THINKING PERSON'S GUIDE TO AUTISM
Autism news and resources: from autistic people, professionals, and parents
We spoke with autistic academics Richard Woods, Kathryn Williams, and C.A. Watts about their recently published letter explaining why “profound autism” bungles the support needs of autistic people with co-occurring conditions, and will endanger autistic lives.
The thing about PDA or “Pathological Demand Avoidance” is that there are a lot of reasons why someone would resist doing something, and it’s often more complex than it appears on the surface.
The term ‘profound autism’ is not particularly useful, as “many autistic people who do not have the characteristics the authors focus on have significant support needs, and support needs can be radically different across different domains, social contexts, and time.”
We spoke with writer, public speaker, and autism self-advocate Gyasi Burks-Abbott about growing up Black and autistic in a much less autism-aware era, and how he was able to thrive thanks to the guidance of his intuitive and supportive mother.
We spoke with autistic advocate and autism pseudoscience watchdog Anne Borden King about the continued proliferation of questionable and outright fraudulent “treatments” for autism.
The new 1 in 36 autism rate means the CDC is getting better at finding and diagnosing existing autistic children, not that there is actually a higher rate of autism.
If you’re the parent of autistic child or adult, and you are also horrified by the blatant misinformation being peddled and swallowed by MAGA truthers, you should be just as concerned about grievance-based autism parents and organizations.
We talked with several autistic people about how non-autistic people can be good friends to autistic people. This is their advice.
“I have to be realistic about the community that I am nurturing in, and the community for my children and for the parents that I help, as a Black autistic woman.”
I want to help my patients discover what strategies they as individuals can use in order to accomplish what they want and need to do, and I think I’m more likely to be open to supporting my patients in using “atypical” strategies. I’m less likely to suggest goals that are trying to fit a patient to a “reference norm”.