OU blog

Personal Blogs

Malcolm Taylor

Just a few changes and a catch up

Friday, 6 Jul 2018, 22:32
Visible to anyone in the world

So firstly out of the gate I'm not at Nottingham due to ill health which I am really not happy about but rules are there for a reason. My 'ill health' is partly to do with my autism so thats one part of my life it had ruined this weekend, usally I can just keep going but I had to take everything into account this time around.  As it is rare i have lots of sensory overloads in a row, meltdowns I can deal with; just go into basic program and use echo location. 

Anyway enouch of that this is something I have been trying I am to to try to use something called Google Blogger. Instead of this blog, although everything will be here it won't be when I finish the OU but I am unsure if it will be after my first year or my third either way to make sure everything I have said is read and people can see things I have put it will be copied over their. It will most likely be named something simliar. I will link it when I have completed the transistion. In this case I'm an Eevee turning into a Leafeon growing and hopfully spreading a more helpful basis to Autism Awareness.

So being blue, not being down like its accosiated with, that is the actual colour for autism awareness; blue... I would like to know where this came from because if it is associated with our moods then I won't be happy. You could almost say I might be blue... . I know bad pun. 

There are some reason why I am trying this new program. 

1) It's not customisable. I wouldn't mind this if had a coulorful background but for me it has this horrible grey and light blue. I don't know what it is like for anyone who reads this, but expect strong colours if they can be changed.

2) I can put pictures on here. If you aren't a OU student reading this the OU give you 500KB for a picture to be uploaded, so its either very poor quality or you can't get it on although due to copyright i doubt i will be doing many Pokemon picture because nintendo love sueing people who show pokemon without giving them credit. 

These are the main ones but I am positve this could be a step in the right way. 

Tags: autism, aspergers, eevee, leafeon, google, meltdown, shutdown, sensory, overload, awareness, open, university, racing, canoe, c1
Permalink 1 comment (latest comment by David Tracey, Saturday, 7 Jul 2018, 01:10)
Share post
Malcolm Taylor

Why Autism is around and a catch up

Wednesday, 6 Jun 2018, 19:59
Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Malcolm Taylor, Wednesday, 6 Jun 2018, 21:09

It's been a while since my last blog post so here is a litlle catch up. Ive raced up in Nottingham and came first in my final and beat the Girls4Gold team, which is nice broke a couple records for Exeter but still no medal :/ . My fourth assigment is due soon and the tutorial for this assigment was last week and guess how many people turned up... Yep ONE, me. I know im special but I didn't need a whole classroom to myself. Anyway here is some, I'm not saying all but these two are quite popular, what I mean by that is people who work in the autism field and when i got tested they asked "which argument do you support". I will try and be neutral and list pros and cons of each if I miss something please say.

Argument 1- Autism is a evolutionary step. I know as first glace its sounds odd. This is the arument as I understand it. As most reasonable minds see things there is a thoery of evoulution. In this we came from lizards or small mammals of the time and further back it crated eyes, ears and most of our anatomy as we know it now. Where autism comes in is a lot of us have hightened senses may this be hearing, seeing, smell, touch, taste or all of them. This is a state of evolution which hasn't completely finshed because the brain hasn't mapped these funtions as being that hightened so to cope with this each fuction  has a shut off point where it overloads. It explains whythere is no uniformity in autism. Some other evidents to back it up is that evolution is in constate flux and some of us have better memory, pain toleration and reflexs. Although some of this has to be taught, its there. So depending on this scale it shows people how evolved they are. Also the number of people being dianogsed with autism is growing so it kinda shows that they are more and it is growing soon autism maybe the norm- which will be a change. This is a rough explaintion for everyone, but here are the pros and cons.

Pros:                                                                                                                            

- It explains autism                                                                                                  

-It explains why we have better senses then 'normal' people                          

- Explains the spectrum a little more                                                                           

  Cons:                                                                                     

 - It doesn't explain how we have evovled         

 - Some things have to be taught           

 - It doesn't explain the personality quriks most people with autism have such as being obnoxious or things like twiching


Argument 2- Autism is the human idea of a scarifical lamb

This runs of the same idea with the evolutionalry setting. As most reasonable minds see things there is a thoery of evoulution. In this we came from lizards or small mammals of the time and further back it crated eyes, ears and most of our anatomy as we know it now. Where autism comes in is a lot of us have hightened senses may this be hearing, seeing, smell, touch, taste or all of them. This is a state of evolution which hasn't completely finshed because the brain hasn't mapped these funtions as being that hightened so to cope with this each fuction has a shut off point where it overloads, this is where we would get either killed or put in serous danger. Instead of being the more advance idea of people, we are scarifial lambs who help the collective survive. Apart from those with good memorys because they would record what had happen so the rest of the 'pack' or group you are with don't make the same mistake. Hence why we don't understand danger or have emotions because they aren't needed. Also to help this argument most people with autism when have an overlao of sound or emotions will freeze, instead of running or facing it. 

Pros:                                                                                                                            

- It explains autism                                                                                                

-It explains why we have better senses then 'normal' people                          

- Explains the spectrum a little more                                                          

- It explain some the personality quriks most people                                                                                                                                           with autism have such as being obnoxious or things like twiching         


Cons:

  - It doesn't explain how we have evovled 

       - Some things have to be taught        

- Isn't explained why it is still needed thousands of years later                                                                      

 - Doesn't completely explain atypical autism  or the people with  autism who can adapt or mimic        

I hope this was intresting and i will let you pick which one is you think is right. smile 

Tags: evolution, shutdown, overload, meltdown, life, health, emotions, danger, canoe, c1, awareness, autism, assignments, asd, aspergers
Permalink Add your comment
Share post
Malcolm Taylor

Crash goes the car

Friday, 27 Apr 2018, 21:49
Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Malcolm Taylor, Monday, 30 Apr 2018, 22:19

This month has been busy. To make sure ive understood this because my head its still spinning. I have been working now two months going all over devon, I have caught up with friends i lost contact with, I raced in my C1, had a car accident (more on that one later), had  lesson for my OU course and finshed my TMA.  Thats pretty condensed and with all this i had 2 meltdowns. 

Right, Im going to spend most of this post explainig this silly accident. I should say I wasn't driving. A couple weeks ago me and my mum were going down to training. As my mum was looking  up the juction the car go hit  on the rear, the number plate came off, I was the only one in the car that was calm and making lots of inaproriate jokes, many i can't say on here. We then chose to abanoned training to go head home to phone the insurance people.  No one worry we are both fine. The car had to be repaired though. So we had a hire car... It was a hybrid -_- but not a prius. 

My lesson about sociology, or what the OU is calling it: the social sciences, has been so drull because we have been larening about a street, in Cardiff, in Wales. I live in Devon, in England... How is it meant to be relatable? If you live in wales i can see why its relatable. Now its picking up we are learning about supermarkets. Its still boring but at least i can look at a supermarket or go in one. After this i think we are looking at how and why things are being thrown away. 

The TMA has been fun, I had to plan, where theres autism, theres a plan- usally for or against autism. I do like plans, i can have some order. The down side was the plan had to be a page long- its way to short for a plan it needs to be at least two three pages long. Then I had to use the plan, i finished my TMA in two hours. Then back to work. My life is fun, if i'm not studying, i'm working if i am not doing either of that im training. 

This has been quite a short post but there is so much happening i can't process all of it. I am still quite surpirsed ive had two meltdowns.  smile 

Tags: canoe, c1, car, meltdown, friends, mental, health, open, university, sociology, ou, assignments, autism, aspergers, asd
Permalink Add your comment
Share post

This blog might contain posts that are only visible to logged-in users, or where only logged-in users can comment. If you have an account on the system, please log in for full access.

Total visits to this blog: 20025