A life in Profile: Fiona Barnes: Inside View Of Asperger's

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I had written an article on Fiona Barnes. She is an Aspie with a lot of common sense. She talks of what an Aspie is from her perspective as one. She attempts to educate Aspies as well as NTs on Asperger's. I had used her Youtube videos to illustrate her story.

Fiona Barnes: Inside View Of Asperger's

Are you aware that Fiona posts here? I'd rather not disclose her user handle without her consent, but she's a veteran poster on WP.

No, I wasn't aware. It is quite ok. I had secured her permission to make the article ahead of time....I just wasn't aware that she is also here.

I was about to say... that looks a lot like [ ]!

This person asked me for permission.

Sorry I tried to read your blog, but I could not get passed the horrendous formatting problems and the colours.

I don't know if the blog shows in a font your computer software doesn't support. It in no way should be horrendous...different...yes...horrendous...no. The color is black text on light beige...actually a very tame coloring by almost any measure.

I write the blog using "..." to not only indicate punctuation...but to indicate pauses in speech and to emphasize passages or groups of words. I try to write as if I were speaking directly to the person...I talk in the same manner...with pauses for emphasis.

The format is not unlike how poetry is actually formatted. It also plays out as minutes in government or business...and even transcription in a court of law.

I actually write this way for clarity of the message to the readers. It is actually easy to get used to...but most importantly...an effective way for me to get across my meaning in feeling, as well as, thought.

Even, were it not, so long as the message is agreeable and, in this case, legible....well, you know the old saying....were you to be given a present in a plain brown wrapper...but a nice gift inside....would you through it away because of the wrapping?

I say....give it a go...I am sure there will be something in the blog that you could use to your...(or someone you know)...benefit.

I don't mind the colors. I think the centered formatting might be a bit disrupting, but that looks like a deliberate stylistic choice.

There are many photos of her pretty face on her website.

no horrible colors here. The center alignment did throw me off for a minute, but because that's how most people do song lyrics so I was trying to sing to lines in my head.

The font shows up but the colours, and sadly this happens a lot, to you they are clear, to me as a colour blind person, the “A description of a successful ABA therapy graduate. Initially diagnosed as Autistic, he is a 2E child (twice exceptional - In the Autistic Spectrum and Profoundly Gifted).” almost blends in to the background. As does the titles and the dates of the posts. The names of the people making the comments also are the wrong /colour texture to been seen by people like me. Your links do not show up unless I am reading the source code.
The centre format for the text is to me really off putting, but would be more readable, in a two column set up rather than a three column.

I know I am in a unwelcome un-included minority, as both an N-NT and colour blind person, but there are quite a few site checker for web-designers to use to check to see if their site is open to all, and not just the majority.

Don't be so foolish in life to think that the world must adapt to all needs of every anomaly...it is simply not going to happen...nor should it. It took me a few seconds of research on Google....there is adaptive technology for the color blind so you may look at almost ALL web sites...instead of the ones that are adapted to the great minority (NO color). To wish the world to be purely black and white would only serve color blindness...what of the blind? Less rare and more severe....there is adaptive tech for them too.

For that matter....you could highlight the text desired and paste onto a blank page and... viola...black on white....low tech adaptive tech.

Adaptive Tech

My son is on the spectrum....I don't allow him to make excuses or invalid demands on the world to adapt to him. He is to change things himself or to adapt...to do otherwise is to not flourish in life.

Never mind the side texts...the main text is what you really should be reading...really.

You have a condition...however, you handicap yourself.

What you practice is simple self sabotage. I recommend you read my blog...and do try to suffer through the great pain of non typical writing...perhaps you are getting the great (incorrectly blanketed and supposed) NT attitude...if it is not typical...it is wrong!

Don’t worry, I am very well versed in the problems of being colour blind and although I say this myself, I’m quite an expert in dealing with the vagaries and problems thrown up by lazy website designers, who like you it seems, believe everyone else should pander to their choice of style over content/readability.
By the choices you have set out to make, you alienate some small fraction of the population. For whom it is crystal you do not care anything about. With a tiny tiny amount of forethought you could, if you wished, adapt/change the font colour and or background contrast and make your site open to all, AS I have said before, there are websites where you can check what your site looks like to colour blind people.

“My son is on the spectrum....I don't allow him to make excuses or invalid demands on the world to adapt to him. He is to change things himself or to adapt...to do otherwise is to not flourish in life.”
This ‘boast’ is as hollow a lie as I have read so far on this site. Your son is protected from the world, he has no need to adapt, instead of facing a life of change and compromise, he will, as you have taught him so well to do, remove himself from the conflicts that every day is filled with, and in doing so will face a life that I call “half life” a mere existence, where you go through the motions of living sheltered from life, in the protected environs of “home” he’ll spend his life being afraid of everything.

The lessons taught at school are not just about learning maths, science, and English. They learn about conflict management, compromise, and fitting in with the real world. By homeschooling you are taking away your child’s ability to adapt to the real world. You have made your child’s gift in to a liability; his abilities will be masked by the disability You have given him.

I understand what it feels like when someone posts a negative comment, I designed and ran a website with 180,000 unique hit per month, for 6 years. So I know how easy it was to be upset when someone dares to criticise it. However, unlike you, I was able to take onboard the views of that one person, the person who felt something was “amiss” and in that respect I was able to improve the site.
For every person who post/emails to say something is not right, there will be a hundred who feel the same but doesn’t post. And they are the ones who will never visit the site again.
So by responding as you have, expressing your 'displeasure' like a petulant child, you have gained nothing, learnt nothing, become the very thing you have criticised me of being, you’ve become someone who feels the world must adapt to suit you.

As you should know, there are varying types, as well as, varying degrees of color blindness. High contrast black and white would have been the only choice to fit all color blindness (not just yours).

You must also realize (you fully should have being a web-site designer...blogger is the most popular in the world)...I don't have much creative control in the design. Blogger is a free blog site with very few preset blog designs.

It was you, and not I, who was complaining like a petulant child about style (readability) over content. That...I had found to be disappointing. Had you made valid remarks over content...then, perhaps, I could have learned something...perhaps you. You would have at least read the message and not been so thrown off track by the center aligning of the words. There was enough contrast of the text to the page for you to read it...color blindness or not. Black text still shows well enough when even shown on a darker grey (gray as sometimes spelled) than the light beige.

It was you who had chosen to throw away concepts over innocuous details...to discard true content because of style.

My son is home schooled... because his former elementary school ( K through 8th ) could no longer teach him...he was too advanced. As a 4th grader (really 3rd...they had him skip a grade) he was being sent to the advanced 8th graders for math). They had tried giving him advanced English texts also. He was just reading by himself in his class. When he was in 3rd grade (really 2nd grade)...they had to send him to the computer lab for on line study in math....he finished intro to Algebra in 3 months.

He loves home schooling far more. He was flat out bored in class. Although he initially missed some of his friends at school...he loves the lack of frustration at being held back in his learning...due to his age and not aptitude.

Our public schools are deficient in many ways. They are weak on science and critical reasoning....besides being behind in almost everything else. He is doing very well in his studies...as well as life skills...physically also. Had you but taken the time to read the blog before commenting...it is all laid out. Many of our greatest Presidents were home schooled. How you feel that the location of learning is important is beyond me. You see...the only real socialization that occurs at school is during recess and lunch. My son takes sports (where you learn many more things than on the playground) and he will be going back into school later...you will have to read the blog for more details

It was not the criticism...but the invalid criticism that you had brought up. With just a moment of reflection upon what you had written (on your part), you should have realized the lack of real basis for which you write.


You may very well have designed and run a website with 180,000 unique hits a month...I don't have the variables necessary to say you, in fact, had not. However, you should be independently wealthy because of it...just from the advertising...I would think.

However, as you say, for every one that had given notice of displeasure, another hundred felt the same way. Now, think about it...how many more...by far...would have been put off by a color neutral theme had I used one?

It is precisely because I don't expect the world to adapt to me that I have a blog that anyone can see at their pleasure OR not. I was not the one who wished someone to change for my pleasure. Should the world not use reds in the color scheme (for your type of color blindness)? What about the ones who can't see the blues and greens? What about the ones who can't see color well at all? It is not about just you...there are a wide range of disabilities throughout the world. Should all websites have verbalization of its texts for the blind (although I can see it being available in the future...right now it simply isn't financially viable for sites to do so).

Following your reasoning...why did you not post your reply for all to read...in all languages (translation programs are horrendous in non latin based languages from English)? What of the blind? What about dyslexia?


Quote of Tadpole:

“My son is on the spectrum....I don't allow him to make excuses or invalid demands on the world to adapt to him. He is to change things himself or to adapt...to do otherwise is to not flourish in life.”
This ‘boast’ is as hollow a lie as I have read so far on this site.

I give evidence in my blog of what I speak of.

I didn't call you a liar...even without evidence presented for your 180,000 unique hit a month former website. Think about that one.

Now, I challenge you to take me to task for my concepts or principles presented in my blog. The real substance...the real thinking process demanded in the real world. When you write about style or colors...it means you have totally missed the real world understanding of true substance.

Somehow, it strikes me as counterproductive to lecture anyone about accommodations on a forum devoted to a disability. It would have been one thing to just say, "there's adaptive technology for viewing web pages." It is entirely another to call people foolish for finding your website difficult to read.

I do not agree with everything Tadpole wrote in response to you (I think you know your son's needs better than Tadpole does, and that home schooling is not particularly a bad thing), but I cannot seem to work out why your responses are so dismissive.

Is this how you attract readers to your blog? Insult and lecture them for not being 100% positive?

I agree...had I done as you have suggested, it would have been far more productive.

Your reply made sense...and was tactful (which my initial reply was not....a weakness I am working on).

I bow to your argument....well done.