Recommendationㆍ3
Translator's Prefaceㆍ6
Autistic view that 'establishes meaning or action slowly and carefully'ㆍ14

Chapter 1: Listening to Your Inner Voice: Are You Hungry?ㆍ21

1.
Self-introduction of the bodyㆍ22
2.
Action Start Buttonㆍ31
3.
Establishment of concrete actionsㆍ40
4.
Is it cold today?ㆍ47
5.
Is it a cold, depression, or just fatigue?ㆍ52

Chapter 2: Hearing the Voices of the Outside World: Contact with the Worldㆍ59

1.
What is Sensory Saturation?ㆍ60
2.
Saturation of 'External Stimuli': An Example of Visual Saturationㆍ62
3.
The Saturation of "Self-Introductions of Things": An Example of Auditory Saturationㆍ68
4.
The saturation of 'affordance'ㆍ71
5.
A daily life overflowing with voicesㆍ72
6.
Reconsidering the Terms "Hypersensitivity" and "Dampened Sensitivity"ㆍ75

Chapter 3: Dream or Realityㆍ83

1.
Dream Invasionㆍ84
2.
Entrance to Dreamsㆍ87
3.
Dream Worldㆍ89
4.
After the Dreamㆍ99

Chapter 4: Shaking Typefaces, Unraveling Self-Images: Annoying "Intrusions"ㆍ105

1.
Intrusion of Movement: Intrusion of Established Patterns of Behavior, Type 1ㆍ107
2.
Character Intrusion: Intrusion of Established Behavior Patterns, Type 2ㆍ110
3.
The Relationship Between "Patterns of Establishing Action" and "Patterns of Establishing Meaning"ㆍ114
4.
The Fluctuation of the Typewriter: "Intrusion of the Pattern of Establishing Meaning," Type 117
5.
Self-Image Disruption: The Second Type of "Intrusion into the Pattern of Meaning Establishment"ㆍ119
6.
The Difficulty of 'Pretending to Be Ordinary', That is, 'Socializing'ㆍ120

Chapter 5: Finding a Voice Alternative: Becoming Free by Relinquishing Your Wordsㆍ127

1.
My Story with the Voice: Acquiring Sign Languageㆍ128
2.
The Unspeakable Senseㆍ137
3.
Culturally Based Support for People Who Can't Hearㆍ145
4.
Singing in Sign Languageㆍ160

Chapter 6: From Dream to Realityㆍ169

1.
Interaction with Oriental Medicineㆍ170
2.
Physical Changes After Eatingㆍ172
3.
Spatial Perception through Soundㆍ175
4.
The Effect of Moonlightㆍ177
5.
The Voice of Grass and Treesㆍ181

Chapter 7: The Connection Between "Marginalized Beings": On Co-Authorshipㆍ189

1.
Repeating the experiences of those with cerebral palsyㆍ190
2.
The 'Unestablished' of the Byun's Lawㆍ192
3.
Electric wheelchairs and affordancesㆍ196
4.
Dream Intrusion During Rehabilitationㆍ199
5.
Connecting with Things Through Tracesㆍ203
6.
Connecting the "Marginalized" Partiesㆍ207

Conclusion: Neither the Same nor Differentㆍ211

A Map of Knowledge Rewritten from the Voices of People with Disabilities
: How can we live well with sensory sensitivity and autistic traits?

For a long time, ‘research’ was done by experts.
In conventional research, the experiences of the parties involved were the 'data', and the authority to interpret them rested with the experts.
However, the 'stakeholder research' that began in Hokkaido, Japan in the early 2000s fundamentally changed this structure.
Now, the parties are no longer providers of data, but subjects of research.
By observing and interpreting their own experiences and those of their colleagues, and by presenting and publishing the results of their own research, they began to directly participate in the production of new knowledge for society.

This book is the result of the author's meticulous personal research on people with developmental disabilities.
The author goes beyond the medicalized language of “symptoms” and, together with colleagues, crafts his lived experience of living with neurodiversity, which is different from others, in his own words.
This practice has become established as a collective intellectual undertaking that goes beyond mere individual self-understanding and allows for a new way of thinking about the lives of people with mental and developmental disabilities who have been excluded from the social structure.

The lives of people with developmental disabilities as 'beings who slowly and carefully establish meaning and action'

In this book, autism and other mental disorders are not simply diagnoses, but a way of life lived with a different body and mind.
In the process of exploring himself, the author actively utilizes the 'self-naming of illnesses' method developed in the practice of Japanese party research.
If an externally assigned 'diagnosis', such as autism spectrum disorder or social anxiety disorder, is a description of an experience given by a third party, 'self-naming' is "a language established by myself to identify and name the events that actually occur in my body."
Instead of a neutral term like 'sensory hypersensitivity', which lacks the description of subjective experience, the author develops words that capture creative and profound phenomena of the subject's experience, such as 'self-introduction of body and objects', 'action start button', 'visual saturation', and 'dream intrusion'.
Furthermore, the author creates a 'self-prescription' to respond to his own diagnosis.
When hunger, fatigue, and anxiety all pile up in a jumble of internal and external sensations, I try to delicately and name the confusing sensations with my colleagues, and then think about how to relate to the sensations that have been named.

This book demonstrates the art of taking life's steps slowly, through the writing of a neurodiverse person.
This is where the power of party research lies.
Research no longer remains confined to the academic papers of experts, but moves toward embodied knowledge of the participants, who support each other through joint exploration of their own lives in everyday life.

When ‘research’ becomes ‘solidarity’

The scenes of collaborative writing revealed in the latter half of the book—the moments when "marginalized beings" with cerebral palsy, dyslexia, and sensory sensitivity share their experiences and complement each other's languages—show a scene where "research" becomes "solidarity."
Author Kumagaya, who uses a wheelchair due to cerebral palsy, and author Ayaya, who struggles with neurodiversity and how she relates to her body and the world, forge a common bond through their vastly different experiences.
The small prescriptions and rules born from joint research by the parties expand beyond individual skills into a cultural and social infrastructure that allows everyone to live together.
In this way, the study of the parties creates a connection, or 'solidarity', between each other by 'studying' their own way of living while embracing the uniqueness of their body and mind.
The research begins with me, but inevitably ends with us.

The questions raised by the “Study on Developmental Disabilities” are not simple.
How do we relate to the uniqueness of our own bodies and minds? How do we approach the differences between our bodies and minds? What is the right way to relate to our bodies, the world, and others? This book joyfully invites readers on a fertile journey that re-examines the fundamental ways in which humans relate to their bodies, the world, and each other.