I'm just ranting...

I've been trying to set up a UK and Singapore study investigating effects of culture of perceptual influences (i.e. how we see the world) in children. I hope to start with typically developing children, then go on to compared differences in children with autism in the 2 countries. I've been filling in forms to get approval to do the study in Singapore and to see if I can get some money for the research. I am quite positive about the study and have been working hard to put it all together. But there is always a line or two in the application forms that make me less confident about how it would work out. Most of them go alongst the lines of the relevance to inteventions and education... i.e. applied research...

My research is rather theoretical. Its about how autism develops and how perception might have a role to play in the developing of the social difficulties observed. I usually try to be conservative and not make wild speculations about how it can be applied to the real world... Basically because I don't know yet. I see my research filling the niche of building up the foundations of our understanding of autism, in which future interventions and early diagnosistic tools can be based on. How can we not stress the effectiveness of early intervention? and how does early intervention come about... diagnosis at a young age... how can diagnosis be done at a young age? If we understand how autism develops!

I don't know if my line of research will lead me anywhere... but lots of esteemed researchers do think so (or else they wont be spending half their lifes doing it would they?). I would not mind contributing to autism research in that it eventually tells people 'DOn't go down that way... there's nothing there...) That is how scientific knowledge grows is not it?

Why I study vision in autism? Because robust differences have been found in people with autism and people without autism. People with autism have been found to be better at processing details of visual/ auditory information than people without autism. They have been found to be better on the blocks design and better at finding target shapes out of complex designs. There is a difference there... so I study it. to see if that tells me anything about changes in the developmental trajectory of a child that might lead him/her to develop social communication difficulties. If it is possible to translate that strength in detail processing to tasks that the child can excel in and make it easier for the child to learn social skills. Identifying strengths to let the child maximize his potential and to overcome weaknesses.

On another note... I am slightly wary genetics research in autism... specifically if the research aim to eradicate developmental disorders. Is a developmental disorder an 'illness' or variation in the human population. My stance is skewed towards the latter. Many congenitally deaf people believe that that is how they are born and that is who they are. Thus they fight for recognition of sign language as a language and deafness as a culture. Differences amongst people make life colourful. And making those differences disappear might make what makes us human, disappear too (I'm quite sure someone at Autism Research UK said that). What we need to do is to help people whose 'differences' cause distress or limit their potential to excel, in our 'difference' un-friendly society.

(oops... went off course... )

Conclusion:

I have a good product.

I believe my product is good.

I need to know how to sell it in Singapore!!!