Tag: neurodiversity

In another engagement with generative AI, I asked ChatGPT about “need for cognition as a concept to intersect with intrinsically motivated learning and self-directed learning. Why? Because I’m dissatisfied with the university experience, both on campus and remotely. But I want to learn, I need to learn. That’s the “need for cognition”, which I will consider to be part of my flavour of autism.

This is what ChatGPT had to say.

“Need for cognition” refers to an individual’s tendency to engage in and enjoy activities that require thinking, problem-solving, and understanding complex ideas. It’s a personality trait characterized by a desire for effortful cognitive activities.

While “need for cognition” is not specifically an autistic trait, some people with autism may exhibit a high need for cognition due to their intense focus on particular interests or their enjoyment of intellectual challenges. Autistic individuals often have specific areas of interest that they delve into deeply, which can align with a high need for cognition in those areas. However, this is not universal for all autistic people, as each individual’s traits and interests vary widely.

For a mature autistic woman, the intersection of need for cognition, intrinsically motivated learning, and self-directed learning can be particularly enriching and empowering. Here’s how these concepts might manifest and be beneficial:

Need for Cognition
Deep Engagement: A mature autistic woman may find deep satisfaction in activities that require intense focus and problem-solving. This can be intellectually stimulating hobbies, academic pursuits, or professional work.
Special Interests: Autistic individuals often have special interests that they explore in great depth. A high need for cognition can enhance the engagement and enjoyment derived from these interests, leading to a fulfilling and intellectually rich life.

Intrinsically Motivated Learning
Lifelong Learning: Intrinsic motivation can drive continuous learning and skill development throughout life. For a mature autistic woman, this might mean pursuing new hobbies, further education, or self-improvement activities purely for personal satisfaction.
Personal Fulfillment: Learning driven by personal interest can provide a strong sense of accomplishment and joy. This intrinsic motivation can help in maintaining mental agility and emotional well-being.

Self-Directed Learning
Autonomy: Self-directed learning aligns well with the preference for autonomy often found in autistic individuals. It allows for control over what, how, and when to learn, reducing the stress that can come from structured, externally-imposed learning environments.
Customized Learning: This approach enables tailoring learning experiences to personal needs and preferences, which can be especially important for autistic individuals who might have unique ways of processing information and engaging with content.

Practical Strategies
Identify Interests: Leveraging special interests to engage in deep, intrinsically motivated learning activities can be very rewarding. This might involve reading, research, or hands-on projects.
Set Personal Goals: Establishing clear, personal learning goals can help in structuring self-directed learning. This can include both short-term and long-term objectives related to personal and professional growth.
Seek Resources: Finding resources that cater to personal learning styles, such as online courses, books, podcasts, or workshops, can enhance the learning experience. Community groups or clubs related to specific interests can also provide social interaction and support.
Reflect and Adapt: Regularly reflecting on learning progress and adapting strategies as needed can ensure that learning remains aligned with personal interests and needs.

Benefits
Cognitive Stimulation: Engaging in intellectually challenging activities can keep the mind sharp and provide a sense of purpose and accomplishment.
Emotional Well-Being: Pursuing interests and learning for personal satisfaction can enhance overall happiness and reduce stress.
Resilience and Adaptability: Developing a habit of self-directed learning can build resilience and adaptability, important traits for navigating life’s challenges.

By understanding and harnessing these traits, a mature autistic woman can create a rich, fulfilling learning journey tailored to her unique strengths and interests.

All my life, the erroneously neurotypical life, I wanted to go to university. As a “2e” undiagnosed autistic girl, learning was incredibly fun. As a hyperlexic undiagnosed autistic girl, I read anything and everything. The 1932 edition of “Charles Mee’s Encyclopedia for Children” was rich pickings, as was the much more current World Book Encyclopedia set. If you remember that beauty, you’ll remember that the dictionary came in two volumes, A-L and M-Z. I read both volumes. University was a dream from my teenage years, and people in my life spoke of it as an unquestioned expectation. Yet, life happens, and I never made it to university. Only once I was widowed did I see the opportunity to finally go to university.

From 2022, as an undiagnosed autistic, mature age student, I struggled at university. I did well in some things, but my undiagnosed autism was a hindrance. My autism diagnosis in late 2023 was a revelatory experience. The last eight months of exploring autism, and my flavour of autism has been fascinating, and I understand myself so, so, much better. I understand the PDA (pathological demand avoidance aka perpetual drive for autonomy) and the issues it causes with assessments and due dates; the RSD (rejection sensitivity dysphoria) that is the inner child so easily hurt by a turn of the head, let alone group work issues; the gestalt learning and thinking that seems to be the antithesis of university course curricula.

My latest learning has been about “need for cognition”. I don’t care about external recognition. I just want information, not the certificate and the mortarboard. I want to learn, and engage, and synthesise. I want to come up with questions to lead me down another rabbithole. Which leads me to think that going to university is not what I actually wanted. Auditing university courses would be more my style.

Which leads me to self-directed learning, adult style.

The clever people at the Centre for Teaching Excellence at the University of Waterloo (Canada), came up with this Independent Studies: Unit Planning Decision Guide. They say that “the following questions are meant to guide you through the process of designing a “course” or unit of study. Take time to reflect on them to help create a cohesive, concrete plan.”

Now, way back in the early years of my working life, I was a workplace trainer and assessor, an old BSZ40198 Certificate IV. I wrote and delivered training courses, starting from corporate needs and working backwards to develop training material to get team members to that outcome. So, why can’t I do that for myself?

Thankfully, this unit planning decision guide is published under Creative Commons, allowing others to “remix, tweak and build upon our work non-commercially”, with the proviso of credit and an indication if changes were made. So here are my tweaks.

1. Where are you?
   • What is your background?
   • What prior knowledge do you have of this material?
   • Where does this unit fit with your degree requirements special interests, current affairs or anything else?
   • What are your beliefs, attitudes, skills, values, and support structure, both in life and as a student?
2. Where do you want to go?
   • What would you like to get out of this unit (knowledge and skills)?
   • What do you want to be able to do once the unit is over?
   • What will you have to know in order to do the items listed above?
3. How will you know you got there?
   • How can you assess your learning achievements?
   • What types of evaluation methods will suit the goals you outlined for question two (e.g., essay, presentation, annotated bibliography, webpage)?
4. How are you going to get there?What general structure of activities do you want to use? You can design your own, or use one of the following activity structures:
   • Read-write-AI chat: Sequence of reading, reflective writing, and discussion with advising faculty member AI.
   • Do/look-read-talk: Start with some field or lab work, followed by readings and discussion with advising faculty member – write-ups of experiential work can be included
   • Know-do-do: Work through a series of stages – build some background knowledge of skills, work on smaller application projects, conclude with larger, more complex project
   • Talk-read-write: Start with some intensive meetings with advising faculty member AI to discuss material, read recommended resources, prepare written work
5. What are you going to do?
   • What specific activities will you use to attain each of the goals for question two, in keeping with the general strategy chosen?
   • Critically evaluate these activities. Is reading/writing/reflecting, etc. enough to attain the desired amount of learning?
6. When are you going to do what?
   • Develop a week by week schedule for the whole term
   • What activities need to come first?
   • What activities do you want to conclude with?
   • What sequence makes sense for the middle?
7. Who/what can help?
   • What resources do you need to support each of the goals listed for question two?
   • Include people, places, community, articles, media, library, and advising faculty member resources
8. How will your work be assessed?
   • Who will do the assessing?
   • What activities will be assessed? (Not all activities may require assessment)
9. Communicate Develop your plansIt is now time to develop your learning contract plan. A sample learning contract and tips on developing the contract are available from Centre for Teaching Excellence. The contract plan should include:
   • Goals for the unit
   • Structure and sequence of activities
   • Timeline for completion of activities
   • Details about resource materials for each goal
   • Assessment procedures
   • A section for advising faculty member AI feedback and evaluation as each goal is completed
   • May include a plan for regular meetings with advising faculty member and other unit policies, such as work turned in late
   • Once created, contracts should be assessed by the advising faculty member. What could go wrong? Is there too much or too little work? Is the timeline and evaluation reasonable?
10. How will you know how the unit is going?
    • What kinds of feedback will you need?
    • How often should you meet with the advising faculty member?
    • What specific questions do you want answered as each goal is achieved?
    • Do some self-evaluation as you progress to help you stay focused

So there we are. Designing my own course and lesson plan, then embarking on that course, and getting ChatGPT to ‘mark’ my work. So just what might the autistic polymath with a magpie mind want to research? Oh, my, so much. In no particular order:

• The Vienna Convention
• Hildegarde of Bingen
• The history of Druids
• The history of the nations of my genetics
• Studies on AI learning to read human minds
• Consciousness of animals
• Autism… of course
• Masking hypermobility
• Autistic bodies and exercise
• Autistic bodies anhd nutrition
• DNA analysis
• Etymology
• Aromatherapy (existing special interest)
• The history of cooking (existing special interest)
• 3D printing and coding (existing special interest)
• Best practice in palliative care, terminal care
• Grief in different cultures
• The history of woodworking in different cultures (existing special interest)
• Western herbal medicine (existing special interest)
• Quantum mechanics
• Cognitive psychology
• Writing
• And so, so much more.

Dancing to the beat of different drum has never been more true. My drum, my drumbeat, my dance.