THINKING PERSON'S GUIDE TO AUTISM
Autism news and resources: from autistic people, professionals, and parents
Autistic people want to work as caregivers, but the system makes it difficult for them to stay in their jobs. This is a loss for the clients, who lose an autistic mentor, and for the autistic support worker, who can be both traumatized and unemployed.
Sometimes people try to get your attention by doing things that can appear to be aggressive, but they’re really saying, “I have a problem, and I need help.”
Shannon Des Roches Rosa Senior Editor Behaviorist Charles Kinsey trying to comply with police while protecting and reassuring his autistic charge Arnaldo Rios photo via The Advocate [image: Black man lying on his back with his hands in the air, in the middle of the street, next to a seated Latino man.] Here is what we are hearing right now, in the wake of Black autistic caregiver Charles Kinsey being shot by a North Miami police officer while trying to protect and support Arnaldo Rios, a Latino autistic man who had wandered from the group home where Kinsey worked: Black people are not safe. Latino people are not safe. People of color are not safe. Autistic people are not safe. People with Disabilities are not safe. And heaven help you if you fall into more than one of those categories, or are also LGBTQ+ or otherwise a member of a…
Shannon Des Roches Rosa www.squidalicious.com www.canisitwithyou.org www.blogher.com/blog/shannon-des-roches-rosa Consider the same day, the same circumstances, the same children, the same parent – but filtered through two different attitudes: Leo and I had the worst day ever. Leo and I had the best day ever! Why does Leo always wake up so early? His sisters sleep until we shriek at them to get up, like self-respecting children should. I’m so irritated that he’s sometimes wet in the mornings. He’s never going to be fully self-sufficient. Leo got up at 6:30, but that’s certainly better than yesterday’s 6:00, and then it was his dad’s turn to attend to our early riser. And how amazing that Leo now spontaneously asks to go to the bathroom when he gets up, and is frequently dry. If you’d told me three years ago how well he’d be doing with his self-care at age eight, I wouldn’t have…