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 […]
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
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,
Jennifer Minnelli, M.S., CCC-SLP www.autismsphere.com The grief process, for a parent coming to terms with having a child with special needs, differs from the grief process that one might undergo with the death of a close family member. At a certain point, with a death, there is the finality of the headstone, and the cold
Brian R. King, LCSW spectrummentor.com Recent headlines about the epidemic of bullying, unfortunately, point to school systems overall that appear either indifferent to bullying, referring to it in some cases as “a right of passage that children must endure as a means of building character” (one school administrator actually said this in an IEP meeting
Elise, A.K.A. aspergers2mom asd2mom.blogspot.com We have all heard the stories. That mother who just won’t listen when administrators talk about her child, the parent they delegitimize because she got frustrated and yelled at them, the one who thinks she knows her child best. So what do you do if you are faced with a
Lisa Brandolo Johnson www.grembe.com I recently read about researchers who suspect that children with autism have a different chemical fingerprint in their urine than neurotypical children. While the researchers’ claims are questionable, a urine test for autism would save me so much emotional anguish. It isn’t that I really think my son was misdiagnosed and that he
Jess at Diary of a Mom adiaryofamom.wordpress.com I wonder ~ Do you know that I sneak into your room to watch you sleep, secretly hoping that you might wake up, even for a second? When you do wake up and I’m not here, do you wonder where I am? Do you understand why Mama has
When Liz, Jen, Emily & I conjured up The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism in June 2010, I thought it would be a straightforward project like The Can I Sit With You? project that Jen & I have been running since 2007, in which we put out a call for submissions with a deadline for
Hartley Steiner www.hartleysboys.com For the purpose of this post, I am going to list sensory seeking and sensory avoidant behaviors, to paint a more accurate picture of what sensory-based behaviors look like. You can consider these ‘symptoms’ or a ‘checklist’ but my real goal in posting them is to help parents and caregivers recognize the
