Cynthia Kim's Blog

Note: This was originally published as a chapter in the book “GAP: Autism, happiness and wellbeing” (British Institute of Learning Disabilities). It’s something that I’ve been waiting to post here for months and I guess a fitting place to leave off, since it’s kind of a summary of the my journey from diagnosis to present.

This will be my last post for a while. I’ve decided to put the blog on hiatus until my language problems are less, well, problematic. Writing even once a week is taxingmy lim...

A/N: This post is raw and more of a collection of thoughtsthan a coherent whole. I’m posting here as a signpost to myself. It’s definitely intended to be a comprehensive commentary on the subject of independence and disability.

I.Theory, Background, Questions and Concepts

What is the relationship between being dependent and being independent? Certainly not the opposites that we assume at first glance.

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There are common themes that you’ll encounter if you read enough autism parenting-related blog...

The Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale Test is a measure of the degree of social phobia that a person experiences. Autistic individuals often have a social anxiety disorder diagnosis so I thought it would be interesting to see how we score on this test.

Before taking the test, I think it’s important to differentiate between autistic social anxiety and social phobia. Social phobia, the set of experiences on which a social anxiety disorder is based, is a strong fear of being judged by others and of...

The RAADS-14 is a shortened version of the 80-question RAADS-R autism screening test. The 14-question RAADS-14 is intended to be a quick screening tool for clinicians, much like the AQ-10.

Unlike the AQ-10, however, the RAADS-14 is positioned by its creators for use in outpatient psychiatric screening. The validation study for the RAADS-14 was conducted on people who had a pre-existing diagnosis of autism, ADHD, anxiety disorder, psychotic disorder, borderline personality disorder, or mood dis...

The Aspie Quiz was recently updated to Final Version 3, which is a major update, so I thought it would be a good idea to retake it. Much of what’s changed is behind the scenes refinement of the test items and won’t be evident to the average test taker. If you’re new to the Aspie Quiz, you might want to read my original write up for more background. This post will focus primarily on what’s new.

If you’ve taken the Aspie Quiz before, you’ll likely notice that there are some new questions and tha...

When our daughter Jess was little, her dad and I used to take her to see a lot of animated movies. Jess and I really enjoyed them, but The Scientist often dozed off twenty minutes into the film. He slept through Toy Story and Shrek and Monsters Inc. before we all decided that a better plan was to split up when we went to the movies. That way he was free to see the latest action movie while Jess and I watched the newest offering from Pixar or Disney.

The Incredibles, Cars, innumerable sequels i...

I took the Stroop test as part of my ASD evaluation and I’ve seen it recently on alist of online autism evaluation tests. While not strictly an autism test, it is often part of the test battery that is given at neuropsychological evaluations for autism.

The format of the Stroop test that I took during my evaluation was:

verbally reading a list of color words (blue, red, green) printed in black ink
verbally statingthe color of a series of Xs printed in blue, red or green ink
verbally reading a lis...

The final post of athree part series (read Part 2)

While many of the intersections of autistic and female in my life have been social, there are undeniable physical intersections too.

The arrival of adolescence brought with it hints of what it would mean to be an autistic adult. My first real meltdowns. My first experience with depression. My first confusing encounters with physical intimacy.

With nothing to compare those experiences to, I assumed they were a normal part of being a teenager. Eve...

Continued from Part 1

There was joy in that realization and also sadness. My diagnosis came too late to help me in my role as a mother when my daughter was young, a role that I often struggled with. Many aspects of being autistic can make the child-rearing years of motherhood challenging.

Babies have round-the-clock needs. They’re stressful, messy, unpredictable and demanding. Basically they are everything that an autistic person finds hard to cope with. Gone was my precious alone time. Gone we...

Note: This is my contribution to the Ultraviolet Voices anthology. It’s nearly 5000 words long, so I’m going to serialize it here over the next 3 weeks.

At five, I wanted to be a boy. I don’t know what I thought being a boy meant. Maybe I thought it meant playing outside in the summer, shirtless and barefoot. Maybe I thought it meant not wearing dresses.

Dresses were all scratchy lace trim and tight elastic sleeves. Stiff patent leather shoes pinched my sensitive feet. Perfume tickled my nose....