Jennifer Byde Myers and Shannon Des Roches Rosa www.SEPTAR.org Community is critical for parents of children with special needs. Community gives us emotional support and provides information about our kids’ therapeutic, medical, and educational choices. Our communities have the experience and knowledge to weigh in on our decisions; its members empathize and help us keep going when times are hard, and they rejoice with us in our children’s accomplishments. It’s not always easy to connect with parents like us. These kids we love so much are vulnerable, they need us – and the demands of our extra-intense parenting can leave us feeling drained and isolated. But if you can muster a burst of energy and round up a few like-minded individuals, then you can create your own community: by forming a Special Education Parent Teacher Association, or SEPTA. That is what we did when we helped found SEPTAR, the Special…
Month: November 2010
Though it seemed like business as usual here at The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism on Monday, November 1, our editors were participating in The Coffee Klatch’s Communicate to Educate 24 hour tweetchat instead of the same-day “Shut Down” autism fundraising campaign. We’ll let some of our favorite activists and advocates explain why we spoke out instead of shutting down: Steve Silberman at NeuroTribes: The idea that going virtually mute is an appropriate way to honor autistic people — for whom the Net has opened new avenues of communication and community building — does not sit well with some autistic self-advocates. TPGA Contributor Corina Becker: I was recently asked by a person on Twitter to participate, and I responded that there wasn’t much of a point, since I am Autistic, and do not require to learn about difficulties that I myself face in communicating. I pointed out to this person…
Karen B. Golightly Last summer I took my three kids to Costa Rica to meet with two other families. For most parents, this would be a pretty big feat. For me, it was a bit more than that. I’m a single mother of three children, aged 14, 11, and 5. Pip, the five year old, has autism, mostly manifested in transitions and lack of much verbal communication. So, let’s drag the crew to a tropical country, where I’ve never been before and don’t speak the language, during the rainy season. I figured, we’d done Disney the year before, Costa Rica would be a breeze. There were a few problems. I didn’t figure in the fact that the rental agency wouldn’t have an automatic car, or that I’d have to drive four hours, over a treacherous mountain range, in a huge pick-up truck with a camper on the back, with my…