Kate When I was a fifteen years old, my psychiatrist told me that in ten years’ time, there would be a machine that would scan my brain and tell the doctors exactly what medicine to give me to make me normal, to make me whole. That was thirteen years ago, and though I have not yet heard of any such machine, I’ve realized that I never needed it. What I needed was acceptance. What I needed was love. These are the things that made me realize that I had, in fact, been whole all along. Sometimes, I feel as if my life were a long, cold winter, and that spring took a very long time coming. Like many autistic adults, I did not have an easy time of it growing up. Even in adulthood, I struggled with loneliness, employment, and a host of other issues. Though I was almost…
Tag: ASAN
We’re featuring “Slice of Life” conversations with Autistics of all ages — kids through adults — throughout April’s Autism Acceptance Month. Today we’re talking with Lydia Brown, who is eighteen, attends Georgetown University, and is an intern at the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network‘s national office. What is your name? Lydia Brown Do you have a website or are you on Twitter? www.autismeducationproject.org & www.autistichoya.blogspot.com What would you like a one-sentence description of yourself to say? I am a neologist, a writer, and a student who gorges frequently on hot chocolate. Do you have any autistic superpowers? What are they? I have very hypersensitive hearing, and I also learn languages very quickly. Not so fast as to be on par with Daniel Tammet, but much more quickly than the average person. According to some native Spanish speakers, I’ve lost any trace of an American accent in my spoken Spanish. I can also…
Sarah Pripas www.autisticadvocacy.org “Nothing about us without us” is the unofficial motto of the disability rights movement, yet discussions of disability continue to occur without people with disabilities at the table. One of the latest occurrences of this is in California, where the Department of Managed Healthcare recently announced the formation of an Autism Advisory Task Force. Of the eighteen people appointed to the task force, not a single one is autistic. While it is, unfortunately, commonplace for autistic people to be absent from government-appointed task forces related to autism, that doesn’t make it acceptable. The California chapters of the Autistic-Self Advocacy Network (Los Angeles, Sacramento, and San Jose) are asking that the Department of Managed Healthcare rectify this omission by appointing at least one autistic person to the task force. If you would like to tell the Department that autistic people should be represented on this panel, please sign…
Julia Bascom juststimming.wordpress.com Our Story: The Loud Hands Project is a publishing effort by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. Currently, we are raising money towards the creation of our first and foundational anthology (Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking) and accompanying website. Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking features essays, long and short, by Autistic authors writing on autism acceptance, neurodiversity, Autistic pride and culture, disability rights and resistance, and resilience (known collectively by the community as having loud hands). Questions posed to the contributors might include what does autism mean to you; why does Autistic culture matter; what do you wish you had known growing up Autistic; how can the Autistic community cultivate resilience; what does “loud hands” mean to you; and how do you have loud hands? The anthology is the first of a projected series featuring contributions from Autistic writers stressing the preservation and celebration of Autistic culture and…
Though wandering or “elopement” is not a safety concern exclusive to the autism community, it is a hot topic due to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) proposal to make wandering a medical diagnostic code. While those behind the proposal argue that codifying and diagnosing wandering will lead to increased data and a better understanding of prevalence, critics worry that a medical diagnosis for wandering could lead to involuntary restraint and abuse of vulnerable autistics. At the Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism, part of our mission is to support good science, and that starts with good data. With this in mind, we interviewed two advocates of the Interactive Autism Network (IAN)’s survey on wandering and elopement (escaping) among individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD): Lori, whose son Connor has autism and for whom wandering is a serious safety issue; and Dr. Paul Law, Director of the Interactive Autism…