Today is Autistics Speaking Day. Why? This is why. From our archives. Corina Becker autisticsspeakingday.blogspot.com It started sometime mid-October 2010. I was browsing the internet, following links off of Twitter to new places I hadn’t been, when something caught my eye. A new autism awareness campaign, it advertised itself as a way to raise money for charities around the world and for people to understand autism better. Curious, and ignoring the growing dread in the pit of my stomach, I clicked the link and took a look. What I found was Communication Shutdown, an event started by a group in Australia that promoted people to refrain from going on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter for one day, November 1st. It said that it would help people to understand the communication difficulties that people with autism struggle with, and this will help people to know autism better. Also,…
Tag: activism
Samantha Bodwell autismacceptancedigest.blogspot.com We came, we saw, we marched! Yes, ladies and gentleman, a small and very passionate group of Autistic adults attended the first event of the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington, on Saturday August 24th, to highlight the needs of the Autistic Community. The week-long anniversary celebrations kicked off on Saturday and featured speakers of the likes of Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King, III. The anniversary festivities began at 8:00am with a rally at the Lincoln Memorial which included a speaker from Planned Parenthood, various reverends from across the country, and other individuals highlighting Civil Rights issues, all of whom electrified the assembled masses along both sides of the Reflecting Pool. Following the rally there was a march to the newly erected Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial. I organize a group for my fellow Autistic adults in the Washington, D.C. area called the Adult Autism…
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…
Samantha Bodwell www.zazzle.com/moonnymph* 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 My name is Samantha Bodwell, I am the sole Autistic on the board of the Autism Society of Northern Virginia and due to my suggestion and further urging my board voted unanimously in November of 2011 to rename April Autism Acceptance Month! 🙂 I am not a token Autistic, like some are on majority Neurotypical boards, but a full contributing member! 🙂 This is the second annual celebration of Autism Acceptance Month here in Northern Virginia. In honor of Autism Acceptance Month I have made a sign and posted…
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…
Shameful shamefuldocumentary.com Alex Plank and NoahTrevino are wrapping up editing on a documentary film entitled “Shameful”, which reveals the negative treatment and educational neglect of autistic youth in France, and the dramatic effect it has on those families. They traveled throughout France for over a month interviewing parents and meeting young autistic children in their homes, capturing the frustration, and angst of caretakers as they try to navigate a system that both blames the presence of autism on parents, and neglects to provide any educational structure for the children. I spoke with them several weeks ago. What led you to the Project? We heard about the issues in France through a conversation and thought that the topic would be a good fit for documentary. We had heard about “packing” [a controversial treatment where children are wrapped in wet sheets for hours at a time, which is often repeated over…
We’re featuring “Slice of Life” conversations with Autistics of all ages — kids through adults — throughout April’s Autism Acceptance Month. Our goal is to help TPGA readers understand that autistic people are people who have interesting, complicated lives and who are as diverse and varied as any other population united by a label. We are the people in each other’s neighborhoods, and the more we know about each other — the more visible autistic people and children are — the more common autism acceptance will be. That is our hope. Today we’re talking with eleven year old Leo, who prefers action to conversation. He answered the first two questions below himself, otherwise the answers are mostly videos, photos, and his mother’s observations, which she hopes are accurate — and which are in italics. Transcription: What is your name? Leo Rosa. How old are you? Eleven years old. He is…
Mustafa & Kerima We’re featuring “Slice of Life” conversations with Autistics of all ages — kids through adults — throughout April’s Autism Acceptance Month. Our goal is to help TPGA readers understand that autistic people are people who have interesting, complicated lives and who are as diverse and varied as any other population united by a label. We are the people in each other’s neighborhoods, and the more we know about each other — the more visible autistic people and children are — the more common autism acceptance will be. That is our hope. Today we’re talking Mustafa, who loves to swim. His mother Kerima Çevik rephrased our Slice of Life questions so Mustafa could answer them using the iPod app Answers Yes/No. Is your name Mustafa Nuri Cevik? Yes. Is this your favorite website [points to http://www.redfishsoup.com/]? yesyes. Do you have any autistic superpowers? no. Are you happy today?…
We’re featuring “Slice of Life” conversations with Autistics of all ages — kids through adults — throughout April’s Autism Acceptance Month. Our goal is to help TPGA readers understand that autistic people are people who have interesting, complicated lives and who are as diverse and varied as any other population united by a label. We are the people in each other’s neighborhoods, and the more we know about each other — the more visible autistic people and children are — the more common autism acceptance will be. That is our hope. Today we’re talking with fourth grader Jason, whose father blogs at onedadsopinion.blogspot.com. Do you have any autistic superpowers? What are they? Reading. If you count a twelfth grade, I think, reading level as a fourth grader. Also I consider myself a brilliant writer, but I prefer to be tapping keys on the keyboard (I am a touch-typer) than hitting…
We’re featuring “Slice of Life” conversations with Autistics of all ages — kids through adults — throughout April’s Autism Acceptance Month. Our goal is to help TPGA readers understand that autistic people are people who have interesting, complicated lives and who are as diverse and varied as any other population united by a label. We are the people in each other’s neighborhoods, and the more we know about each other — the more visible autistic people and children are — the more common autism acceptance will be. That is our hope. Today we’re talking with entomology academic & enthusiast Jaden, who is also a tattoo collector and musician. What is your name and age? Jaden. I’m 31. Do you have a website? Several: Personal (for my music): theeternalmusic.com Twitter: twitter.com/theeternal Autism advocacy: aspergersissues.tumblr.com Professional (entomology): boyandbugs.blogspot.com What would you like a one-sentence description of yourself to say? Entomologist, musician, and…