Went to see Ami Klin last week; saw the tail end of Stephen Shore's talk, which made me wish I'd been able to get there earlier. Klin's presentation was v. good: if I have a chance I'll put up some of my notes. He went out of his way to be respectful of the people he described, too: when he recounted something a client w/Asperger's had said, the audience laughed, and he paused and talked about why we'd laughed and made a point of saying that this is a difference, not a lesser way of life or a lesser human being. Some of the most interesting clips he showed were from the eye movement experiments, showing how people with autism were processing movies and videos of people's faces. There was unusual attention to the relation between movement and sound, the way I remember it, which fits with my memory of Primera, ages one and two, fascinated by her V-tech toys and by opening and shutting. Maybe the satisfying click! at the precise moment the toy bus door snapped shut.

[random thought] When she was a toddler, she used to want me to draw for her, a ritualistic process. She'd always start with the same words: "Draw. Draw a picture. Draw a picture of a sock puppet. Draw a bumblebee. Draw glasses. Draw a doggie. Draw a black-and-white cookie." It was almost like being inside her mind, seeing what was important to her.