A while back, Autism Diva wrote about some testimony I gave as a witness in Canada's Senate. This was for the Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology hearings about autism treatment funding (and about a national autism strategy).
The official transcript of the hearing where I spoke has now been posted. You can find it here.
I haven't looked through it carefully, but at least some of the errors in the first effort at transcribing have been corrected. I can spot one place where my correction wasn't accepted, and the "correction" is worse than the original. I was trying to say "Boyd and Corley", and now they are insisting that I said "Boyd and Connelly", which gives a fair indication of how poor my enunciation can be when I'm not reading word for word from a script. And when I'm stressed right out. I've just spotted another place where something that was correct first time around was changed so it is now incorrect, based no doubt on my lousy articulation. I'm definitely a stenographer's nightmare.
Last time I appeared before this Committee, I read my brief word for word. In this case, I had insufficient warning, and apart from the words I had from other people, who were generous in allowing me to present their writing, I was not prepared at all.
I remember vaguely that after I spoke and I was sitting there shaking, an enthusiastic person rushed up to me and said things and I had to ask, "Who are you?", and it turned out to be one of the Senators. That was right before I was whisked out of the room and backwards through security and out to a taxi stand because I was about to be late for my train (the last one to leave town).
