CALL US : 1-780-651-0946
Autism Consulting Service
The Ah Ha Moments from My Past
When I first started focussing on trying to come to a clear understanding of autism I had a small box of recipie cards on which I wrote quotes that I felt were meaningful on my journey (pre computer - pre internet!). This was on the advice of one of my professors I admired. I just rediscovered this box during the reorganization of the office and thought I should save them in a more modern format.
The Importance of Survival
"These studies showed clearly first: that biological structure is unintelligible unless it is constructed in terms of survival within a very particular environment; and second: that survival is the outcome that all biological structures are adapted to attain. Biological features that hitherto have appeared only as beautiful or curious or bizarre come to have a new meaning. Each feature is found to contribute, or have contributed to survial in the environment inhabited by the species." Bentley
It didn't take but a few minutes to realize that the same can be said for behaviour - and once I started looking at the environment instead of defining behaviour as meaningless, everything became clearer.