Amanda Baggs SPEAKS?
Okay, NOW I think we have some genuine room to question what might be going on with Amanda Baggs.
Turns out she has been active on LiveVideo as well as YouTube.
With one interesting difference ...
A comment under her video handle of "silentmiaow" dated January 23, 2007 states that the voice in this video is HER OWN and not generated by a computer.
Very, very interesting.
Yes, this one I think IS deserving of an explanation.
Or at least some speculation.
Anyone??
Labels: Amanda Baggs, Autism
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19 Comments:
Uh, yeah, I can sing, it's mentioned on my blog (that one's a static page, not just a post, it's one that I often point people to as the first thing they ought to read, it's constantly linked from the front page, and you'd do well to read it all the way through, given your bizarre reactions to me) in this entry as well, mentioned it really early on my blog so you can't even say it's something I only talked about recently or something. You might want to read this one too, lest you become scandalized by the fact that, for reasons totally unknown to me, I can sometimes speak accurately in (minimal, not possible to use every day for most things) French.
It's not like I'd have done it in public, as well as mention it multiple times in public, if I were keeping it a secret.
Owe people an explanation? I don't have a degree in neurology or anything, so I can only make guesses. I met with an autism researcher at one point who told me that, based on watching me sing, echo people's voices, etc., and based on what I could and could not do, she said it was really obvious what areas of the brain were functioning differently in me.
Being able to sing, or to repeat words that someone else is saying to you, is not the same as being able to use speech for communication purposes (and when I say I'm non-speaking, I mean there is no practical speech there, not that there is no possibility of any speech, something I have explained countless times). They aren't even dealt with in the same areas of the brain. I had a staff person in California named Angie, who was studying speech pathology, and I'd tell her this stuff, and she'd come back telling me she'd heard of this stuff in her classes.
As far as explanations from me go? Go watch that "If you can do X, why can't you do Y" thing, because you're clearly not getting it. Trust me, if I were able to talk as communication, I would almost do so by now. Why? Because I'm tired of dealing with people's nastiness when I don't live up to their expectations. Why do I operate this way? I don't know, it's just how I happen to operate. And reactions like yours are why I don't normally sing around people, even though singing in no way enhances my ability to communicate, go about my daily activities, or anything else I can't do. (The other reason I don't is when people think it makes me amazing. It doesn't.)
But I'd suggest that before you go being shocked at something you've "discovered" about me, you might want to actually read what I have to say about it. Because it's not like I'd say something in public, and do something in public, if I intended to hide it. And because I have laid out a whole lot of posts for the benefit of people exactly like you, so that you couldn't say I was hiding things. But I suppose if you don't read them, and you somehow think that I'm hiding things while discussing them in public (and in the sort of pages I often point to as "read this first before flipping out at me because you're surprised by something you assumed was different than it is"), you can come to some strange conclusions. And I'm tired of playing "assumption ping-pong" (read the post on that) with people who make assumptions and then get mad at me, rather than at their own brains, when I don't happen to meet them. If you can tell me some way I can let everyone know every single possible thing they might be surprised by, ahead of time, in a way they'll actually listen to, be my guest, because I try damn hard to be up-front about everything, but all my effort is totally ineffective if people don't listen.
I'm not a neurologist either, but I know that just because a person can sing smoothly doesn't mean that when they talk and stutter horribly that they are faking the stutter (because they can sing smoothly). Singing and speaking are different things.
Amanda is credible. She's not just an internet denizen she has met many people in real life and the ones she's met in the past 5 years or so are in agreement that what she says about herself is real, besides which her parents and siblings remember her as autistic, and some of the people who have met her are not just scientists but famous scientists who have been challenged by Amanda's detractors and have defended her or ignored the detractors because their arguments are garbage and libelous.
Music therapists have been aware of this phenomena for years. In many situations, clients of many various diagnoses who are nonverbal, or have speech problems in general, are often able to sing when they're not able to speak otherwise. Here's a good article on this: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2249/2331115059_5eaa3a1fb2_o.jpg
It's a little small, but I think you can still read it . . . I'm a music therapy grad student btw.
I am not a professional. I'm just a mom. But I do have a reasonable and simple explanation for how an individual can sing but not speak.
Scripting is really common in autistic kids. They can recite entire mono/dialogs from movies or TV shows complete with the correct inflections and pitch variations, but this is not communication, nor should it be considered speech per se. It's one thing to memorize and sing or recite, another thing entirely to communicate verbally with another individual in a conversational fashion. Singing, in my opinion, falls into the same category as scripting.
And to cite an example for Camille's explanation, have you ever heard of a guy named Mel Tillis? Fabulous and funny country singer who can sing wonderfully, but has a pretty debilitating stutter when he speaks. Just my two cents, but I can easily believe in singing ability where no speech exists.
"Amanda is credible. She's not just an internet denizen she has met many people in real life and the ones she's met in the past 5 years or so are in agreement that what she says about herself is real, besides which her parents and siblings remember her as autistic, and some of the people who have met her are not just scientists but famous scientists who have been challenged by Amanda's detractors and have defended her or ignored the detractors because their arguments are garbage and libelous."
Oh I agree that she's sincere. And I do bring up the posting and discoveries of a certain person with great hesitation, as obviously the man is rude as hell.
However, occasionally he brings up something that, to the uninitiated, is deserving of some explanation.
I also have run into people who wouldn't necessarily go for the "fraud" angle, but, for instance, people like Bill Gothard who might even consider Amanda's particular form of autism merely a lack of "personal responsiblity" or something of the sort.
So I do tend to give these subjects a little latitude in order to get myself up to speed of course and give others a chance to contribute thoughts that might not have yet had a chance.
The lack of personal responsibility angle seems almost odder to me than the "if you can do X, you can do Y" angle. I'm curious what my "particular form of autism" is thought to be in that context, because I'd almost bet money that that's not what it is.
Well, it's a little difficult to explain, but, if I understand the attitude at all, it would be something similar to that gymnastics coach who told the gymnast to "shake it off" when she had a badly twisted ankle.
This is a VERY common attitude.
Camille,
I challenge any scientist, famous or otherwise to discuss Amanda Baggs with me. Baggs is a complete fraud. Send as many scientists as you like and I'll be happy to put them all in their places. They have all been conned.
Amanda- You certainly spoke well enough to learn arabic in college. And to talk on the phone with many people up until 2001. Sudden loss of language usually points to a stroke, brain injury, or other MAJOR and PHYSICAL illness/injury. "Regression" is also called properly as Voluntary Mutism. It's a purely psychological condition.
Also, note Amanda didn't just "repeat" that song- she WROTE it.
Excellent points.
Scientific, clear, accurate.
RB
Amanda is singing, yes. Stutterers (like Gareth Gates - google him) can sing perfectly but have major speech difficulties.
HOWEVER, Amanda is TALKING when she says "because you are not one of us". That's not singing, that is speech.
Please check out my new blog. It was created in response to the lies and blatant attempts of harassment and threats concerning just posting an opinion about Amanda Baggs.
Maybe that mind control device that she used to tell people was buried under her old grammar school is messing with her head. Either that or she's fakin"
Anonymous ...
"Maybe that mind control device that she used to tell people was buried under her old grammar school is messing with her head. Either that or she's fakin"
Ophelia Austin-Small and others who went to this school with her like to post insignificant tid bits on blogs comment areas, but ran away from the major national press CNN and Wired Magazine, who gave them a rare opportunity to testify against Amanda. Bizzzare. Ophelia et al even sough8t the CNN action, but ran away at the very last m,inute when the reporters Chris Gagilan medical coorespondant at CNN actually contacted them.
Looks like those witnesses are speaking out.
http://amandabaggscontroversy.blogspot.com/
Axinar, the above blog is spam and the content is fraudulent. Please remove it due to the danger the link poses. Allowing spam to remain is against Blogger's Terms of Service by the way.
Very sad revelations undermining Amanda Baggs.
http://amandabaggscontroversy.blogspot.com/
I was truly saddened, and angry. I feel deceived.
I spent a week reading through the report. Carefully. She surely is not representative of autism IN ANY WAY. Surely. Thanks to the witnesses who knew here in their teen years, thanks they came to speak out. Dr. Daniel Drucker and Dr. Ophelia Austin Small. Very excellent sources. And they knew Amanda Baggs in her teens. Ophelia lived with her family for a while and dated Amanda's brother.
Photocopies of witnesses from 1994 - 1998. Who saw Amanda being normal. Non-autistic. Talking normally in classes, in the dorms. So on.
http://amandabaggscontroversy.blogspot.com/#DruckerStatement
http://amandabaggscontroversy.blogspot.com/#OpheliaAustinSmallStatements
http://amandabaggscontroversy.blogspot.com/#BjornErikTownsendStatement
Isn't it TIME for someone to seriously question Amanda about her copious DRUG use that rendered her in a psychiatric facility? She wouldn't and isn't the only person who thinks they have autism, but really are mentally ill, drug induced that is.
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