Happy Everyone Writes Day
Also featured: My last three articles were boosted by Medium editors!
Apparently today is national everyone writes day, and I love this.
I love to write. I particularly love to write about topics near and dear to my heart, such as neurodiversity, psychology, parenting, education, and mental health. It’s important to me to publish accessible articles which allow anyone and everyone to learn about these subjects if they so choose.
Academic writing can be, at times, esoteric and inaccessible.
I am happy to see a relatively recent trend of adding a “lay” abstract to the beginning of articles, to help people without a similar background to the authors understand the essential content of their research.
Regardless of one’s education level, reading journal articles from a field outside of one’s expertise (and sometimes even within one’s area of study!) can be arduous and psychologically painful.
Sometimes it’s necessary. We can’t all be experts in all fields, and it’s important for researchers to publish their work to be scrutinized by other experts within their niche.
Other times it’s not.
If someone with a strong academic background and reading comprehension skills reads an academic article and cannot understand the general concepts being explained, or the purpose and conclusions of their research, then it’s not a well-written article by any standards.
Let me say that again.
If fellow nerds and keen readers of research and other academic literature cannot make heads or tails of a published paper, then it is not well-written. Writing over the heads of 99% of the population is an exercise in futility. It’s wasted effort, time, and money.
The fundamental purpose of research is to further scientific discussion and inquiry, to inform policy and practice, and to contribute to the current body of knowledge on a particular subject.
This means contributing to everyone’s knowledge, not just the very few who can decipher an unnecessarily complex, jargon-filled bit of writing.
On that note
If I might engage in a little bit of self-congratulation, I am proud to share that my last three articles were all boosted by the editors here at Medium!
Each were part of a series: one about the importance of multicultural competence in the helping professions, and another about emotional regulation skills.
Emotional regulation is hard
Emotional self-regulation requires a complex skillset; skills which need to be learned throughout our lifetimes, especially in early childhood. It’s not something we are born with, nor is it something we can learn from paper-and-pencil lessons in class.
The ability to self-regulate and co-regulate are some of the hardest part of being human.
When we support and care for children and people who struggle with emotional dysregulation, keeping ourselves regulated while helping the other person work through their intense feelings is incredibly challenging.
Therein lies the rub. (Or, if you prefer, “aye, there’s the rub” — Hamlet).
The trick of it is emotional regulation can only be learned and practiced through co-regulation with other caring and supportive people in our lives. This requires safety in our environment and in meaningful relationships.
It’s not a binary skill either: it’s not as though we either have it or don’t. We all have emotional regulation skills, but how well we are able to utilize them, and how helpful they are to us in the heat of the moment will vary from one person and context to another.
Two critical factors are necessary in order for anyone to learn or utilize emotional regulation skills: relationship and safety, and we cannot have one without the other.
Autism could be viewed as a cultural difference
Not necessarily all the time, but in certain situations, such as when providing support in the helping professions.
This piece summarizes a series of six articles all dedicated to improving cultural competencies in the helping professions, as they relate to supporting Autistic people.
I want to begin by stating I am using a cultural lens to describe ways of more effectively supporting Autistics. I am not arguing Autism should always be considered a culture, but I’m not saying it can’t be either…
I don’t know what happened
I have no idea how or why I had three articles boosted in a row, after a significant downturn in my income through Medium, but I’m certainly not complaining.
I am grateful for the support and appreciate every single reader, so genuinely: thank you.
© Jillian Enright, Neurodiversity MB
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