I actually have a positive story about life in academia. I did my doctorate in educational and child psychology at UCL. If you don’t know about the UK system, there are, I think 11 or 12 such courses in the UK, it’s heavily regulated as it is a professional taught doctorate so each course only has a few students each year - there were 12 in my cohort. UCL as an institution is pretty autistic. There were no surprises on the course. Everything was in the manual. There were no dumb essays to write - everything was directly relevant to the work. There was one exam and it was open book. We had a pretty good idea of what the questions would be as, as they said, “that’s how it happens in real life”, i.e. if you don’t know the answer to something, you say, “I don’t know, I’ll go and look it up.”
When we were learning about autism, yes it was outdated compared with today’s standards as it was 14 years ago. But they showed us a video of ABA - and warned us that we might find it distressing - and then showed us intensive interaction and we discussed the differences between the two. I didn’t know that I was autistic at the time - it had crossed my mind but I dismissed it because, you know, I had friends, had kids, had been a teacher, had won a place on a highly competitive course. But they were ND affirming without knowing that that was what they were doing. Now, I believe, they do it consciously. Though, sadly, stupidly, the fucking government has decided to shut the UCL course down - the one that was known for being leading edge and the gold standard. Anyway. That’s not the rant for this comment. I just wanted you to know that it doesn’t have to be all bad.
I would love if this was expanded in a part 2 that covers being autistic and working in academia. I am in my first tenure track job and I find the demands on junior faculty, politics, and intense teaching load as a fast track to burn out. Despite having accommodations, which are hard to fulfill for faculty, establishing boundaries and self-care causes an excess of mental and emotional labor.
Such a great episode, thank you for covering this. I recently finished reading a book called The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth by Zoë Schlanger who I'm convinced is Autistic. Fantastic book that fits with one of my core special interests but it also touches on a lot of the issues brought up in this episode but for the world of botany/ecology. I forget what the book was citing, but at one point the author talks about a theory about scientific development that scientific fields tend to make progress in a stair step pattern. For long periods of time the fields barely advance and mostly circle around an accepted paradigm with a few relatively minor advances. Then a big new theory comes up and is ridiculed at first but later becomes the accepted paradigm as the evidence supporting it builds (and sometimes after the old gatekeepers retire/die). After that everyone acts like the new paradigm was always common sense and forgets that there was ever a debate about it (see the discovery of plate tectonics as an example of this). This pattern repeats over and over again according to this theory on how scientific knowledge advances.
As soon as I heard this theory, I couldn't help but think that those paradigm shifts could be caused by Autistic people ignoring the gatekeepers by identifying holes in the current knowledge base. Obviously, Autistic people aren't always right, but it makes sense to me that our willingness to challenge the status quo could be a big driver of these paradigm shifts in scientific fields. If this is accurate, I can't help but wonder how much faster we could progress if Autistic (and likely others outside the mainstream) were more supported and welcomed in academia.
Sharing this because the theory also says that the change can be slow, but then when it does happen it happens suddenly. This gives me hope that we might be closer to a paradigm shift in academia about Autism than we seem. At least I'm going to hold to that hope!
I am so thankful for your reply and also the book recomendation. Ecology is one area I love reading about. I can visualize what you are saying somewhat like a chain reaction in an avalanche. Or some other exponential curve. I am adding the book to my list.
Thank you so much for this episode. I am recently discovered as Autistic by my therapist(LCSW) and she happens to be neurodivergent too but my old therapist(with a doctorate in Psychology) dismissed my experience years ago and, when I asked about assessment through her now, also was unable to tell me anything beyond the same "answer" my PCP told me about adult assessments not being an option through them. It was literally the same answer copied and pasted from some internal source! My new therapist has told me twice now to consider a Doctorate but I am not sure I can handle theinevitable burnout or manage the rest of my life with young kids if I did. I really appreciate all of you that are trailblazers and taking the hits for everyone else that may come into the system later for help. And I also need to ponder how I am capable of supporting the group of us that are trying to help within systems that have neverending hoops and masking involved to even attempt to be taken seriously. Your descriptions of professors and others within the system made me aware of the professors that may have been neurodivergent all along and probably suffered in the background. I owe them alot because I was able to graduate with two degrees and found some novelty and solace in those specific courses to counteract some of the boredom and coasting in most others. Thank you for your efforts!
I actually have a positive story about life in academia. I did my doctorate in educational and child psychology at UCL. If you don’t know about the UK system, there are, I think 11 or 12 such courses in the UK, it’s heavily regulated as it is a professional taught doctorate so each course only has a few students each year - there were 12 in my cohort. UCL as an institution is pretty autistic. There were no surprises on the course. Everything was in the manual. There were no dumb essays to write - everything was directly relevant to the work. There was one exam and it was open book. We had a pretty good idea of what the questions would be as, as they said, “that’s how it happens in real life”, i.e. if you don’t know the answer to something, you say, “I don’t know, I’ll go and look it up.”
When we were learning about autism, yes it was outdated compared with today’s standards as it was 14 years ago. But they showed us a video of ABA - and warned us that we might find it distressing - and then showed us intensive interaction and we discussed the differences between the two. I didn’t know that I was autistic at the time - it had crossed my mind but I dismissed it because, you know, I had friends, had kids, had been a teacher, had won a place on a highly competitive course. But they were ND affirming without knowing that that was what they were doing. Now, I believe, they do it consciously. Though, sadly, stupidly, the fucking government has decided to shut the UCL course down - the one that was known for being leading edge and the gold standard. Anyway. That’s not the rant for this comment. I just wanted you to know that it doesn’t have to be all bad.
I would love if this was expanded in a part 2 that covers being autistic and working in academia. I am in my first tenure track job and I find the demands on junior faculty, politics, and intense teaching load as a fast track to burn out. Despite having accommodations, which are hard to fulfill for faculty, establishing boundaries and self-care causes an excess of mental and emotional labor.
Such a great episode, thank you for covering this. I recently finished reading a book called The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth by Zoë Schlanger who I'm convinced is Autistic. Fantastic book that fits with one of my core special interests but it also touches on a lot of the issues brought up in this episode but for the world of botany/ecology. I forget what the book was citing, but at one point the author talks about a theory about scientific development that scientific fields tend to make progress in a stair step pattern. For long periods of time the fields barely advance and mostly circle around an accepted paradigm with a few relatively minor advances. Then a big new theory comes up and is ridiculed at first but later becomes the accepted paradigm as the evidence supporting it builds (and sometimes after the old gatekeepers retire/die). After that everyone acts like the new paradigm was always common sense and forgets that there was ever a debate about it (see the discovery of plate tectonics as an example of this). This pattern repeats over and over again according to this theory on how scientific knowledge advances.
As soon as I heard this theory, I couldn't help but think that those paradigm shifts could be caused by Autistic people ignoring the gatekeepers by identifying holes in the current knowledge base. Obviously, Autistic people aren't always right, but it makes sense to me that our willingness to challenge the status quo could be a big driver of these paradigm shifts in scientific fields. If this is accurate, I can't help but wonder how much faster we could progress if Autistic (and likely others outside the mainstream) were more supported and welcomed in academia.
Sharing this because the theory also says that the change can be slow, but then when it does happen it happens suddenly. This gives me hope that we might be closer to a paradigm shift in academia about Autism than we seem. At least I'm going to hold to that hope!
I am so thankful for your reply and also the book recomendation. Ecology is one area I love reading about. I can visualize what you are saying somewhat like a chain reaction in an avalanche. Or some other exponential curve. I am adding the book to my list.
Thank you so much for this episode. I am recently discovered as Autistic by my therapist(LCSW) and she happens to be neurodivergent too but my old therapist(with a doctorate in Psychology) dismissed my experience years ago and, when I asked about assessment through her now, also was unable to tell me anything beyond the same "answer" my PCP told me about adult assessments not being an option through them. It was literally the same answer copied and pasted from some internal source! My new therapist has told me twice now to consider a Doctorate but I am not sure I can handle theinevitable burnout or manage the rest of my life with young kids if I did. I really appreciate all of you that are trailblazers and taking the hits for everyone else that may come into the system later for help. And I also need to ponder how I am capable of supporting the group of us that are trying to help within systems that have neverending hoops and masking involved to even attempt to be taken seriously. Your descriptions of professors and others within the system made me aware of the professors that may have been neurodivergent all along and probably suffered in the background. I owe them alot because I was able to graduate with two degrees and found some novelty and solace in those specific courses to counteract some of the boredom and coasting in most others. Thank you for your efforts!
Will we get to see Matt’s comic??
Is Becca Lory Hector's book "Always Bring Your Sunglasses" still available? I tried to download it, but the link was broken. I really want to read it!
You can definitely get it on Amazon.com!