Advocate for Inclusion and Neurodiversity

Almost every year we have "A Very Special Walk Where we put on our socks Walk or run from from block to block No competition no need to watch the clock All just for a common cause In 2020 came the COVID-19 panademic Causing nationwide panic For some it was even traumatic With social distancing rules so rigid A fundraising event like this no longer could be so systematic   But undeterred, we switched to virtual  challenges no less authentic   With everyone's creativity we became more dramatic Not more timid Everyone could participate in a virtual challenge, from running or swimming for the  athletic To dancing for the  kinaesthetic To sports for those with muscles  kinetic To intellectual feats for those with skills like drawing, language or mathematics   Each challenge was organic Completed with unique tactics Some even majestic  COVID-19 crisis did not pull us apart, we became more synergic For donations we continued to solicit All in all, the re...

Introduction of the Workplace Fairness Legislation (WFL): It was announced in Ministry of Manpower (MOM) press release on 12 February 2023  that the Tripartite Committee on Workplace Fairness released an interim report on their recommendations for Workplace Fairness Legislation (WFL). The summary of the recommendations can be found in Annex A of the MOM press release and the full interim report can be downloaded at  go.gov.sg/wfl . It is a good step towards protecting minority groups against discrimination. A gap in the WFL - missing "reasonable accommodations", and why it must be included However, what is lacking is the recommendations do NOT include mandating that employers make reasonable accommodations in the workplace despite its clear necessity to ensure persons with disabilities (PWDs) are adequately protected. A requirement for "reasonable accommodations" is aligned with the United Nations (UN) Conventions on the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD) r...

THE DOUBLE EMPATHY PROBLEM The Double Empathy Problem was coined by  Dr Damian Milton . Dr Damian Milton is an autistic person who is an Autism Knowledge and Expertise Consultant, along with other official appointments he holds in the autism space. He holds a number of academic qualifications in a range of subjects: Sociology, Philosophy, Psychology, Education. The Double Empathy Problem is explained in this  National Autistic Society's page . You can also find a summary for non-academics  on the "Reframing Autism" website. A watered down explanation would be: Much as people say autistics have difficulty understanding and empathising with neurotypicals (NTs), a concept commonly referred to "Theory of Mind", NTs have equal difficulty understanding autistics. People with different life experiences and wiring of brain experience and process the world differently. but one is no less than the other, it is just different.  It is funny how people assume the autistic is...

Ms Nur Sarah Qistina’s letter ( A smile can help ease the challenge of looking after special needs kids , Nov 11) burdens my heart. Even with collective efforts in spreading autism awareness, Ms Qistina’s experiences, sadly, remain common occurrences. She is not alone ; I had witnessed special needs families’ struggles, such as a mother saying “Sorry, he is special needs”, to deflect unwanted public stares at her son’s behaviour. I quietly thought “she should not have to apologise for who her son is!”. Clearly something is amiss in our society. Being born in the early 1990’s, an era when autism awareness was lacking much more than today, I was often a victim of public stares. My parents constantly suppressed my so-called undesirable behaviours and chided me for causing embarrassment. If society were more accepting and less judgmental, my parents would not have had to resort to this nor be overly-conscious of public perception. Instead, our unaccepting society deprived me of a healthy p...

Inferiority Complex is Valid I nferiority Complex : a real and valid thing affecting many people. Even official sources like American  Psychiatric Association (APA) explains it. Inferiority Complex is NOT Pride Yet some dismiss inferiority complex it as "Not true" and wrongly attribute it to a pride problem. What warped and ridiculous thinking. What's worse, these guys are spiritual leaders... must be narrow-minded ones. Perhaps they grew up in environments where they hardly needed to suffer from inferiority complex, and/or the "sin of pride" is a concept so ingrained in them that they apply it wrongly to situations --> if so, that reinforces my hypothesis that they are narrow-minded - they see things through a single lens and only through those lens. They misled me to believing other fallacies too, such as seeing autism books as idolatry (it doesn't matter even if I got obssessed over the books and the topic of autism, it does NOT mean it is idolatry)....