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Impaired social interaction, impaired communication, and restricted and
repetitive interests and activities": If you work in the IT industry, this
description fits many people you know, perhaps some of your R&D people, and top
programmers. These are also the traits you look for, according to Wikipedia,
when diagnosing autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a condition that afflicts almost
1% of our population. The structured world of the computer is attractive to the
autistic, so the percentage is likely to be far higher in the IT industry.
The situation in Silicon Valley is well described in the Wired article "The Geek
Syndrome," http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/aspergers.html. Since there
is a genetic component to autism, this concentration has led to even higher
levels in their children: through the '90s alone, the number of cases tripled!
Meanwhile, the government is sticking its head in the sand: it even refuses
to consider autism a disability. In a letter to the secretary of the Autism
Society of India, Veronica Mathias, dated December 8, 2003, the Ministry of
Social Justice and Empowerment explained why: "because doing so would shift
attention and resources away from those whose need is the greatest." Imagine, if
the Ministry of Health had taken the same attitude vis-a-vis HIV, when that
affliction began to clamor for its attention. Once again, we let the voiceless
fall between the cracks.
Signs
From an information perspective, each autistic person poses unique
challenges. Some have extreme sensitivity to loud sounds, glare, or even touch.
Typically, their ability to acquire information is intact, while some kinds of
information processing capacity is reduced. They usually have a problem dealing
with unexpected situations. Too much information, or complex sequences with
different kinds of information to be processed in each step, create severe
problems for persons with autism. This is why speaking is so hard for many of
them, involving as it does the precise control of a large number of muscles in
the face to produce the sounds, not to mention the simultaneous expression of
emotion through facial means, hand gestures, etc.
Because the autistic have a communication impairment, they are unable to let
the tension out through a process of negotiation, and the pent up frustration
may find an outlet in a severe tantrum. Often, people will treat the autistic in
cruel fashion. Sensitization helps here. Creating a working environment with as
few elements of distraction as possible and filters for potentially bothersome
allergens and pathogens is useful-see, for instance,
http://www.autism.org/irlen.html.
For many persons with autism, a gluten-free, casein-free (GFCF) diet helps
reduce many of the symptoms and improves general health. Pizza may be quite the
wrong food for many geeks!
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Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu) is a simple development
environment that is incredibly easy to learn, and excellent for creating
animations that can be used to teach autistic kids |
A for Autism...
To explore what role computers can play in the lives of persons with autism,
two workshops have been conducted in India so far. The first one, held in
Dehradun a year ago with five autistic children and their care-givers, is
documented in a film called "A for Autism.. M for Mouse", which can be
downloaded from Short A for Autism www.shortfilmindia.com. The second
workshop was held this May in Bangalore, with 17 children with autism, their
parents and special educators at the Spastic Society of Karnataka premises. IBM,
a company that has made impressive efforts to become a conducive environment for
the disabled to work in, supported the workshop and sent some volunteers.
Learning from the first workshop, we made sure we had spacious, ground floor
premises, with plenty of opportunities for the kids to run around outside. We
started by looking for ways to address the sensory issues.
We found that the use of a beamer makes a huge difference to persons who have
issues with glare. For them, we also demonstrated the use of software for the
blind, which provides audio cues to accompany the visuals, enhancing learning
even for those who see well, and other audio tools. For beginners in computing,
as most of them were, a normal keyboard with over a hundred keys implied a steep
learning curve. One interesting way to address this was to use software such as
Dasher, which allows you to type quickly using just a mouse. The software was
appreciated by the trainers, and we decided to find ways to explore other means
of using Dasher, such as special eye glasses that track eye movement, hardware
that can interpret gestures, such as the Nintendo Wii, etc. Of particular
interest would be a lower-cost equivalent of the Cyberlink MindMouse,
http://www.sforh.com/pointing/mindmouse-head.html,
which senses electrical activity in the skull, and uses that to control keyboard
and mouse.
Another approach that shows promise is to use one-button software similar to
eLocutor, http://holisticit.com/eLocutor/elocutorv3.htm, adapted for the use of
children, making full use of audio, video, text and pictures. Free and open
source software will be designed for the purpose with the help of the parents
and special educators, with custom vocabulary for each child. For the pictures
and video, we will attempt to capture objects and locations that the child is
already familiar with.
Our experience in Dehradun and a study of the literature convinced us, that
another approach worth trying would be to try to use video as a means of
communication, since many persons with autism think in pictures. We encouraged
parents and educators to let the children use still and video cameras, and look
forward to the results in the months to come. CDAC volunteers taught our
participants how to use their Natak-3D software, that allows you to easily
create drama on a computer screen,
http://sourceforge.net/projects/natak3d. Care
givers will attempt to use this to expose children with autism to the nuances of
social interaction, to recreate and analyze situations that were problematic,
etc. We also spent time learning how to use Scratch,
http://scratch.mit.edu/, a
programming language and integrated development environment that is incredibly
easy to learn, and excellent for creating animations.
Autism afflicts many of the brightest minds in the IT industry. To improve
their productivity and the working environment, companies should initiate
sensitization programs in their companies, and work with us to make it easier
for the autistic to use computers. What neglect can achieve, is almost too
spectacularly illustrated by the recent Virginia Tech shootings. Tyndale
University College psychology professor Paul TP Wong said, "Cho Seung-Hui had
experienced difficulties common to many new immigrants. These included
acculturation stresses, language barrier, poverty and discrimination. The
cumulative stress of these risk factors coupled with problems of mental illness,
autism and personal grievances might have pushed Cho over the edge... The
Virginia Tech killing might have been averted if Cho's parents had been able to
provide him with proper medical care and protection from the harsh realities
which he had long endured."
Dr Arun Mehta has been active in telecom, computing and human rights
since his graduation from IIT Delhi in 1975
(he also holds an MS in Computer
Science from SUNY, NY and a PhD from Ruhr University, Germany). A professor of
computer engineering at JMIT Radaur, his other interests include low power FM
and community radio, broadband community networking, and ICT for the disabled
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