A Neural Dissociation Within Language: Evidence… : DASH Story 2013-11-06
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Access to any one article does not make a big difference to my life. But having access to scholarly research in general has made a tremendous impact on my life.
I was 12, undiagnosed autistic, very intelligent, and a victim of sexual abuse from foster siblings and bullying at school, when my parents finally started homeschooling. They did not know if it would work - if they could teach me effectively, if I would cooperate for learning. All they knew was that they were afraid for my mental health if I stayed in regular schooling.
They started out trying to teach me with essentially the same methods at home as the school had been using. But I couldn't handle that. Being told what to do made me scared, and I coped with this fear by defiance. What should have been educational was turning into daily battles. So my parents backed off.
I may not have been teachable, but I was very good at learning. A typical characteristic of autism is intense interests. In my case, these interests revolved around psychology and genetics. I started with simple Google searches, but soon my interest led me to seek more scholarly sources of information.
So here I was, in my mid-teens, not registered with any university, but searching for articles on PubMed, visiting my local university's health sciences library, reading articles on ring chromosomes, deletions and duplications. And, most importantly, I was happy. I was curious, excited, enthusiastic. I was not afraid.
It was around this time that I discovered high functioning autism, and began to find a framework to understand my own differences. My official diagnosis came at the age of 15, by which time I'd already extensively read both scholarly sources and personal accounts of high functioning autism. I realized I was not rude, lazy or stupid. I simply had a different kind of mind. better at some things and worse at others.
Throughout my homeschooling, I did not produce work, nor cooperate with testing my abilities. But my excited monologues about my latest discoveries made it clear that I was learning. And this impression was confirmed when I finally managed to take the SAT in order to enter university.
And now, I'm an undergraduate psychology student, but in many ways, I feel more at a graduate student level. I still can't make or keep a study plan, but I can easily follow what my teachers are saying. I have learnt how to write papers and take tests to show what I know. I am not working up to my potential, yet, but I'm learning and enjoying life, and gaining experience to help me achieve my dreams.
If I had not had access to scholarly journals, I would certainly know a lot less than I do. I would not have had nearly as much success in university as I've had, and my future would be much more uncertain. Although I was cognitively capable of university-level material at 13 or 14, I would not have been able to prove it, nor could I have coped with any formal education (even university courses, which are really fun). My only access to knowledge, beyond what my parents could tell me, was what I could find on my own.
I'm lucky to have had parents who were students and university employees. But many children don't have this 'in' with university. They may be just as smart as me, and in some cases just as challenged, but without the advantages I've had. For these students, the only way they can learn about their passions and build confidence in their own minds is through open access journals.
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CA