Highlighting Cosmo Industries during Disability Service Professionals Week

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://globalnews.ca/news/11853763/disability-service-professionals-week-cosmo/

Excited to be presenting at ABAI 2026 alongside Dr. Jessica Cauchi Ph.D., BCBA-D, CPBA-AP, R.B.A. (Ont)!

Our workshop, “Sexuality Education for Those With Profound Disability: How to Improve Our Teaching,” focuses on addressing a critical gap in service delivery for individuals with profound autism and intellectual disabilities.

#ABAI2026 #BehaviourAnalysis #Autism #IntellectualDisability #ProfoundAutism #SexualityEducation

Program Details: https://www.abainternational.org/events/program-details/event-detail.aspx?sid=96358&by=Workshop&hc=1

I did a poll here for a week. 141 people responded. I was interested in #mastodon users' preferred categorization of the term "neurodiverse." The results generally confirmed my a priori predictions but had some surprises. Some takeaways for me, right now:

• Autism was in a tie for top position, unsurprising as, in my experience, autism was the first condition to be labeled "neurodiverse" or "neuroatypical", and is, I suspect, something of a prototype for the category.
• ADHD was tied (given the sample) with autism. I was mildly surprised. I think a few years ago this would not have been the case; ADHD awareness, activism, and acceptance have increased dramatically over the past few years.
• Schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, and #bipolar disorders were the next group. The inclusion of anxiety disorders surprised me; I suspected it would be tied with depression disorders.
• Personality disorders being endorsed at the same rate as depression and intellectual disability was a mild surprise.
• Psychopathy being tied with depression and intellectual disability was a pretty big surprise for me. This poll was largely about opinions and preferences, so stigma is (IMO) a big part of it. "Being a psychohpath" seems to be less stigmatized (in a specific way) than I thought... it's also possible the results would change if I'd used the word "psychopath" instead of "psychopathy."
• Intellectual disabiity (until pretty recently labeled "mental retardation" but, you know, the euphemism treadmill) was a wild card for me; I didn't know where it would end up. I would like to do a different survey sometime, with a different response format, so I could see the variability in responses. I suspect this condition (and a few others) would result in a lot of variability.
• Pedophilia was of particular interest to me. The results confirmed my strong a priori hypothesis, and this (plus psychopathy) was a major reason for wording the poll as I did, prompoting for preferences instead of a more objective assessment of the research-based fitness of each condition for the "neurodiverse" category.

More about #pedophilia: a nice, big mountain of research strongly suggests that it is a condition of altered brain development; in fact, it is probably a sexual orientation. A better survey than this simple poll might assess participants' understanding of pedophilia in addition to the question I did ask. I suspect many people confuse pedophilia with child molestation/abuse (nb: pedophilia is a pattern of attraction, not a set of behaviors, though many pedophiles have also abused children).

Both the left and right political meta-groups in the USA have latched onto "pedophile" as a label for child molestation--usually of post-pubescent children, where pedophilia is very specifically a pattern of attraction to prepubescent children. There was flirtation during Trump's first term with the more correct(ish) labels "hebephilia" and "ephebephilia", but I think the need for a stronger, more dehumanizing label won in the end, and "pedophile" packs a bigger cultural/emotional punch than "child molester."

Anyway, thanks to everyone who participated. This is fascinating enough for me that I might even do a real survey sometime. If I can get my dean to stop giving me extra classes for calling him out on his anti-labor nonsense.

Notes:

#neurodiverse #neuroatypical #poll #adhd #autism #schizophrenia #anxiety #bipolar #PersonalityDisorder #psychopathy #depression #IntellectualDisability

Following discussions elsewhere, I'm interested in who we think is #neurodiverse. Which of the following conditions do you personally think should be included under the #neurodiversity umbrella?

(one billion hashtags to include relevant communities and individuals)

#mentalhealth #psychology #autism #intellectualdisability #adhd #anxiety #depression #bipolar #schizophrenia #PersonalityDisorder #psychopathy #pedophilia

AMP just published!
"A Complex Case of Koolen-De Vries Syndrome Associated with Hypopituitarism and Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus"

A Case Report by Mafalda Félix Cabral, Francisco Branco Caetano, Carla Conceição, Diana Antunes and Lurdes Lopes – A work from Unidade Local de Saúde São José, in Lisbon.

Full paper here:
https://www.actamedicaportuguesa.com/revista/index.php/amp/article/view/22709

#multipleabnormalities #chromosomes #diabetesmellitus #hypopituitarism #intellectualdisability #genetics #actamedicaportuguesa