THINKING PERSON'S GUIDE TO AUTISM
Autism news and resources: from autistic people, professionals, and parents
Think of your goal less about “doing it right” and more about “getting comfortable with AAC.” I’ve seen fear of being wrong all too often lead to no modeling. And I promise some modeling, modeling with mistakes, modeling slowly, all of it is better than no modeling.
We can be the teachers that our students need. We can celebrate neurodiversity while we hold ourselves to higher standards. We can provide robust education, equal access to the curriculum, and a life of autonomy and dreams. It starts with this…
Photo © US Department of Education | Creative Commons / Flickr [image: Three students at computer workstations, seen from behind.] Shannon Rosa Senior Editor Wealthy people using their privilege to bypass regular people problems like paying taxes is nothing new. But using that clout to exploit disability accommodations—to give their college-aspiring children truly unfair and also illegal advantages—is infuriating on multiple levels. As disability policy professional Rebecca Cokley noted at Teen Vogue: “This behavior is harmful because when celebrities and others with privilege use a marginalized community’s civil rights as a ‘VIP pass,’ it frames reasonable accommodations as something ‘special’ that you should be able to buy, versus actual civil rights that give people with disabilities an equal seat at the table.” Adrienne Wichard-Edds reported on the scandal for the Washington Post, from the perspectives of several irate parents of students with disabilities: “For children who really do struggle with…
Sara M. Acevedo [image: Book cover of The Out-of-Sync Child Grows Up: Title in teal text, on background photo of five older kids running across a field, from behind.] The Out-of-Sync Child Grows Up is the newest book from Carol Stock Kranowitz in her “Out-of-Sync” Child series. Subtitled “Coping With Sensory Processing Disorder in the Adolescent and Young Adult Years,” the book focuses on the everyday experiences of parents, caregivers, and medical professionals who support adolescents and young adults marked oppressively by diagnoses like Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD). Although a significant number of the concepts and practices included in this book are discredited and marked as abusive by autistic and other neurodivergent people ourselves, the book has received substantial praise from non-neurodivergent authorities in the therapeutic professions, as well as from clinicians, parents, and educators. The book has also been praised by The Children’s Hospital in Boston, and contributors of…
How many anxious people are not getting helped because access to mental health services is blocked by the lack of accommodation for the very issue that brings them seeking services in the first place?
TPGA is observing Autism Acceptance Month by featuring accounts from autistic people about the differences accommodations (or lack thereof) make in their lives. Today, John Elder Robison talks about why accommodation is important, yet may not be enough to help autistic people like him with co-occuring conditions such as anxiety. John Elder Robison jerobison.blogspot.com With April being Autism month, the folks at TPGA asked me to write about accommodations. How about anxiety, Shannon asked? Foolishly, I agreed. After thinking about the topic for hours, till smoke dribbled from my ears, I cannot conceive of any accommodation I could request around my anxiety. Photo © John Elder Robison [Image: Close up of water running over a rock in a stream.] For me, anxiety is one of the most disabling aspects of autism, and it’s with me — at least at a low level — most all the time. I am almost…
For people with sensory access needs (like reactions to scented products), accommodations are not acts of good faith or favors, they are our rights!
Photo © Just Dining Chairs | Flickr / Creative Commons [Two taupe suede dining chair with blonde wood legs on a white background.] TPGA is observing Autism Acceptance Month by featuring accounts from autistic people about the differences accommodations (or lack thereof) make in their lives. Today’s example is from Aiyana Bailin, about how small accommodations changes, in this case choices regarding chairs, can have “huge results.” Aiyana Bailin restlesshands42.wordpress.com Once, at a convention of (mostly) autistic people, I observed a peculiar phenomenon. Chairs were arranged in a large circle, and perhaps 100 attendees gathered and sat. A handful of people, myself included, took their spot in the circle, but sat on the floor in front of their chair, rather than on the chair itself. This floor-sitting evoked no signs of disapproval; after all, most autistic people know that comfort doesn’t come in one-size-fits-all. But I’m used to people being…
TPGA is observing Autism Acceptance Month by featuring accounts from autistic people about the differences accommodations (or lack thereof) make in their lives. Today we’re interviewing autistic author Corinne Duyvis about her new science fiction novel On The Edge of Gone, in which a biracial, autistic, cat-loving teen girl is forced to fight for the accommodations she needs during a post-comet strike apocalypse — and if she’s going to make it on one of the spaceships that may be humanity’s only hopes for survival. [image description: Book Cover: Teen girl with her back to the camera, in front of an urban landscape with departing spaceships. Superimposed text reads “On The Edge of Gone, Corinne Duyvis.”] Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism (TPGA): On The Edge of Gone’s main character is Denise, a Dutch autistic teen girl trying to survive what very well may be the end of the world. Dystopian narratives…
“It’s hard a lot of the time to know what I’m supposed to be paying attention to, what’s relevant to that particular conversation. I have to sift through all of the data and consciously keep track of what matters, and what doesn’t.”