Why Can T You Be Normal For Once In Your Life By Judy Singer

'Why can’t you be normal for once in your life’ is Judy Singers personal reflection, as she shares her struggle of living with her mother, who had ‘a problem with no name’ (Singer 1999), her daughter’s diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome and her reflection in the aftermath of the diagnosis. Subsequently, she advocates for neurological diversity to be acknowledged in society before contemplating how much of a role technology and the Internet has played in giving people with Autism a voice in society.

The opening line, ‘there was something wrong with my family’ shows the emotional impact of living with her mother as Singer reflects on the mental torture she went through trying to understand ‘someone from a parallel universe who people avoided.’ (Singer 1999). She noted that her mother had no sense of the minds of others or any concept of the bleeding obvious which McCarthy (2017) stated is a trait linked to the lack of Theory of Mind, with people on the spectrum struggling to put themselves in another’s shoes.

An account of her father’s response that ‘everyone’s different, ‘you just have to accept people the way

Singer finishes by saying that perhaps ‘a more ecological view of society will emerge’ and an acknowledgement that there are different ways of being if the neurologically different are given a voice and acknowledgement of their talents and strengths. ‘A society that will be content to let each individual find his/her own niche, based on the kinds of mutual recognition that can only arise through an ever developing sociological, psychological and now neurological, self awareness.’ (Singer