Sunday, December 19, 2010

Pathos, Ethos and Logos

Pathos, Ethos, and Logos are usually terms generally reserved for those scholarly or academic types but I believe that even though that they are not in common use currently, they should be in current use. This is because pathos, ethos, and logos have to do with the very core of how we talk to others or persaude others to accept a idea or task. Basically scholars call these the pillars of public speaking. Right off the batI will telll you my primary pillar even though all people use all three, it is still important to be able to recognize your primary pillar. Mine for example is that of logos. If I was forced to choose something else besides that of logos I would prefer Ethos over pathos. Most of the people though, mainly those that the autism spectrum disorders people call neurotypicals (NTs) use Pathos. I bet right about now you are bored and have given up, want to read on to find out the definition, ir have already googled these three pillars. So instead of making a person wait any longer I will define them very briefly for this post and later I will try to create posts that examine each pillar in depth.

Logos- the appeal to logic

Pathos- The appeal to emotions

Ethos- the Appeal to the credibility or character of the speaker

signing off
mark

Monday, November 29, 2010

About Me

Hello All, since this is my first post for this blog I guess it is time to brag and give you a short history of myself. Eventually I will be putting a condensed version of this about me post in the right navigation bar but that will have to wait until I get some more time, I just wanted to get this up tonight since I have been thinking about it more and more lately.

First off I should probably tell you my name since I have just been talking in first person, so my name is mark and I am a sophomore college student living with my parents in Anchorage, alaska. I attend school at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Officially I am signed up as a pre-major nursing student but unofficially I think that I want to do a double major in Nursing and Computer Science and the get a masters degree in either Nursing, Public Health, or computer science. Obviously, as of right now I am not exactly sure what I am going to do.

But now lets talk a little bit about aspergers syndrome, I as a aspie or AS kid was diagnosed on July 7, 2010 and after this date I told my mom and she was willing to accept it but she still has a lot to learn about AS, it is just so hard for those that are not on the spectrum to truly understand what is going on that is partly because our brains are wired differently than ours. Normal people or neurotypicals or NTs for short just have a hard time understanding how AS people's minds work. My dad on the other hand did not take the situation as well as I would have liked. He still too this day in my mind is still not willing to accept after all the psychological, neurobehavioral, IQ, and cognitive tests I have been through as a kid did not catch this. My response to him was that in pretty muh every test I had done if you asked the person if I had autistic tendencies they would have said yes. I know that that is a giant leap from tendencies to official diagnosis but this was brought on because in college I realized how poorly trained I was in the nuances of social etiquette and behavior. My explain may sound like a excuse or a fall back maybe it is maybe it isn't but the fact remains that the one who should decide if it is a excuse is the person that is using it that way. I do not believe that people should get involved when another is making excuses for why he/she is behaving a certain way or acting a certain way. It really isn't there business.

I received intensive special education services including Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, Speech Therapy, psychological counseling and assistance, and finally in classroom assistance. Eventually though more and more of these services were removed and in middle school and high school the three basic services I received was notetaking assistance/laptop use in class, extended time on tests and assignments, and some assistance in regards to developing social skills. All of the above services were fine for middle school but in high school I had problems with the last service in that the schools were just not equipped to teach me the skills that I needed to learn.

Well that is probably enough information for tonight, looks like there may be a part 2 and 3 to the about me series of posts but who knows maybe this will be all I give you

signing off
Aspie Mark West