MY WORK
My Paper
November 2019
Photo Essay
This photo essay is on my uncle and his time serving in the Canadian Armed Forces.
November 2019
The beneficial factor to early Autism Development in Children
This paper focuses on the beneficial factor of early diagnosis of autism in children.
My Paper
Is Google Making us Work Hard or Is It Making us Stupid
Is Google Making Us Stupid
In the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid” by Nicholas Carr, Carr explains the facts and opinions based on if Google is making us stupid or not. In this essay, I will be explaining that not only that I agree with how Google is making us stupid, but how google is also making us lazy. The first point I must argue is the internet is now allowing us to use our brains to its full capacity. The second point is how the internet is very easy to access compared to a lot of research books. Lastly, how the internet can be a huge distraction in our day to day life.
What I have found is how the internet is not allowing our brain to use our full capacity that it can. “I’m not thinking the way the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I am reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy.” (Carr 2). Over the last few months in the university and while reading the article it occurred to me how many students do not read an article for a paper but will only skim through the information. If they did not understand the information or believe it to be boring, then the student would hop on google and read summarized or even watch YouTube videos about the novel or article. Reading and watching summarize are not allowing our brains to retain information, those summarize are only making us lazy as students.
Over the last few years, Google has a huge place for people to do their research. Just one click and we have everything right at our fingertips. “I’ve been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the internet. The web has been a godsend to me as a writer. Researching that once required days on the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes” (Carr, 2). This quote is implying that we can find almost any information in minutes by just typing anything into a computer. Years ago, that would have been impossible and when people were doing research they needed to go to a library and reading a book, but this could take up to a couple of days. The internet has made gaining information quick and precise.
Lastly, it has been believed that the internet can be a huge distraction in our day to day life. There is a high percentage of students who have a cellular device, most of these cell phones have internet that they can use to search the web. While walking down the street or going to a public location there are always people using a cellular device. Imagine how much we could achieve without internet/google as a distraction. In this quote from Carr, “In the quiet spaces opened up by the sustained, undistracted reading of a book, or by any other act of contemplation, for that matter, we make our own association, draw our own inferences and analogies, foster our own ideas” (Carr, 4) he explained how we need to get our quiet spaces to really obtain the information and I believe the internet can be a distraction when we are trying to read different kinds of information because we get distracted by all the different images and ads that pop up, but when reading a book we can stay focused instead of clicking on the links that can distract us for multiple minutes.
In conclusion to this essay, my opinion on this topic is that I believe not only is google making us stupid, but it is making us lazier with our resources. In the first part of the essay, I had discussed how the internet is not allowing us to think and use our brains to its full capacity. Secondly how the internet is very easy to access compared to a lot of research books. Lastly, how the internet can be a huge distraction in our day to day life. Well, some cannot imagine life without Google, I believe we would be better off without.
Work Cited
Carr, Nicholas. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” The Atlantic Monthly 302.1 (2008): 56-63.
Photo Essay
Photo Essay
I had an opportunity to facetime my uncle on Sunday afternoon while he was peacekeeping in Jordan, even though it was a busy weekend for him since it was Remembrance Day weekend. My uncle has been in the military for thirty-two years and has gone overseas to work six-times had moved across Canada nine times. My uncle had fought in the Afghanistan war in 2011, and he claims this war was the most difficult one he has been in.
My uncle had chosen to go overseas to Jordan for his last big posting before he retires from the military since both of his daughters had graduated from high school. Therefore, he had felt it was the right time for him to take on this job opportunity.
In Jordan, he is working six days a week peacekeeping, and on his day’s off, he is touring the country or having different experiences. He will be heading home for two weeks at the end of November. He will go back to Jordan for a month and a half, and then will officially be home in January.
When I was on facetime with him, we talked about some of his favourite postings; his favourite posting had been was in Petawawa, Ontario. Not only was Petawawa his favourite but it was his first big posting and where his first daughter had been born. He has lived there three times since then. Overall, my uncle has experienced some crazy events; however, he is truly a role model for the family and is walking my grandfather's footsteps.
Early Signs of Autism in Children
Early Signs of Autism in Children
Researchers and scientific studies have found that it is more beneficial in humans to be diagnosed with autism in the early development years of childhood rather than in adult years. When autism is diagnosed early, it allows children to have programs set for the different skills they struggle with. A few of the topics this essay will expand on are the difference of autism in adult years, in children, and those who are diagnosed as adults. The research essay will touch on how autism affects learning in children, which programs can be beneficial, and how other children in the classroom can benefit from an awareness of autism spectrum disorder. Within the essay, I will be discussing how we can reduce the stigma within the parents and the children with ASD. All this shows how important it is for a child to receive an early diagnosis.
What is autism spectrum disorder? The article “What is Autism?” explains:
Autism is a‚ spectrum disorder, which means a child’s symptoms can present in a wide variety of combinations, from mild to severe. Autism can make it difficult for a child to communicate and interact with others. It can also cause a child to perform repetitive activities and movements, become upset at changes in daily routine, and have unusual responses to certain situations. (IowaU 1)
Autism is an important case that any child can have. IowaU explains that, on average, one out of 110 children will be diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. There is no known cause of autism, and no end to ASD within the patient’s life, which does not make it any easier to deal with. However, “early intervention such as behavioural and speech therapy should help develop skills that will help the child during their learning” (IowaU 1). Children with autism are more sensitive than other children; for example, they might be more sensitive to touch, certain smells, loud noises, temperature extremes, and even certain colour. This over-stimulation may cause a child to become upset and “meltdown” and there might be difficulties trying to soothe the child. (Iowa 1). For this reason, an early diagnosis will be more beneficial to a child as IowaU States:
Early diagnosis is key in helping a child reach important milestones. Your child’s doctor should first screen for autism between the ages of 18 and 24 months. Early intervention — such as behavioural and speech therapy — can help improve a child’s learning skills and increase communication. A child with autism can be very successful in school. (IowaU 1)
Overall, this information is important for people wanting to learn more about autism.
Autism can affect children’s learning and the programs that will help the children grow. In the article “Early Signs of Autism How to Support Families and Navigate Referral Procedures.” it identifies a few of the key learning difficulties children with Autism Spectrum Disorder will face. Language skills, socialization skills, and others are skills the children have more difficulty with. A child in the developmental years having difficulty with their language skills might indicate the child might have a form of autism spectrum disorder. This quote is explaining “Early language delay or absence of language is one of the most recognizable indicators of autism spectrum disorder.” (Nuner and Griffith 16). Another skill a child with autism lacks similarly is in socialization, again in the article it explains how a child/infant with autism may not smile or laugh or sometimes even make eye contact with other peers. Other children can benefit from an awareness of Autism Spectrum Disorder that lacks in socialization skills. Every child that has ASD has a different way of learning than anyone else; one child might strive in their language and another child may lack in that area it all depends on the child. Therefore, teachers and Early childhood program directors are asked while working with a child to record all the behaviours that the child is performing and then communicating that information to their parents. Communicating information to those parents allows the adults to understand what might be causing the different behaviours to occur and then develop a program and use positive reinforcements to help guide the child.
Autism in children and adults differ. Traditionally, children benefit being treated in early learning years rather than in early adult years. An early diagnosis is key in helping a child reach achievement such as the child’s learning and speech development. In “Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders.” Howling and Moss explain the intervention for adults and children, and how there are more studies for the children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. They say, “There are few well-controlled studies of effective treatments or services for adults. Applied behavioural approaches, which have a relatively strong evidence base for children, have been evaluated much less for adults and, if used, focus mainly on training basic self-help skills or reducing challenging behaviours in people with more severe intellectual impairments.” (Howlin and Moss 279). As the authors explain most of the research that is done on Autism Spectrum Disorder is done on children rather than adults with ASD, and they suggest the research implies that 84% of adults suffer from some form of diagnosable mental health illness. However, with medication and special therapy sessions they can help reduce behaviours and improve their overall performance as a child. (Howlin and Moss 278).
Adults that receive a later diagnosis often have trouble adapting to the different cognitive skills, these adults spend most of their time trying to change their old habits. These adults have always had autism but never had a diagnosis. Therefore, these adults might have struggled with their learning and social skills but have never thought it was unusual. Growing up this undiagnosed ASD caused these adults to have harder time than their peers. Zerbo, Massolo, Qian, and Coren did a survey on adults that had a later diagnosis and found that these adults did not have as many programs and specialists to focus on their autism diagnosis.
“Despite the increasing number of high-quality intervention trials for children with ASD, the evidence base for effective interventions for adults remains very weak” (Howlin and Moss 5).
Adults are noticing that these interventions are mainly focused on a child’s early diagnosis. Therefore, adults are not getting the right support needed for them to grow as individuals with autism spectrum disorder. An adult finding out they have a diagnosis with ASD could cause feelings such as denial, shock, and defeat. These feelings can cause the adult to not get the help that is needed to benefit from their diagnosis.
Stigma is a form of disgrace people often feel when either they have a mental illness, or mental diagnosis. Stigma is implicit in all individuals who are diagnosed with autism; nevertheless, the goal within a society is to reduce the stigma for those people. The stigma can cause individuals such as parents and carriers to have lower self-esteem. Parents often have a difficult time while raising children with Autism Spectrum disorder, because they may feel as if they are responsible for what the child is going through, such as behavioural issues, social issues and overall mental health issues as the children get older. Therefore, the stigma can continue over the child’s journey with Autism Spectrum Disorder. (Lodder, Papadopoulos, Randhawa 1). What we are looking to do is reduce the stigma within the children’s lives, then these individuals will not be put through different mental health and social issues. The way we can try to reduce the stigma is to create an intervention for parents/families to cope with the autism-related stigma as well as prevent the internalization of stigma.
Throughout the essay, there has been discussion on what autism spectrum disorder is and how it affects the learning of a child. To reduce the sigma and the mental health problem that might occur in later years of the child, it will be beneficial for the child to have an autism assignment between 18-24 months old. Overall, the focus of this essay is for parents and other specialists to learn about the beneficial factors of an early diagnosis of autism in children. The overall message for this essay is, “Early diagnosis is key in helping a child reach important milestones.” (Iowa 1).
Work Cited
Fein, Deborah, et al. Autism Spectrum Disorders. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric
Association Publishing, 2018.
Howlin, Patricia, and Phillippa Moss. Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders. La Revue
Canadienne De Psychiatri, 2012
Jobs, Elisabeth Nilsson, et al. “Spotting Signs of Autism in 3-Year-Olds: Comparing
Information from Parents and Preschool Staff.” CrossMark, 21 Nov. 2018.
Lodder, Annemarie, et al. NCBI, Pilot Feasibility Study, 26 Feb. 2019.
“Parent Factsheets April 2010 Autism.” Parent Factsheets April 2010 Autism, University Of
IOWA, Apr. 2010, http://www.educateiowa.gov/sites/files/ed/documents/Parent-
Factsheets_April2010_Autism.pdf.
Stevens Griffith, Amy C., and Nuner, Joyce E. “Early Signs of Autism How to Support
Families and Navigate Referral Procedures.” 1 Nov. 2011.
Zerbo, Ousseny, et al. “A Study of Physician Knowledge and Experience with Autism in Adults
in a Large Integrated Healthcare System.” J Autism Dev Disord, 3 Sept. 2015.
