Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Loud Hands Autistic People Speaking by Julia Bascom Julia Bascom. Julia Bascom is an autistic writer and activist. She is the deputy executive director at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, [1] has served on the New Hampshire DD council, and is the founder of the Loud Hands Project. [2] Contents. Writing. "My blog is called Just Stimming for two reasons: because all I'm doing is lining up words, just stimming . It's hard work. It's important to me. It's significant. But I also remember being 15 and scared and looking at people saying some very big and terrifying things about me, and then going online and finding other people like me, who were writing for themselves. And I don't think they meant it to, but their writing changed my life. Their writing told me I could have a life. And if I can let someone else have that, I think that can only be good." [3] Bascom maintains a blog called Just Stimming. where she posts about autism, disability, the autistic community, and human rights. She covers both the joys and struggles of living as an autistic woman, and writes essays discussing how autistic people are treated in the world. "When I was a little girl, I was autistic. And when you’re autistic, it’s not abuse. It’s therapy." [4] Her piece "Quiet Hands" explains the trauma and abuse in the ABA therapy she received as a child. It has received much attention from the community for its beautiful writing and depiction of the abuse that many autistic people underwent or are still undergoing in therapy. Bascom also writes for The Mighty. [5] Anthologies. Bascom is the organizer of The Loud Hands Project, an anthology of essays from autistic writers that has expanded into a website. [6] It is meant primarily for the autistic community. "We are preserving, organizing, and showcasing our voices, our resilience, and our heritage," Bascom explains in an interview. [3] In 2013 Bascom released another anthology, entitled And Straight on Till Morning: Essays on Autism Acceptance . These essays focus on autism awareness and its cost, and working on the shift towards acceptance. [7] Views. Bascom believes in neurodiversity and is an advocate for autism rights. She is especially interested in bridging the gap between theory and praxis. She is strongly against normalization therapy, arguing that it is better to grow up looking autistic than to grow up being abused. The grabbers don’t believe that we can be happy or find meaning unless we are exactly like them —and that’s really the goal, being just like everyone else , and so there is not even a second of hesitation in their eyes when they slap our hands down onto the table with a shriek of “ quiet hands ”. [8] Bascom does not believe in an autism cure. "In the end, there are really two things I want when I say I wish I wasn’t autistic or I want a cure. I want to not feel like a freak, and I want to feel safe. Those are hard, scary things to feel and to admit. And, because I’m being honest, I have to ask something even scarier. What if being cured didn’t fix those things? Because ultimately, if I took a cure, I’d be surrendering. Instead of fighting for my right to be treated and valued as a human being regardless of disability, I’d be letting go, giving in, and letting myself be changed into someone easier, someone acceptable, someone convenient." [9] Personal Life. Bascom enjoys music, linguistics, and multiples of 7. She was quite gifted in math, demonstrating incredible skill in mathematics and music, but lost skills after head trauma and over-medication. [10] [11] She is also a lesbian. [9] Bascom has written in detail about her disability. Her body often has trouble moving, be it opening boxes, dressing herself, or standing up. [12] [13] Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking 2015-02-05. Loud Hands begins with a pun: the loud hands of a stim becoming the loud hands on the keyboard. "Having loud hands is about being proudly Autistic, starting from the basic, foundational idea that there is nothing wrong with us ."--quoted from the submissions page of the Loud Hands Project website. It opens with a dedication to 36 children "and all of the names we may never know" and the hope that they rest in peace. One was six months old and died at the hands of his mother because he was believed autistic. The oldest was 22. It starts with an essay: "Don't Mourn for Us," in which Jim Sinclair argues that autism is not death, but is grieved by parents as if it were; that relationships are possible between allistic parent and autistic child if certain assumptions are acknowledged and certain expectations are adjusted. It explains how the Autism Network International (ANI) became an organization by, for, and about autism, showing that you don't have to be allistic to run a successful organization or create a solid community. The key? Leveraging the different strengths of other aspies. which is exactly how teamwork happens among NTs. It publishes Ari Ne'eman's essay, which the Autism Speaks Association's The Advocate wouldn't publish, because Ne'eman disputes the "cure paradigm." It refutes Rainman as a symbol. Amy Sequenzia's brief essay "Non-Speaking, Low Functioning" describes what she needs from people to make her value known to people, the simple common sense of respecting dignity when it's packaged differently. And the awe and wonder of connecting with a truly different, obviously human, mind. Nick Walker studies how culture changes its point of view--known as "paradigm shifts." He uses ordinary language to demystify the academic process that moves AS from an abnormal and defective state to the same diversity we struggle to extend to race, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Zoe Gross's scathing examination of how dividing autism from personhood exposes how advertising uses metaphors from military, clinical, and deadly metaphors rob aspies of humanity because they can't be separated from their neurodiversity. She shows pictures. The letter, "Dear Younger Self" is a love song to the unloved. The section "What They Do To Us" focuses on how people disturbed by stims damage those whose stimming is more obvious. Julia Bascom's essay "Quiet Hands" takes us on a slow descent into silence when those of us who speak with our hands are asked, ordered, forbidden, and finally physically prevented from using our hands. "Not being able to speak is not the same as not having anything to say." It closes by explaining why autism awareness is necessary but not sufficient, what advocacy, especially self-advocacy looks like, and closes with Anne Foreman's essay "On World Autism Awareness Day:" "It takes a long time to figure out that you're not the reason you aren't real. When they laugh, keep yelling. When they tie your soul up and cut it out and dump it in a corner, keep yelling. If a(n autistic) shark stops stimming, it will die. Don't stop stimming." Staff. Julia Bascom serves as Executive Director at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. Previously, she did state-level work in her home state of New Hampshire, where she served on the DD council and co-led an inter-agency team to revitalize self-advocacy within the state. Julia edited Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking , an anthology of writings by autistic people, and currently serves on the advisory board of Felicity House, and the boards of the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities, the Institute for Exceptional Care, and Allies For Independence. Zoe Gross, Director of Advocacy. Zoe Gross is Director of Advocacy at Autistic Self Advocacy Network. Previously, she worked as a special assistant at the Administration for Community Living, and as a policy analyst on Senator Tom Harkin’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee staff. In 2012, Zoe created the annual Disability Day of Mourning vigil, a national, cross-disability event which commemorates the lives of disabled people murdered by their family members or caregivers. She received a White House Champions of Change award for this work in 2013. Sam Crane, Legal Director. Sam Crane is Legal Director at ASAN’s national office. A graduate of Harvard Law School, Sam previously served as staff attorney at the Bazelon Center of Mental Health Law, focusing on enforcing the right to community integration as established by the Supreme Court in Olmstead v. L.C. , and as an associate at the litigation firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart, & Sullivan, L.L.P., where she focused on patent and securities litigation. From 2009 to 2010, Sam served as law clerk to the Honorable Judge William H. Yohn at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Kelly Israel, Policy Analyst. Kelly Israel is a Policy Analyst at ASAN’s national office. She, under Samantha Crane, works to advance the legal, legislative and administrative policy objectives of ASAN. She is a graduate of American University, Washington College of Law and served as student attorney in its Disability Rights Law Clinic. In that capacity she was legal counsel for clients with disabilities in a wide variety of cases, including special education and ADA reasonable accommodations issues. She has also worked for other public interest organizations on the death penalty and on guardianship in the United States. Her chief interests are the education of children with disabilities, supported decision-making as a viable alternative to guardianship, and the over-criminalization of people with developmental disabilities. Greg Robinson, Policy Analyst. Greg Robinson is a Policy Analyst at ASAN’s national office. He holds a Master’s Degree in Public Health Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to ASAN, he worked in community program development around housing and community health for underserved communities in Philadelphia as an Americorps VISTA, and in inclusive career development and employment supports for undergraduate students as a graduate assistant at Drexel University. His passion in policy centers around the intersections of social determinants of health in marginalized communities. Haley Outlaw, Programs Manager. Haley Outlaw is ASAN’s Programs Coordinator. While studying Disability Studies and Advocacy, Haley was president and founder of the neurodiversity student group and advocacy chair for the disability student group, in addition to planning and coordinating a program for incoming neurodivergent students at the College of William & Mary. Ianthe Belisle Dempsey, Digital & Print Media Coordinator. Ianthe (ee-awn-tay) is an Autistic self-advocate living in Chicago. Xe has been an outspoken anti-oppression activist for the past decade and has a degree in theatre/film studies and Russian history from Illinois State University. Their work centers on using technology, design, and language to increase visual and cognitive accessibility of both print and digital resources. Ianthe has had pink hair for the past 9 years and has had extremely strong opinions on fonts and typography for even longer. She has no intention of changing either of those anytime soon. Noor Pervez, Community Engagement Coordinator. Noor Pervez is the Community Engagement Coordinator at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. He previously led his campus LGBT+ advocacy group, Rainbow Guard, and gave a number of talks regarding intersectionality. His previous work centered on exploring the intersections of disability, LGBT+ and religious issues. He is a graduate of the University of Texas at Dallas with a degree in Emerging Media and Communications. Meredith Bartley, Programs & Publications Associate. Meredith Bartley is a Communications Associate with an interest in accessibility, the social model of disability, and storytelling. She has a BA in Film & Media Arts from American University and a Master’s in Disability Studies from the University of Leeds thanks to the Fulbright Scholar program. She’s also a huge fan of women’s soccer! Reid Caplan, Accessible Policy Fellow. Reid Caplan is a disability policy researcher and advocate with a commitment to ensuring that research and policy materials are accessible to everyone whose lives are impacted by this information. As Accessible Policy Fellow, Reid oversees the drafting of many of ASAN’s Easy Read and Plain Language policy toolkits, as well as collaborates with researchers to help include autistic perspectives in their projects. Reid is a PhD student in the Social Policy program at Brandeis University, where he focuses on furthering policies that promote community inclusion for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Jean Winegardner, Office Manager. Jean Winegardner is the Office Manager at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network’s DC office. She is an Autistic mom to three delightfully neurodivergent children, who brought her into the world of disability advocacy as she learned about what they need and want out of life. She is passionate about furthering acceptance and embrace of disabled children and adults. Jean has a master’s degree in print journalism from the University of Southern California. She and her husband live in Maryland. She enjoys movies, reading, running, and small, amusing rodents. A Conversation With the Talented Writer, Blogger and All-Around Amazing Julia Bascom. A year ago, I found Julia Bascom's blog, Just Stimming, and it changed my life. Julia is a beautiful writer who eloquently describes the joys and challenges of being autistic. Within the last year, Julia created the video "The Loud Hands Project." This video, together with Julia's blog, is mandatory viewing for any and all who are even remotely interested in autism or know someone on the spectrum. Click "here" and "here" for LHP's Twitter and Facebook pages. Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking is the newly-released book and anthology that so many of us have been eagerly awaiting. I am happy to report it is everything and more I had hoped for! Julia agreed to speak with me about all her various projects. AZ: Julia, would you begin by talking about how the Loud Hands anthology came into being? JB: Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking is the first published work of the Loud Hands Project. It's an anthology of essays written by and for autistic people, discussing autism, neurodiversity, the history of the autistic community and autistic culture, and disability rights. We have sections that discuss our historical context, the diversity of current realities experienced by adults on the spectrum today, the histories of abuse many of us have grown up with, the many different ways we can speak and communicate, our rhetorical foundations, and our hopes for the future. Some of the pieces were written two decades ago; others were written two months ago in response to our call for submissions. To quote from our Amazon page: Spanning from the dawn of the neurodiversity movement to the blog posts of today, Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking catalogues the experiences and ethos of the autistic community and preserves both diverse personal experiences and the community's foundational documents together side by side. I'm really proud of it. AZ: I understand why! I thought it was brilliant. How long was it in the making? JB: The Loud Hands Project was the convergence of several different ideas I'd been playing with over the last several years -- though I'm hardly the first to think about civil rights in terms of narrative, resilience, and voice. Things started to come together in the fall of 2011, and they got a jumpstart when my essay "Quiet Hands" -- about the abuse and silencing of autistic people -- went viral. A project centered around honoring autistic voices, however they're shared -- through speech, AAC, behavior, or another medium -- seemed the obvious next step. The project itself has been in the making for about a year now -- I filmed the video about 13 months ago, and we started fundraising Dec. 26. The anthology has been in various stages of editing and production since May, though the call for submissions went out before we were done fundraising, and I was emailing people asking for reprint permissions over the winter and into the summer. It's been a mad rush. AZ: Now that the anthology has been published, what's next? JB: We're in the final stages of production for our website right now -- loudhandsproject.com. You can sign up there for an email alert to let you know when we're live! I'm really excited about this site. Long-term, our plans are for it to function as a sort of library of autistic culture, community, and history. When we launch, we're going to have some really innovative materials, a sort of neurodiversity 101 section. We're also going to be experimenting with some community engagement platforms that will allow a whole community to come together and, using various mediums and methods of communication, create a community text on a chosen topic -- what does accessible technology mean to you, what does autism look like grown up, what does stimming do for you, anything, really. As we develop our library, we're hoping to include both archives of texts that are important to the autistic community historically-- Don't Mourn For Us, In My Language , etc. -- as well as newer voices, and texts that are written as well as video or in other media. The Loud Hands Project is all about the fact that, whether we can use oral speech or not, autistic people have voices. We're showcasing and documenting the ways in which we're already speaking. AZ: The anthology and the coming website represent autistic people, verbal, non-speaking and everyone covering the full spectrum, yes? JB: Absolutely. Some of our contributors speak orally; a number of them use augmented communication or type to communicate, either part-time or full-time. One of the main focuses of the Loud Hands Project is deconstructing what we mean by the idea of "autistic people, speaking." It's a pretty basic assumption in the disability community that everyone speaks and everyone has something to say --it's just a question of finding a way to communicate that is accessible to all parties. AZ: Was the anthology and the coming website created for a specific audience? JB: Our first audience, and the community we focus on, is the autistic community. We are preserving, organizing, and showcasing our voices, our resilience, and our heritage. We are speaking and hearing ourselves reflected back. But if other people want to hear us -- or discover that we have things to say at all -- they are of course welcome. They'll be hearing us soon enough. AZ: Your blog, Just Stimming was the first blog written by an autistic adult that I found, and it quite literally changed my life. It was the first time I'd read an autistic person describe both the joys and the challenges of being autistic. It gave me hope, not just for my daughter, but for all of us. I'm guessing you've heard this before. Does it surprise you? JB: You know, I get emails every so often now, still, from parents telling me they brought Quiet Hands into an IEP meeting. I have emails from people who knew nothing about neurodiversity or disability rights, who saw my piece about Abed and fell down the rabbit hole, and now that's one more person who thinks every brain matters. I get a lot of messages from other autistic people, some intensely personal, saying this happened to me too. I know, for a fact, that there are people, a lot of people, people I've never even met, who are safer now because of a stupid essay I couldn't not write after I watched some television. It never stops being bizarre. I still don't know how to respond. I don't blog very much, and when I do it's not for other people, it's so that I can remember that I thought this thing, I found these words, and they helped me. My blog is called Just Stimming for two reasons: because all I'm doing is lining up words, just stimming . It's hard work. It's important to me. It's significant. And I know that. I know it matters, because anytime someone claims their voice it matters, but it's so intensely personal. It's not written for an audience. But I also remember being 15 and scared and looking at people saying some very big and terrifying things about me, and then going online and finding other people like me, who were writing for themselves. And I don't think they meant it to, but their writing changed my life. Their writing told me I could have a life. Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking. The Loud Hands Project, a project of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, was funded through IndieGoGo to create an anthology titled Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking . Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking is a collection of essays written by and for Autistic people. Spanning from the dawn of the Neurodiversity movement to the blog posts of today, Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking catalogues the experiences and ethos of the Autistic community and preserves both diverse personal experiences and the community’s foundational documents together side by side.

★★★★★This book is the real deal This is not a book written about autistic people by non-autistic people. It's written by autistic people themselves, and is therefore highly compelling and positive and turns all the tragedy-oriented books on their heads. I have not finished it; it's a meaty book. The first part deals with the history of the autism self-advocacy movement and it is fascinating and wonderful to read about the way in which autistic folks have taken control of the bs that others have been churning out for so long. I am the grandma of an autistic boy, so I know firsthand that special challenges don't translate into anything vaguely resembling tragedy. Read this book! It will drown out the voices of Autism Speaks and others that have misinformed us for years.

★★★★★ My five star rating is due to the groundbreaking importance of this book. It was written and edited by autistic people about their experiences and the urgent need to reform medical perspective and practice. A must read for anyone unfamiliar with neurodiversity theory and its applications.

★★★★★a must-read! I can't recommend this book enough. I found these articles to be so insightful. My son was recently diagnosed with Autism, and I wanted to hear from Autistic adults. It seems that there are thousands of books about Autism by non-Autistic people, and it seems strange that Autistics themselves are being largely left out of the conversation! This book is one that helps fill that void. If you are interested in Autism, or have a loved one on the spectrum, this should be a must-read!

★★★★★ MUST READ. If you live in this world, this is a must read. If you teach, this is a must read. If you parent, this is a must read. If you interact with other people, this is a must read. Seriously. Buy. Read. Now.

★★★★★Must read. This is a wonderful book. Getting the perspective of autistic adults is the most valuable part to me. But all the other perspectives are also relevant and important too. This book is so worth reading!! I would say for any parent of an autistic child or adult this is a MUST READ! Also invaluable for any service provider or person working with autistics of any age. If you want to get an understanding of the autistic rights movement this book will educate you and give you a good basic understanding of that movement. I would follow up with reading any thing you can get your hands on by the autistic authors and some of the others as well. This is an amazing book!