In researching where to put my son for a "well structured nursery school" I did some superficial fact finding about the Montessori approach and autism. During this web surf, I came across a video about an autistic woman who does not seem to talk, but can communicate rather eloquently through her computer. It's titled "In My Language" and the woman in the self portrait is Amanda Baggs.
Amanda portrays herself as a low functioning autistic whose intelligence is trapped within her way of interacting with the world. It is aimed at being a very moving piece of film.
However, according to the testimonials re-printed by Blogger John Best's Autism Fraud, Amanda is faking it. Others, like the blog Facing Autism in New Brunswick (Harold L. Doherty) report the same (although the original web site with testimony has been taken down) and the discussion that follows that post is very interesting. The suggestion is that she likely has Factitious Disorder, the deliberate actions of a person to mimic an illness or exaggerate the symptoms of it. For what purpose, you might ask? Certainly the alleged faking Ms Baggs made it to CNN with video feature editorials.
Yes, an autistic person may be able to communicate more effectively through a keyboard than in verbal communication. This would be particularly true if the 80% of communication which is non-verbal interferes with the understanding of a conversation. So don`t take a phoney video too much to heart.
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