Due to a few factors far outside of my control, I have elected to stop my graduate school pursuits for the time being and focus on other things. I am still passionate about contributing to the burgeoning understanding of autism and neurodiversity, and I am still dedicated to developing methods of accommodation and accessibility even…
Category: psychology
A Brief Aside about Watson, Skinner, Bandura, and Behaviorism
In point of fact, the ethical sins that Skinner gets popularly saddled with fall more squarely on Ivar Lovaas and John Watson. Both Lovaas and Watson presented behaviorism as a method of training (I refuse to call their version “learning”) that used positive and negative forms of reinforcement (applying or denying) and applied both rewards and punishments (pleasant or unpleasant things)…
The Source of Language: A Discussion of Skinner versus Chomsky
Communication is an endemic feature of all life, and it manifests across a dizzying range of methods from pheromonal expressions of insects to canine body language to whalesong.
Meaningful Quotes
I’m not much into motivational speakers or inspirational words. They just don’t code for me the ways I think they’re intended. “Be the change (trouble) you want to be in the world,” or “Only those that attempt the absurd, achieve the impossible,” are both sayings that I’ve found some comfort in in the past, but neither of these really speak to my career goals or personal trajectory of growth.
Autism Is Not A Behavior
Autism is a neurotype, not a behavior, and applied behaviorist principles to autistic traits is dangerous and counterproductive.
Student Paper: Understanding and Overcoming Climate Change Denial
This article first appeared as a final project for GEN499 General Education Capstone at the University of Arizona Global Campus, October 17, 2021. Certain URLs have been left unlinked to avoid providing additional validation to known disinformation sites, but their full addresses have been left for the sake of transparency. Anthropogenic climate change is a…
Blood, Water, Poison: Toxic Family Relationships
The first version of this article first appeared as a final project for the PSY101 course at the University of Arizona Global Campus on April 7, 2018. References and citations have been updated to the most current and relevant versions, as the topic is still highly salient, and the language has been tightened up. “Blood…