Project inspiration: MUSE video “Uprising”
Posted By Dan Swearingen on November 7, 2009
This is a beautifully done video made by filming art miniatures with the band masked in. Love the killer teddy bears. The song is okay too.
The Autistry Studios Mission
Helping ASD youth become independent adults.
At Autistry Studios we help teens and adults with Autism, Asperger's and other learning differences become successfully independent by leveraging their interests and talents while creating a community.
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Star Trek communicator bluetooth “headset”
Posted By Dan Swearingen on November 6, 2009
Wow, are there some serious nerds out there! They make me happy.
Diana Eng over at Make presents an awesome project taking a toy Star Trek original series communicator and making it into a bluetooth headset for your cell phone.
I actually own one of these toy communicators and this would be a great project to encourage building out and validating our electronics projects infrastructure.
The first Autistry Studios video
Posted By Dan Swearingen on November 4, 2009
Phoebe made this AMV (more of an HMV since it’s set to a horror movie, not an anime) in 2007 in our early “Girls who love anime” workshop we started as proof-of-concept for the Autistry Studios idea.
Footage from the original Night of the Living Dead combined with Marilyn Manson’s cover of “Sweet Dreams.”
Food allergies and weight gain
Posted By Dan Swearingen on November 3, 2009
We’re a gluten-free casein-free (dairy free) house and a couple years ago we added corn to the list of no-nos.
There is a very interesting article by Mark Hyman over on HuffPo about common food allergies like gluten, dairy, eggs, corn, yeast, and peanuts and sometimes soy and how there seems to be a relationship between weight gain (or difficulty losing weight) and eating foods you are somewhat allergic to.
Dan's Wheat Free & Dairy Free Pumpkin Pie Recipe
I know that I rapidly lost 65 pounds (a 25% weight reduction) when I went on a gluten-free dairy-free diet and I’ve only gained 10 pounds back in the last 12 years since.
Our son has been having serious acne lately and we’re going to experiment with eliminating peanuts for a couple weeks and see if that has any positive impact.
As the holidays are approaching I thought I’d share our favorite pie crust recipe. This is also available at my GFCF Pumpkin pie page.
Rice based piecrust
Makes two 10-inch pie shells
| 2/3 | cup | rice flour |
| 1/4 | cup | tapioca flour |
| 3 | tbsp | potato starch |
| 1 | tsp | xantham gum |
| 1/4 | tsp | salt |
| 1 | tbsp | sugar |
| 1/4 | tsp | Gluten-free baking powder |
| 3 | tbsp | cold dairy-free margarine (omit and double the shortening below if you can’t find a suitable margarine) |
| 3 | tbsp | cold vegetable shortening in small pieces |
| 1 | egg yolk | |
| 3 | tsp | cold water |
| 1 | tsp | cider vinegar |
Blend the dry ingredients.
Cut in margarine and shortening until mixture resembles a course meal. Add egg yolk, water, and vinegar.
Blend.
Wrap dough in plastic and press into a ball. Chill for 1 hour.
Between two sheets of plastic wrap, roll dough out into a 12-inch circle (about 1/4-inch thick). Remove top sheet of plastic wrap and flip pastry onto a 10-inch pie plate. Keeping the plastic wrap over the top of the crust, pat it into the pan, piecing together any parts that separate when the crust lands in the pan. Remove the second sheet of plastic wrap. Crimp edges.
Autistry Studios Newsletter – October 18, 2009
Posted By Janet Lawson, MFT on October 18, 2009
The house seemed so quiet this weekend without the Saturday and Sunday workshops!
We spent Sunday morning at the new Walt Disney Family Museum in the Presidio. It is fabulous. But be prepared for sensory overload. There are several film exhibitions in each room all running simultaneously. This creates a cacophony of competing sounds that can be overwhelming. Add to that the myriad visuals and you get a real whirlwind experience. For those of us with sensory issues I recommend using earplugs and going early in the day when there are fewer people. We were there at 10am and practically had the place to ourselves. The exhibits are amazing and well worth the effort. We came away with lots of ideas!
We did have the College Support and Build Stuff Workshop on Friday. We had a practice Thanksgiving dinner: turkey, candied yams, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, and apple/berry pie. We also got a lot of work done – how we did that on such full stomachs I don’t know.
The following people have volunteered to work the Autistry Studio table at the GGRC Resource Fair on Wednesday October 28th: Steven, Kris, Breton and Corey. Hey, about some girl power here? Sarah, Devon, Phoebe??? I’ll be contacting you all with a rough schedule. Dan and AJ will also be there to help out but you guys did such a wonderful job last time that they’ll probably just wander around!
We are looking forward to seeing everyone back here on the weekend!
-Janet, Dan, Nate and AJ
Brownies
Posted By Janet Lawson, MFT on October 18, 2009
People are always asking about the brownies that we serve here at Autistry Studios. They couldn’t be any easier to make!
Here is my secret: I use Pamela’s Wheat Free, Gluten Free Chocolate Brownie Mix. There are several recipes on the package. I use the the Original Oil Recipe.
But, and here is the secret: I substitute 1/4 cup of applesauce for the 1/4 cup of water. Everything else I leave the same.
The other trick with these brownies is to not overcook them. In my small convection oven it takes 11 minutes to bake a 8″ square pan of brownies.
Autistry Studios Newsletter – October 6, 2009
Posted By Janet Lawson, MFT on October 6, 2009
Full moon energy hit Autistry Studios this weekend! Everyone was going at hyper speed – lots of fun, lots of productivity, lots of chaos.
Be sure to check out the new photo gallery page.
The Friday College Support and Build Stuff Workshop: The Friday group has expanded to include building projects. We kicked off this week by testing the oven that Breton and Dan made. It worked! Breton successfully baked Elf World and he has now added stepping stones and a bookcase (the elf is a lawyer!). This project is truly taking shape and promises to be amazing.
Kris is mastering the complex world of math for scientists. Note: never ask Dan a math question unless you really want to know the whole answer. Phoebe is creating large pillars as a backdrop for Ramses II and we had lots of fun fitting those into the oven.
Saturday Filmmaking with Nate: wow, that was a busy day. We are coming to the end of the pre-production phase of the projects. All the filmmakers have a very good start on their stories and their storyboards. After our break (no class on Oct 17th) we will be going into production. This coming Saturday we will put the finishing touches on the narratives and start working on the production schedules and the materials lists.
Sunday Build Stuff with Dan: I think Joseph will win the prize for being the first to finish a project! He built a display case for his sister’s karate belts. We had a great time staining it (I still have dark spots on my arms!). Joseph is already planning a new project: a train layout based on GeoTrack. Ian finished the cardboard mock up for his Matrix dojo and will start cutting the wood this Sunday. Corey painted the crowd for his MILK diorama and created some wonderful signs. We have new student joining us this week who will be making a train theme project. Kung Fu and transportation seem to be the trend for this Sunday group.
A few notes on upcoming happenings:
Wednesday, October 28th is the GGRC Resource Fair. The fair will be held at Marin County Office of Education in Hollis Hall. We will have a table with brochures, slideshows, and projects. The fair is from 3pm – 7pm. Kris and Corey have already signed up to staff the table. Who will join them? Let me know what times you are available and I will make a schedule. We will also be helping out with the general visitor registration, greeting folks and getting them to sign the registration sheet. If you would like to help with this let me know. Check out the flyer for more information. Support for Families will be giving a free workshop on IEP Transition Planning which I hear is very good.
Sunday, October 11th, Chelsea Mattoon will be visiting the Build Stuff Workshop. Chelsea has chosen Autistry Studios as her documentary film topic for her senior project. She will visit each workshop and get to know us before she starts filming. This is a wonderful opportunity for all of us to share our work, our thoughts and our plans with others. Let me know if you have any questions.
Photo Gallery permanent page added
Posted By Dan Swearingen on October 4, 2009
We’ve added a new permanent page under Programs / Photo Galleries where we will post links to the Flickr galleries of all the photos from the classes that we upload.
Hire Autistics – Hire Aspies
Posted By Dan Swearingen on September 23, 2009
For many people on the ASD spectrum entering adulthood, finding appropriate gainful employment is a challenge.
This is unfortunate because people with ASD have skills that can be profitable for an employer. Our experience in Autistry Studios has been that there is an astounding range in skills and interests in the people we work with so generalities always have exceptions but there are some common threads that we agree with:
Strengths:
- good memory for details.
- ability to focus on a particular task for extended periods of time.
- comfort with structured tasks and situations.
Weaknesses:
- poor communication skills.
- poor social skills.
- discomfort with rapidly changing dynamic situations.
Again, these are very broad generalizations. Your mileage may vary.
I’ve worked my whole professional career with folks like this except we called them “software engineers,” “digital artists,” or “QA testers.” If this is so, why such a gap between the people I work with and people with ASD having trouble getting work?
The problem is that people who have been assessed to be on the ASD spectrum got there because their particular mix of strengths and weaknesses is acute enough that they encounter failure to perform well in “normal” circumstances.
What it takes to hire austistics and aspies is some assistance in the job seeking process and appropriate job assignments and delegation.
Appropriate jobs and their structure
I’m going to discuss the “appropriate job assignments and delegation” part first because there are some concrete examples handy.
This month’s Wired magazine has a short piece Thorkil Sonne: Recruit Autistics about Thorkil Sonne’s company Specialisterne, a QA testing company Thorkil started to take advantage of the strengths of ASD workers. Here’s another article about Thorkil’s company at the Harvard business Review.
Thorkil’s business (a for-profit company) has a structured training process and takes time making sure each employee is in the right role and that their points of contact within the business and with customers are well managed.
In my business, while we do not overtly seek to hire people with ASD, we know that many of our employees prefer what we call “individual contributor” roles, small teams, a quiet workplace, and well defined tasks. As a manager I know that I will get the best work (and therefore best profit) if I take care in how people are managed. Internal business communication is largely handled by people who have stronger communication skills. We call them “Tech Leads” if they are also programmers and we call them “Producers” or “Project managers” if they are less technical. The Producers handle the bulk of the actual interaction with customers and the programmers by far prefer it that way.
I think these are models that could work in other kinds of workplaces.
The job seeking process.
Find a job, interview for the job, get the job.
Easy, right?
Actually, practically everyone knows this is a hard process. For people with ASD there are particular difficulties.
To find a job you need to hear about a job or read a job listing, imagine whether you could do the job and imagine whether you’d like doing that job. This is precisely the kind of unstructured imaginative creativity people with ASD can find very difficult.
To interview for a job you need to successfully put on a social performance – for a stranger. This part in itself is very stressful and can be a challenge. In the course of the interview you need to hear the questions the interviewer asks and deliver answers that simultaneously are: a) what the interviewer wants to hear; b) cast a favorable light on you the candidate; c) truthful. This difficult communication challenge is beyond most people who have an ASD diagnosis unless the employer is incredibly accommodating.
I think a solution to the job seeking difficulties is to do something similar to what seems to work in the workplace: matching technical people with “people-skill” people. We could call these people “Recruiters.” By this I mean that a recruiting company that specializes in placement of people with ASD might be a good model to address this problem.
One of the recruiting firms I work with today meets with every candidate and they often escort the candidates to our office on interview days. In the event of a hire they escort the new employee to their first day of work. What I am proposing for ASD folks is that the recruiters stay with the candidate deeper into the process.
This needs some cooperation from the hiring firm but as an employer, if a placement firm consistently brings me good candidates — and even in tough economic times like now good software engineer candidates are scarce — I’m willing to be a bit more flexible.
Practical Next Steps
One of our driving principals at Autistry Studios is that our students and their parents teach us what is needed. We have initially focused on getting our kids ready for life, college, and work. We are increasingly feeling the push to extend our work into helping our students get work and successfully stay at work.
Autistry Studios Newsletter – September 21, 2009
Posted By Janet Lawson, MFT on September 21, 2009
We had a very full and exciting weekend here. Everyone did such a great job at the Marin Autism Resource Fair. The phone has been ringing with families wanting to know more about the Autistry programs. Huge thank yous to Kris, Sarah, Breton, Corey and Steven for staffing the table and being such awesome ambassadors. We’ve had lots of feedback from folks saying they were very impressed with how our students articulated the goals of the program and people raved about the projects. If you guys would like to do this again:
GGRC Resource Fair: We will be having a table at the GGRC Resource Fair, Wednesday, October 28th, Hollis Hall, Marin Office of Education, 1111 Las Gallinas Ave, San Rafael. The fair goes from 3pm to 7pm. Janet will be co-hosting a parent networking session with Stephanie Stein of Matrix. There will also be a workshop on transition planning given by Support For Families of San Francisco. I have heard great things about this workshop so those of you in high school may want to attend.
Our new Filmmaking and Build Stuff Workshops got off to great starts – new faces and new projects.
Filmmaking with Nate: Two new students, Andrew and William, joined Steven and Devon for this new series of classes. Nate and Janet will be working hard to keep up with these very creative and ambitious film projects:
Steven – Bupim’s Quest continues with new adventures and some new characters. But the real question remains: will Bupim finally get a background…or will he be left forever in the land of gray.
Devon – is working on an original story. She has honed her skills at sketching and film editing and will now challenge herself to create her own narrative. She is also adding color to her pencil drawings.
William – will recreate the Battle of Okehazama in this first of several short films based on The Samurai Warrior video game. William is considering stop-motion and shadow play as ways to portray this epic battle which took place in Japan in 1560.
Andrew – is taking Autistry Studios in a new direction with his political satire. He is creating a hand puppet theater piece starring Rush Limbaugh! And there may be guest appearances by Bill O’Reilly.
Build Stuff with Dan: Two more new students joined us on Sunday, Joseph and Zach. Dan is busy ordering new tools to help with their great ideas. But, as we all know, Dan is always on the look out for a reason to buy new tools!
Zach – will be building a Stirling Engine. In 1818, Robert Stirling came up with the idea of using alternating hot and cool air to create an external combustion engine.
Corey – is finishing up the Harvey Milk diorama and is already thinking about a new project. He is also helping the two younger students with their projects.
Joseph – What a great brother! Joseph is making a tall, narrow chest to hold his sister’s Karate belts. This chest will stand almost 3 feet high and has 5 shelves.
Ian – Forever the Kung Fu fighter! Ian is making a diorama of the dojo from The Matrix. He has sized it to fit on the bookshelf (12″ x 10″).
The College Support Group is evolving as we learn what the students need and how best to help them. We are adding a section of project building to the workshop to give students a productive break time.
We have also created an Autistry Studios page on Facebook– check it out by clicking here!
All the best, Janet, Dan, and Nate