, many more may be. One point of adding such links is to empower, through dissemination of knowledge, health-care clients to seek the accurate diagnoses they need–and the appropriate treatments they deserve.

Godspeed to all who are searching.

aspiehd

GREETINGS OF THE SEASON

FRIENDS ARE A FORM OF WEALTH THAT CANNOT BE QUANTIFIED IN ANY HUMAN LIFETIME. TO ALL OF MY FRIENDS (IN CYBERSPACE AND REAL SPACE): HAPPY THANKSGIVING, AND GOD BLESS YOU.