{"id":57,"date":"2017-03-29T00:37:37","date_gmt":"2017-03-29T00:37:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/?p=57"},"modified":"2017-05-15T15:46:41","modified_gmt":"2017-05-15T15:46:41","slug":"finding-comfort-in-identity-living-with-autism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/2017\/03\/29\/finding-comfort-in-identity-living-with-autism\/","title":{"rendered":"FINDING COMFORT IN IDENTITY: LIVING WITH AUTISM"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emelyne Bingham,<\/strong> Senior Lecturer in the Teaching of Music, Blair School of Music, Faculty VUceptor
\nKyle Schwartz, ’19,\u00a0<\/strong>College of Arts and Science<\/p>\n

Thanks to Vanderbilt Visions, we were fortunate to have formed a friendship through the common experience of living with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). While we received our diagnoses at different ages (Kyle at three and Emelyne as an adult), we both feel fortunate to have received the support necessary to manage the significant challenges we, and others on the spectrum, face daily. Of course we\u2019ve encountered our share of stereotypes along the way, including assumptions about our cognitive abilities, our capacity for empathy, and our social needs. In reality, though, we have different combinations of strengths and weakness just like neurotypical people do.<\/p>\n

\"The
The transition to college life can be especially difficult for a person with autism. Socially, it\u2019s challenging for most everyone\u2014but for someone with a social disability it can be overwhelming.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For many people on the autism spectrum, social skills don\u2019t come naturally; they are learned cognitively, which involves a great deal of trial and error. Often these errors cause misunderstandings with people who don\u2019t understand autism and therefore write us off as awkward, arrogant, or even rude. This can increase an ASD person\u2019s isolation, which in turn inhibits social learning, thus perpetuating the cycle.<\/p>\n

The transition to college life can be especially difficult for a person with autism. Socially, it\u2019s challenging for most everyone\u2014but for someone with a social disability it can be overwhelming. Cognitive processing differences in ASD students sometimes require additional time and energy to manage everyday tasks. Additionally, adjusting to new sensory stimuli such as ambient noise in large lecture and residence halls can seem unmanageable. ASD students may find difficulty in advocating for themselves in these situations, as doing so requires reaching far beyond their social comfort zones.<\/p>\n

We know we are among the lucky ones, as sadly, not enough people with ASD and other cognitive or developmental disabilities make it to college. We hope that increased awareness and understanding of ASD may bring much needed support, which may someday facilitate that change. Because of programs like Vanderbilt Visions, we envision change happening one conversation at a time. So if you see us out having coffee somewhere on campus, we hope you\u2019ll stop by and say \u201chello.\u201d We\u2019d really like to get to know you, and also\u2026well, we could use the practice.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Emelyne Bingham, Senior Lecturer in the Teaching of Music, Blair School of Music, Faculty VUceptor Kyle Schwartz, ’19,\u00a0College of Arts and Science Thanks to Vanderbilt Visions, we were fortunate to have formed a friendship through the common experience of living with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). While we received our diagnoses at different ages (Kyle at…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[19,16,32,34,14,27],"class_list":["post-57","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-personal-wellbeing","tag-blair-school-of-music","tag-college-of-arts-and-science","tag-mvov17","tag-vanderbilt-visions","tag-vu2020","tag-vu2021"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions\/290"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}