Published by: New York Post
Written by: Ryan Dawkins

One day in college, Jory Fleming was walking across campus with his service dog, Daisy, when a stranger approached and declared that he was being cruel to the animal.

The dog, the man insisted, was unhappy and shouldn’t be a slave to anyone.

Onlookers were horrified, worried that the insensitive remark had wounded Fleming. But the encounter only spawned a fleeting thought in his head: “Oh, that was a very rude thing to say.” Then he kept walking to class.

Fleming has autism, and his brain works differently, especially when it comes to emotions. While he recognizes emotions and certain environmental stimuli might create feelings within him, they affect him less than most people. For example, he might see a large spider but “struggle to think of a reason why fear would be appropriate.”

Fleming explains how his mind works in his new book “How to Be Human: An Autistic Man’s Guide to Life” (Simon & Schuster), out now.

“I thought it would be a cool goal to have a book make its way out into the world, not so people can learn about me individually, but so they can see an individual with autism and what that means in viewing the world,” Fleming, 26, told The Post. Click here to read the rest story.

Published by: The Star
Written by: Rowena Chua

WRITING emails is part and parcel of one’s professional life. It is simple and straightforward but it takes Taylor’s University School of Education head Dr Logendra Stanley Ponniah (pic) twice or thrice the duration needed by his colleagues to do so.

His process involves tools like a spell checker, a speech-to-text application and a text-to-speech reader.

The reason for the hassle is that he has dyslexia, a condition that he has had to live with for 51 years.

Growing up, Logendra struggled with spelling, reading and writing so much so that he was always “the last boy in the last class” in his exam performance, he told StarEdu.

Thinking that he was simply not applying himself, his parents and teachers gave him a hard time.

“I got a lot of scolding and punishment. I was asked to be more hardworking and to do spelling every day, ” he recalled, adding that there was a lack of understanding of dyslexia as a problem among students in the late 80s to 90s.

“The common notion when you misspell a word is that you are lazy to memorise. Spelling is not something you learn. It’s an audio-visual connection. Being a dyslexic, that part of the brain is not well connected, ” he said.

Secondary school with its “very text-centric” exams posed a bigger challenge for Logendra.

“If you spell a word, for example hydrogen, wrongly, your answer is considered wrong from the teacher’s perspective, even though you know the answer. That’s the style of marking, ” he lamented.

It was only when he was studying in the United States in the early 90s – he failed his SPM so he couldn’t gain admission to a public university in Malaysia – that the riddle of his learning difficulty was solved.

One of Logendra’s lecturers recognised the possibility that he may be dyslexic and suggested that he go for a diagnostic assessment. Click here to read the rest of the story.

Published by: Complex Magazine
Written by: Mackenzie Cummings-Grady

In an exclusive interview with Today, Ashton Kutcher’s twin brother Michael explained that he was “very angry” with the actor after he revealed his condition on national TV.

“I was very angry. Very angry. I remember speaking to him about it,” Michael said. “I didn’t wanna be the face of CP. I never talked about it.” While he was initially mad, Michael says he now views the moment as a blessing. “[He] did me the biggest favor he’s ever done because he allowed me to be myself.” Michael is currently involved in activism with the Cerebral Palsy Foundation and has received countless amounts of praise from his brother. “My brother’s daily actions remind me that life isn’t about running around challenges – it’s about running through them,” Ashton told Today. ”Mike has a relentless work ethic and deep compassion for others.”

The pair were very close as kids, with Ashton often coming to Michael’s defense when it came to bullying. “I had all of the stereotypes that come with having a disability,” Michael said. “I was called every name in the book on the playground. I had difficulty making friends. But I had Chris there to help me and support me,” (Chris is Ashton’s first name).  Click here to read the rest of the story.