Autism Acceptance Month 2014: Jason Ross

April 24, 2014January 31, 2022 by Jen Myers

This month we’re asking our autistic community members What Do You Want? What Do You Need? We’re featuring their answers all April long, right here. Today we’re having a conversation with Jason Ross, a self-advocate who thrives on empowering others. Please read, listen, and share. What are some things you like people to know about you? I run Self-Advocacy/Empowerment meetings part-time, helping many people who are autistic, have developmental disabilities, ID, or mental health issues. These people who are residents and day habilitation consumers in New York City feel that they have a voice and the same real choices that everyone else has. I create presentations every week, and curriculum that I try to get everyone to follow to help create a sense of worthiness for everyone. Empowering others really empowers not only them, but myself as well. I also run the Adaptations Facebook page for the JCC in Manhattan…

Disability

We Do Not Cross the Line

September 11, 2013January 31, 2022 by Jen Myers

Jennifer Byde Myers jennyalice.com Just after the recent murder of Alex Spourdalakis, yet another parent has attempted to murder her autistic child. Services to help families are not available to the degree they are needed, often leaving parents of children with intense needs feeling abandoned, depressed, suicidal and, in some cases, homicidal. I just sincerely wish these conversations could be separate. They must remain separate. I know how it happens, how the conversations seem like they should go together. As parents of kids with intense needs, medical, mental or physical, we are each slogging through life, with easy days and hard days and harder days, until something really bad happens, then we are triggered to say to the world, “See, look how hard this is. Why doesn’t anyone care?” But the problem is that caregivers say this at the very same same time that someone was trying to kill their…

Disability

Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism: The Book

June 7, 2013January 31, 2022 by Jen Myers

We’re excited to let you know that Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism is coming to Kepler’s Bookstore in Menlo Park on Tuesday June 25th at 7:30 pm. Editors Shannon Des Roches Rosa, Jennifer Byde Myers, and Emily Willingham, along with contributors Laura Shumaker and Susan Walton will be on the panel. We’ll do a bit of reading, and have plenty of time for questions and answers. We’re hoping there will be other Bay Area contributors at the event as well. If there is anything you’d like us to share at the reading please leave a comment below and we will do our best to cover the subject. Thank you for your continued support of Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism. -The Editors Share this event on Facebook If you are interested in having someone from Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism speak at your event or local bookstore please contact us at…

Disability

Parenting in the Park

May 15, 2013January 31, 2022 by Jen Myers

arbitrary I took both of my children to the park the other day. It shouldn’t be some sort of big announcement that a mom takes her kids to the park, but I was by myself with my two children, who have very different, needs, wants, and abilities, and I am a chicken. There. I said it. I am a scaredy-cat when it comes to taking my kids out into open, uncontrolled situations by myself, unless Jack is buckled into his wheelchair. He has escaped my grasp so many times, wrenching my shoulder as he goes; there are dangerous situations around every corner, and he is fast. And as mature and amazing Katie is at 5, she really is still a small child who deserves to be looked after on a busy street, or a park… but it is summer, and my children are convincing, so I took them. Katie providing…

Disability

Letting Tears Flow

May 1, 2013January 31, 2022 by Jen Myers

Melody Latimer asparenting.com At some point, everyone will have to deal with loss and grief. Whether it’s the loss of a pet, relative, or friend, it can affect us in ways we never expected. I recently suffered a loss that was unexpected and quite possibly the hardest thing I’ve ever had to endure in my life. We hear sayings like, “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger?” and “There’s a purpose in everything.” In the moment, these things can sound like, “You’re making a bigger deal out of this than is necessary.” I’ve been lucky to not hear any of those dismissive statements. But there are some lessons I have learned: Take your time. There’s no set amount of time that you are supposed to handle getting over the loss of someone or something you care about. Sometimes, you never get over the loss, and it’s just a matter of…

Disability

Autism: When the Right Message Goes Mainstream

April 23, 2013January 31, 2022 by Jen Myers

Jennifer Byde Myers jennyalice.com We want April — Autism Acceptance Month — to matter, to help further acceptance and understanding of autistic experiences, happiness, and rights for autistic people of all ages and abilities. We will be publishing Autism Acceptance posts and pictures all month long. -TPGA Editors When we first started Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism (TPGA), our goal was to put, all in one place, the best information from autistics, parents of autistic children, and the professionals who serve our communities. We always felt it was key to deliver this information with frankness and with honesty, especially regarding autistic struggles, and challenges with aspects of education and parenting. We did not want to seek pity, or place blame. Instead, we sought to highlight neurodiversity as part of the fabric of humanity, part of what it means to be human. We wanted to present a variety of perspectives about…

Disability

Book Review-And Straight On til Morning : Essays on Autism Acceptance

April 19, 2013January 31, 2022 by Jen Myers

And Straight On til Morning : Essays on Autism Acceptance edited by Julia Bascom Published by the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network We want April — Autism Acceptance Month — to matter, to help further acceptance and understanding of autistic experiences, happiness, and rights for autistic people of all ages and abilities. We will be publishing your Autism Acceptance posts and pictures all month long. If you want to participate, contact us at thinkingautism at gmail dot com. -TPGA Editors In keeping with Autism Acceptance month, there probably isn’t a more appropriate book to share than And Straight On til Morning : Essays on Autism Acceptance, which contains the work of wonderful Autistics and allies, including Zoe Gross, Shain Neumeier, Lydia Brown, as well as Kassiane Sibley, and Shannon Des Roches Rosa from TPGA. Julia Bascom edited the collection, and in its current format, an ebook, it is available quickly, and very…

Disability

Autism Acceptance: We All Grow Up

April 12, 2013January 31, 2022 by Jen Myers

Jennifer Byde Myers jennyalice.com We want April — Autism Acceptance Month — to matter, to help further acceptance and understanding of autistic experiences, happiness, and rights for autistic people of all ages and abilities. We will be publishing your Autism Acceptance posts and pictures all month long. If you want to participate, contact us at thinkingautism at gmail dot com. -TPGA Editors I heard a crunchy sound from a mouth that should have been empty. It is a horrible feeling when I think one of my children has eaten something dangerous. We’ve been pretty lucky around here, the most inedible items actually swallowed aren’t really inedible, the cut-off tops to strawberries, nibbles of wine corks, a little raw onion, a small piece of crayon; nothing really harmful at all. So when I heard the crunchy, chomping-on-china-plates sound, I begged Jack to spit out what was in his mouth. He…

Disability

The Birth of an Ally

April 4, 2013January 31, 2022 by Jen Myers

Jean Winegardner www.stimeyland.com We want April — Autism Acceptance Month — to matter, to help further acceptance and understanding of autistic experiences, happiness, and rights for autistic people of all ages and abilities. We will be publishing your Autism Acceptance posts and pictures all month long. If you want to participate, contact us at thinkingautism at gmail dot com. -TPGA Editors Each year there is a Disability Day of Mourning to honor and remember disabled people killed by their parents or caregivers. Vigils are held around the country for people to gather for this purpose. I had been to last year’s vigil and decided to go again this year, but this year I was going to bring my kids. At first, the idea of taking my kids, at least one of whom is autistic, to an event where people would be talking about parents killing their autistic children seemed wildly…

Disability

Autism Shock Therapy Practiced In US Is Torture, Says UN Official

March 20, 2013January 31, 2022 by Jen Myers

Emily Willingham www.emilywillinghamphd.com www.forbes.com/sites/emilywillingham Trigger warning: discussion of Judge Rotenberg Center, aversives, mistreatment of autistics Some practices used as “therapy” for autism in the United States amount to torture, a U.N. representative says. The U.N.’s Juan Mendez is the organization’s special rapporteur on torture, and in his report examining torture worldwide, he’s called out the only facility in the United States that uses “skin shocks” to ‘treat’ people with severe mental illness or developmental disabilities, including autism. That facility is the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC), formerly the Behavioral Research Institute. While it once was located in California and then moved to Rhode Island, the facility is now sited in Massachusetts. Mendez expresses concern in his report (p. 84) that if Massachusetts becomes too hot to hold the JRC, the center might simply relocate again, and he urges action at the federal level to end the use of such aversives…