Your book

[Guest guest]

Excellent! Glad to hear you're writing this!

I really do think that there are two primary benefits that have

impacted autistics in a positive way.

We can socially connect with each other and not feel so alone, with

all the environmental over-stimulation filtered out so that we can,

for the most part, not get overwhelmed and retreat. This gives

longer, more positive, and constructive communication.

NTs can hear our voices without interference from those non-verbal

behaviors that would trigger them to become hostile (the " not us "

response, see my other postings). Over time, this may build more

understanding, or at least tolerance, in the NT community. Of course,

we have standard " conversational errors " in word choice, polite

phrasing, etc. that still come out (once again, I just had a painful

reminder of that this last week at work), but it is much less of an

interference than when it is put together with our direct face-to-

face interaction " errors. "

>

> Hi,

>

> I'm currently working on an article about how technology has

effected the

> development of the autistic community. It's being prepared for a

book

> chapter on rhetoric and technology in a larger anthology on the

topic for a

> university press. Would anyone here feel up to commenting briefly

on how

> some of the technologies used in the community (i.e: listservs like

this

> one, forums, blogs, IRC, etc.), have effected them personally or the

> community? I'm particularly interested in seeing how the

development of new

> technologies has facilitated our cultural development in ways that

would not

> necessarily have been possible offline. Any comments would be

appreciated.

>

> Thanks,

> Ari

>

>

>