It’s Time to Prepare the World for Your Child
“We miss something here. Developmental delay means that much life development happens in adult life for autistics, after age 18 or 21—maybe even more so than it does for us the rest of us.”
adulthood
Knowing Why Is Everything: An Interview With Editor Elizabeth Bartmess on Adult-Diagnosed Autistic Perspectives
Knowing Why is a valuable resource for anyone who has been through the process of being diagnosed or self-diagnosed as autistic in adulthood, anyone who wants to better understand us, and anyone who might be wondering if they might be autistic themselves.
Why Supported Decision Making Is a Better Choice Than Conservatorship
Image © Falashad | Creative Commons [image: Smiling white woman with crown braids hugging a person with an auburn ponytail.] Many families or guardians assume that when high-support autistic teenagers transition to adulthood, they automatically need to be legally conserved for their own protection. But that’s isn’t necessarily true. We spoke with UCSF’s Dr. Clarissa
About That “Coming Avalanche” of Autistic Adults…
Greg Love ageofneurodiversityblog.wordpress.com Waves in Santa Cruz, California. © Wonderlane, Creative Commons [image: Ocean waves breaking on a rocky shore.] It is currently autism “awareness” month, that time of year when autistic people are told that they are costly and burdensome, that they ruin families, and—even worse—that they’re growing in numbers (oh, the horror.) A
Autism After 22: Nat’s First ISP Meeting
Susan Senator susansenator.com We had Nat’s ISP meeting today, which is basically an IEP for adults. Although there are fewer requirements for the service providers to fulfill for their clients, Nat’s service provider and also his dayhab/day program staff seem more than eager to outline comprehensive goals for him. Clearly charmed by his intense work
Sam, at Nineteen: On Transitions and Autistic School-Leavers
Charlotte Moore www.ambitiousaboutautism.org.uk Charlotte Moore is an author, journalist and Parent Patron of Ambitious about Autism. Here she writes about her hopes and fears for her son Sam as he moves on from school and in to adulthood. We hope readers will share their own experiences and opinions about this transition period. My son Sam
Autism Works: A Bottle of Sunshine
Scott Standifer Autism Works National Conference We are in the dregs of winter where I live, and I’ve got the blahs. Everything is cold and grey, the branches are bare, the patches of snow are dirty, and spring seems like it will never get here. Our family’s latest antidote has been listening to a song
Idle Thoughts on a Son’s Transition to Autistic Adulthood
Susan Senator www.susansenator.com “Well, that was school. I learned a lot.” This is what my husband Ned once imagined our son Nat might be thinking as he rode home from his very first day of school, back in 1993. The school was located in a junior college in the adjacent town; it was a mixed-disability
Wrestling with Aspergers
Sunfell Light-Headed Thoughts I have Aspergers Syndrome. It is not a formal diagnosis — few psychologists will give an adult a formal diagnosis, I’ve discovered. It was not a diagnosis when I was young — I was intellectually brilliant, but also eccentric and odd. I would not look at people when they talked to me,
IMFAR 2011: What Parents Expect For Their Autistic Children, High School and Beyond
As Peter Bell (Autism Speaks’ executive vice president for programs and services) reported at the Autism Speaks Blog, While IMFAR is first and foremost a scientific meeting, the meeting has developed into a healthy blend of science and stakeholder perspectives. John Elder Robison reported This year many scientists who have family members on the spectrum