Navigation and Disabled Interdependence

For those readers who are mathematically inclined, a word problem:

Two people with disabilities, one dyslexic and one autistic, walk out of housing check-in for the 2012 AAPD Summer internship. To reach their dormitory, they must correctly choose whether to go right, left, forward, or back, at every intersection along their five-block route. It is dark, it is raining, and they are in an unfamiliar city. They are equipped with a map which one of them cannot read and the other one cannot understand. Given these facts, how long will it take this hapless duo to reach their lodgings? Will they, in fact, ever arrive?

I am the autistic person in this scenario. The dyslexic person is Phred, my fellow intern and, because the situation I described proved to be a bonding experience, my new friend. Phred found the map’s small print, and to a lesser degree the street signs, challenging to read. She generally prefers such things in an audible format. For my part, my spatial reasoning is such that I could not successfully extract myself from a paper bag in 4 out of 5 trials. (I realize that this statement will alarm anyone who believes that all autistics are cloned from Temple Grandin; for this, I apologize.)

If you emphasize the aspects of our disabilities which cause us the greatest difficulty in our daily lives, you might guess that Phred and I spent that night huddled on the sidewalk, awaiting rescue. If you consider our strengths, however, you might arrive at a different conclusion. As it happens, I am very much at ease with reading words. And Phred, like many dyslexic folks, has a very strong sense of spatial awareness. We quickly found that we could each function as one half of a GPS, and in combination we can be an unstoppable route-finding force. With me reading the street signs, and Phred giving directions, we proceeded like this:

“We have arrived at the intersection of 22nd and H Streets.”
“Go that way!”

When talking about people like Phred and me, “experts” often present dire scenarios in order to prove that we are incapable of living independently. Phred’s and my adventure with the map might even qualify. Some people would say that since we each required some assistance in this scenario, we could not be considered “independent.” However, one thing that we learned during our orientation is that the definition of independence needs to be broadened when discussing the lives of people with disabilities. Instead of asking, “can this person do any and all tasks without help?” we should ask, “does this person have the help that they need to live the kind of life they want to live?”

Another fact that is often overlooked is that disabled people can turn to each other for help. In my first week at AAPD, I’ve seen disabled people helping each other in all kinds of ways – reading aloud, taking notes, interpreting, lifting and carrying. I find it difficult to articulate exactly what this means to me, so let me just say for now that I have very strong feelings about the disability community, about the help that we need, and about the interdependent kind of independence that we can build together.

How I Got Here: The Road to the 2011 AAPD Summer Internship -- by Alec Frazier

2011 AAPD Summer Intern Alec Frazier in Front of the White House

My name is Alec Frazier, 24 at the moment, from Ithaca, New York. I am a person with disabilities and I am very proud of that, as I am proud of all facets of my character. On a day-to-day basis I live with Asperger's syndrome, a high functioning form of autism that comes coupled with, in my case, bipolar disorder, ADD, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), dysgraphia, digital atonia, and facial atonia among other disorders.

When I was young I spoke before politicians, to raise funding for children in special education. My first job however, was in a library. Throughout my career I have balanced interests in library sciences and politics. On a trip to the Massachusetts State House and the historic collections library it contained, I realized that I could mix the two and go for a dream job in archiving.

The next few years of my life were focused on improving my academic standing, which paid off when I was admitted to the State University of New York's University at Buffalo. I am currently obtaining my bachelor's degree in political science, and if all goes well I will pursue a Masters in Library science/archiving.

It was at the University at Buffalo that the assistant director of disability services informed me of this internship opportunity. I love Washington, DC architecturally, culturally, historically, and politically, so I jumped at the chance. There are an infinite number of positions at which the AAPD could have placed me, and none could have suited me better than the DC Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. I have already met my supervisor, as well as gotten a general overview of what I will be doing there. I shall go more into depth about that in next week's blog.

Well, I'm beat. I have had a long day of orientation and will now prepare myself some supper. Make haste to the pizza rolls!

Awesome week!

This week I was assigned a project to migrate a website from the old Stellent CMS to the Drupal CMS. Over that past couple weeks I have been learning the in’s and out’s of Drupal, now I get to use what I have learned in a real situation. So far everything has gone relatively smoothly, and I expect to have the project done before my internship reaches fruition. I look forward to the remainder of my internship.

This week I also attended the trip to the Microsoft Technology Center in Reston, VA. I was so excited to attend, as I am a big fan of Microsoft products. During my time there, they presented and demonstrated different technologies and talked in particular about the Enterprise side of Microsoft products; as opposed to the more commonly known consumer products such as Windows and Office. I got to see a few things that I have never seen before, and I also learned some new things about technology I had previously know about. What I found really awesome was their future prospects for consumer and enterprise technology. They had ideas for products that I would absolutely love to get my hands on.

I was a busy week and a good week.

Benjamin Tshudy

Good week!

This week went rather well. I am getting adjusted quite well and have a somewhat consistent routine down now. Currently, at work, I am learning about the in's and out's of Drupal, a content management systems, which is used by the many offices in the DoC to maintain their web sites. I am glad that it is something that I have not learned about before and it is also something that I could use for my own purposes. I have come to determine that my one co-worker reminds me of Ryan from the television series "The Office" and the web developer in the office reminds me of someone from back home who is a diesel mechanic; just thought I would add that for the humor of it.

I have also been running a lot, as I am currently registered to run the Marine Corps Marathon. I have been many places in DC and have got to explore the area on my runs; I have even been to Virginia! My runs are rather enjoyable given the wide array of monuments and places to go around here. I recently ran to the Air Force memorial, which is about a 7-mile run round trip.

The week ended very well with a tour of the Newseum, hosted by the very generous and delightful Cheryl Sensenbrenner, and her husband Congressman Sensenbrenner. That was such a great experience as the museum was just amazing. I enjoyed the interactive parts of the museum, as well as being able to see the most prestigious news staples throughout history. Also, the dinner that we were also graced with afterwards, at the Capital Grille, was awesome. I was fortunate to be able to sit with two interesting and funny gentlemen, David McKee and Nick Imparato. What a great day it was!

-Benjamin Tshudy

An exciting and busy week!

This week is started my internship at the Department of Commerce. I have a great supervisor and have also great co-workers. I enjoy working there and I look forward to everything I will get to do this summer and I expect to learn a lot. In addition, I got to meet the new CIO of the Department of Commerce, Simon Szykman, which I thought was pretty neat.

I also met with my mentor, Pablo Chavez of Google, for the first time this week. He is an awesome guy and I know that I will benefit greatly through my mentor-mentee relationship with him. I look forward to every opportunity I will get with him this summer, as I know it will be time well spent. I don’t think I could have gotten a better mentor.

I am still working on devising ways to advocate for persons with ASD’s and disabilities in general. I hope that I will greatly impact people’s perspectives for the better this summer. My current strategy is to get people to ask questions and that I can answer them, as I am not much of one to initiate social interaction; though I am working on that.

Some of the exciting things I did in my free time include visiting the National Air and Space Museum, the National Aquarium, and the National Zoo this week. They are all very neat places and I am already planning my visits to some of the other offerings such as the International Spy Museum and the National Museum of Crime and Punishment.


-Benjamin Tshudy

Revved up!

I have not started my internship yet but I am highly anticipating it. Even though I haven't started work per say, I have been keeping quite busy. This past week I met my supervisor, who is a very nice and accepting and person, and reviewed what I will be doing during my time at the Department of Commerce. He advised me of some things that I can do to start preparing myself. One thing in particular that I started working on is getting acquainted with the Ruby programming language. I am also did some refreshing of my web development skills. In addition to that, I am also taking two summer classes through Penn State World Campus, so they have also been keeping me busy. I look forward to this coming week and starting my internship.

I have also started collaborating with other IT interns on developing a website for Michael Castillo's DC Wakeboarding business; for those that don't remember, he spoke at orientation. Currently we are in the planning stages of the SDLC or Software Development Life Cycle. We are working to determine what the website needs and also buildilding a skills matrix to determine who will be doing what.

All in all my week has gone pretty well.

 -Benjamin Tshudy