Heilker and Yergeau

SUMMARY

This article describes autism and how it is rhetorical. The authors discuss the changes in awareness but no the changes in how autism is viewed. Someone with autism can get locked into a certain part of their own invention and not able to focus on other tasks. This explains why people with autism have focuses on which they enjoy talking or know a lot of knowledge about. The authors describe autism as more of  a "valued invention" rather than an impairment. Understanding autism as  rhetoric helps the awareness spread more effectively.

CONNECTIONS
I connect this reading with Gee's article about rhetoric and Discourses. He also describes rhetoric as a way of being in the world. This goes along with Heilker and Yergeau because they describe autism as a way of being and this rhetoric is not an impairment. I also connected this reading with the Smitherman article. All of these authors believe that teachers should be more understanding of who their students are and focus more on teaching rather than making them follow a certain curriculum.

The dominant perception of autism is that it is a disability. I believe that these authors are trying to show that it is so much more than that. People with autism have their own special rhetoric. When someone with autism is thinking, they are in their own type of invention and will function and process in a certain way. Because autism is such a medical mystery, it is usually just passed off as a disability. When in reality it is a special rhetoric, just as a would belong to a certain discourse community.

OPINIONS
I really enjoyed reading this article. It was more than just informative, it was also interesting. The authors do a good job of describing autism. I also got a bit confused in certain spots as to what the authors were trying to describe. But in the end it all tied together.