Jennifer Byde Myers jennyalice.com the cashier: Diapers eh? Expensive. I bet you can’t wait until they are out of those. me: Yes, we’ll be rich. Uh, I have a special needs kid, so it may take awhile. Oh, that’s hard. Yes, mostly for him. He gets frustrated. But he’s doing great. He’s a great kid. He goes to the Amazing Autism Wunderskool. Oh, autism. Is he high or low functioning? Well, those terms really aren’t very accurate. Oh? No. For example, there are some autistics who will go to college, but may still have trouble putting their shoes on the correct foot. I have a friend like that. Does that make sense? Yes. I get it. My son has a lot of trouble with communication. He’s non-verbal, so that makes it more challenging for him to communicate his wants and needs. Huh. I have a neighbor. He’s about 30. He…
Author: Jen Myers
AIML Learning & Development @ Apple | Writer | Speaker | Autism Advocate.
Emily Willingham biologyfiles.fieldofscience.com Last week we became aware that a protocol for “treating” autism, called MMS (Miracle Mineral Solution), was presented at the most recent AutismOne conference. The convoluted science behind this “solution” would be enough to turn many people off, but the actual “treatment” is so abhorrent we wanted to make sure that people know the background of MMS. Warning: the links in this post may be a trigger because many of them point to communities that equate autism with damaged goods. -JBM AutismOne has a history of providing a platform for dubious “practioners” to showcase potentially harmful wares to a willing audience. The peddlers at this conference are no different from any other pseudoscience-pusher, including the fact that they are more than willing to take advantage of the pop culture fascination with autism, and induce a gullible audience to part ways with their money, regardless of how ineffectual,…
Dr. Evans was a keynote speaker at IMFAR 2012. His talk centered around the work that is being done based on the data collected from the longitudinal study of normal brain development at NIH. He spoke extensively about correlates that can be read from the data, for example, the relationship between cortical structure and things like IQ and testosterone levels. It would be impossible to capture the incredible amount of information in 140 character bites, but as an outline, we hope it can give you a starting point for further research. Errors, omissions and misspellings are mine.-JBM
Beautiful Toronto is a lovely setting for the explosion of information at IMFAR 2012. One way we are trying to bring the conference to those of you who could not attend is by using Twitter to “live tweet” sessions and events. Later, using Storify, we can piece back together those 140-character bites of information. The following is the Tweet story of an oral presentation entitled Friendship in ASD through the Life Span: Nature, Trajectories, Importance and Treatment. Any errors (including hastily-typed misspellings!) or omissions are mine. Please follow @thinkingautism, @jennyalice, @shannonrosa, @ejwillingham, and @aspieadvocate for more IMFAR 2012 conversation.The conference is using #IMFAR2012 to make finding and sharing information easier.-JBM
Jennifer Byde Myers jennyalice.com I wasn’t asked to have a conference with Lucy’s teacher, Ms. June, but Lucy asked me to make an appointment just the same. I sort of wanted to check-in anyway given that my daughter is already a different kind of person than I was at her age with her own way of learning things and her own worries and passions. She is enough like me that I see myself –my mannerisms, for example, and I can hear my inflections in her voice, and yet she is enough different that I do not always understand what makes her tick when I tock. So I like to get other people’s perspective on her whenever I can. We have lots of people who report about Jake to us, since he can’t tell us his stories himself. There is even a journal that travels back and forth to school each…
Sunday Stillwell Adventures in Extreme Parenthood This week hundreds of thousands will stand up and ask our family, friends, and coworkers to Spread The Word To End The Word. This means I am asking you to stop using the words “retard” and “retarded” because when you do, even if you’re joking, even if you don’t mean it as a slur, even if you’re talking about yourself what you are doing is disrespecting people with intellectual disabilities… people like my sons, Sam and Noah. Would you call my sons retards? Would you say that the ways they stim or perseverate on things is retarded? Of course you wouldn’t, but I have heard it said to them by kids on the playground who think the way Sam jumps up and down and flaps his hands looks strange, or because Noah likes to make loud screeching noises and run in circles. So I…
Jen Lee Reeves www.bornjustright.com Jen Lee Reeves is one of those people who always has a big smile and a big goal. She teaches social media and engagement at the Missouri School of Journalism and is the interactive director at KOMU 8 TV, the only university-owned commercial television station in the United States. She has built a great community on her website Born Just Right, and has plans to present on a panel at SXSW (South by Southwest) a series of conferences held in Austin that brings multimedia professionals together. She’s hoping our community can offer additional perspectives. What inspired you to get involved in the special needs community? My daughter was born in December of 2005 with a limb difference. She has a typical right arm and a left arm that stops right after the humerus and growth plate. I immediately felt the need to connect with other families…
The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism community is growing rapidly; it’s no surprise we keep getting requests about how to support our new book. Thank you, community! We appreciate every last effort to spread desperately needed positive, evidence-based autism information and advice via our book — whether you buy a book for a neighbor, an autism grandparent, the family of a child with a new diagnosis, an adult friend who may find it insightful — or buy a box of books to hand out at the next meeting you attend. There are many ways to help get the word out about the TPGA book, several of which do not require spending money. Some ideas: Post a review on Amazon.com. Tell the rest of the world why our book matters, and why it helps! Ask your library to purchase a copy of the book. The more requests a library gets, the…
Jennifer Byde Myerswww.jennyalice.com Grocery shopping this morning, a mom and her son passed by me in the floral department. She is probably in her 50’s because her son looked about 10 years older than mine… and yes, her boy plays for our team: Autism. Right down to the 6 foot 2 inches of young man flapping his hands next to the strawberries and “oooo–Wheeeeing” in the dairy section. I could tell before the stims though, it’s amazing how quickly I can spot a person with autism who’s in the same part of the spectrum as Jack. When I see another family with a special needs child, I always try to smile — at the child, or the parent, hopefully both, to show that, even though I don’t have a stamp on my forehead or my son in tow, I understand a little bit about their life. I always hope that…
Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism is available in print today! We couldn’t be more proud. It has been an amazing year and a half since we began this adventure. We’re so pleased that the great work of our contributors is now available to any person searching for reliable, experienced, positive information about autism. For all today’s smiles and pride, the truth is Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism’s inspiration was our persistent frustration with the negative autism stereotypes and misinformation we faced in parenting our children with autism, or advocating with/amplifying the signal of the amazing Autistic communities. As stated in our Mission, this book is the resource we wish we’d had when autism first became part of our lives: a one-stop source for carefully curated, evidence-based information from autism parents, autistics, and autism professionals. We want to thank all of the amazing contributors to this website, and those authors in…