Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello everyone!
My name is Rhea and I'm a third year Product Design Engineering student. My brother has autism, which has inspired me to develop a home product to help individuals on the Autism Spectrum with exercising. Exercising has shown many benefits with ASD and I have several questions related to exercise that would really help my research, and I would welcome your opinion on several questions including the difficulties individuals with ASD face with physical activity. If you are diagnosed with ASD or know anyone with ASD who is 18 or over, I have a survey for that.
I hope to make a positive impact and help people with ASD, and your answers would mean a lot to me! Feel free to message if you would like the link to the survey or have any questions. Thank you in advance.
I have to agree with Blank (NAS38983) here. The poster is following all of the rules, she took the link off the forum and sent an email request to NAS. I'm quite sure it's just a school project. It's actually not uncommon for university students to post on forums (you can find research requests for neurotypical people in forums dominated by neurotypical people). Another reason I don't think it's for marketing profits is that companies would have much more money to recruit massively (e.g., using online surveys that can pay participants money, like Amazon Turk). And if it were really just for marketing a label, there would be no need for any research, all you need is a label (i.e., you can market 'swimming trunks for the blind' without any research surveys). I think it's a nice idea to try to find out what gyms can do to make it more ASD-friendly. I agree that some exercises are more difficult for people with ASD, like some gyms could be humid and smell bad, and it's hard to play sports they require multiple players because you need lots of friends, etc. There are also products that do help a lot of people with ASD, like squeeze vests or heavy weighted blankets, which target sensory issues many people with ASD have, so I'm not against a new product. A lot of ASD people complain a lot about how neurotypical people make many stereotypical judgement about them without knowing them, but sadly, I think it happens a lot the other way around as well, ASD people make assumptions about neurotypical people without gathering enough information as well. I think it's perfectly OK to not take the survey, but assuming it's a cynical motive is quite unfair.
I'm still in the very long waiting list for a diagnostic assessment, so I probably wouldn't be eligible to fill in the survey yet. But cleversweet1, you might be interested in this website. It's specific for university researchers to post surveys and experiments advertisements on. www.callforparticipants.com/
If I've made assumptions about the posters motives being cynical, you've made assumptions about their motives being altruistic.
qwerty said:A lot of ASD people complain a lot about how neurotypical people make many stereotypical judgement about them without knowing them, but sadly, I think it happens a lot the other way around as well, ASD people make assumptions about neurotypical people without gathering enough information as well.
If you've read my posts, I barely ever make stereotypical assumptions about "neurotypical" people. My attitude is that 99% of people are supposedly "neurotypical", and if I view 99% of society as "other", that makes the world a pretty daunting place. I've said it before it's fine to be "neurotypical", and it's fine to be autistic. It's not fine to be a ***. You are making an assumption that my motives are about the issue of the "neurotypical bogeyman". People are just people to me. There's good and bad in everyone. I've said it before, if you replaced "neurotypical" with a race, gender, or sexual orientation, some of the posts here would read quite bigoted. You are making a stereotypical judgement yourself.
I think the mentality you are promoting is admirable though.
qwerty said:I think it's perfectly OK to not take the survey, but assuming it's a cynical motive is quite unfair.
Why? Because being cynical has negative connotations? Assuming it's altruistic is also unfair, just because it has positive connotations doesn't mean that it automatically is a correct conclusion by default. Logically, that's just as presumptuous.
qwerty said:I'm still in the very long waiting list for a diagnostic assessment, so I probably wouldn't be eligible to fill in the survey yet.
So you really have no dog in the fight, as to say. I would really let the people who are eligible make their mind up. I'm not saying you aren't on the spectrum, and your choice not to take the survey due to not yet filling the criteria is also admirable.
If you look, I haven't said at any time that no-one else should or shouldn't take the survey. I've been told to "just take the survey", and that what I've said is baseless, countered only with baseless assumptions. The OP should be the one explaining their position. They still seem to be here, but have taken to upvoting comments defending them, encouraging people to do their job, rather than doing the honourable thing, and replying to my last comment toward them. Maybe they had no explaination or defence.
They have supposedly abided by the rules, but it would have been safer for the more vulnerable users if they didn't have to recieve the survey by PM. It's probably safer if anything here of this nature is kept in the open.
The forum has rules, but a lot of people here just don't like surveys, research, and general spam. There have been scammers here, and some pretty bad ones at that. Most people aren't too keen on this kind of stuff.
I thought I'd address you directly as your post addresses my posts, and you seem to think I've been unfair.
I'm not attacking you, I'm addressing the points that you took issue with, and explaining my position on some things you raised yourself. I mean you no ill will.