IMFAR: Now With More Autistic Priorities! TPGA’s 2017 Conference Report

June 3, 2017January 31, 2022 by Shannon Des Roches Rosa

Shannon Des Roches Rosa Senior Editor, TPGA Welcome to IMFAR 2017! [image: three white autistic folks: Corina Becker, Steven Kapp, & Carol Greenburg, posing by the “Welcome to IMFAR 2017” sign.] We have been reporting from IMFAR, the annual International Meeting for Autism Research, since 2011. This year we provided general live coverage via Twitter, with select roundups including the Press Conference, and highlights from sessions such as Autism and Aging, Understanding Barriers to Autism Diagnoses for Children from Racial/Ethnic Minority Groups in the U.S., Mental Health Crises in Autistic Youth, and Autism and Sexuality. We also co-hosted the #AutIMFAR chat with autistic and autism research community members. While the research presented at IMFAR continues to be varied in scope, and is still too disproportionately skewed towards prenatal, infant, and early childhood findings, our takeaway is that the 2017 meeting in San Francisco had the biggest increase in neurodiversity-oriented content and attendees we’ve seen so far.…

Disability

What Are Autistic Research Priorities? Full #AutIMFAR Discussion at IMFAR 2017

May 6, 2017January 31, 2022 by Shannon Des Roches Rosa

Even though IMFAR is all about autism, researchers don’t always connect with #autistic concerns. Hence the #AutIMFAR Twitter Chat at IMFAR 2017, which was a conversation among autistic community members and autism research community members (with plenty of participants who were both). The onsite #AutIMFAR chat crew! Fab convo w/autistic and autism research folk. [image: hotel conference room gathering of autistic & non-autistic researchers and community members, of various genders & races, mostly white.] #AutIMFAR chat was a partnership with #autchat, The Autistic Self Advocacy Network, Autism Women’s Network, NOS Magazine, and Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism. We provided pre-chat guidelines and details. [image above: The Twitter logos for five organizations: autchat: a rainbow background with a black infinity symbol and black text reading: “#autchat“; The Autistic Self Advocacy Network: a spiraling rainbow heptagon on a white background; Autism Women’s Network: a pink lowercase “a” overlaid on a light-blue-and-brown illustrations of dragonflies and flowers, above…

Disability

#AutIMFAR Twitter Chat: Conversations Between Autism Researchers and Autistic Community Members

May 1, 2017January 31, 2022 by Shannon Des Roches Rosa

A delighted announcement: TPGA is partnering with The Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN), NOS Magazine, Autism Women’s Network (AWN), and autchat to host #AutIMFAR: a Twitter-based conversation between autism researchers and autistic community members. #AutIMFAR Partner Orgs: autchat, ASAN, AWN, NOS Magazine, and TPGA [image: The Twitter logos for five organizations: autchat: a rainbow background with a black infinity symbol and black text reading: “#autchat”; The Autistic Self Advocacy Network: a spiraling rainbow heptagon on a white background; Autism Women’s Network: a pink lowercase “a” overlaid on a light-blue-and-brown illustrations of dragonflies and flowers, above the lowercase black text “autism women’s network”; NOS Magazine: a black circle on a white background, with an illustration of an incandescent light bulb drawn in white and surround by a sunburst in dashed rainbow colors; and Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism: All-caps black text on a white background reading “Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism,” with “Person’s” in white text on a black arrow.]…