Tag: Jean Winegardner

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Disability

Autism Acceptance Month 2014: Jack and Jean

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This month we’re asking our autistic community members What Do You Want? What Do You Need? We’re featuring their answers all April long, right here. Today we’re having a conversation with autistic parent advocate Jean Winegardner and her autistic son Jack. Please read, listen, and share. Note from Jean: “I told Jack (he’s almost 11 years old) about Autism Acceptance Month and explained that some people wanted me to interview him about his autism to publish on a website. He was totally on board and even went so far as to dictating the punctuation I typed as he answered. In case you couldn’t figure it out, he’s super into cats these days.” What are some things you like people to know about you? I love cats. And I think they are cute. What are some things that make you happy? Well, I was thinking about kittens and they make me…

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Disability

The Birth of an Ally

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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…

Disability

Hurricane Sandy: Autism Experiences, How to Help

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Were you affected by Hurricane Sandy? How are you doing? If you were not affected personally, do you know someone who was? If they are autistic, have you checked in on them? Do you know of additional ways for non-locals to help out besides donating to the Red Cross? Update 11/3: The sites Sailing Autistic Seas and Love That Max have put together lists of resources for our communities, please share widely (some are family-focused, others are all-ages, if you know of anything they’ve missed, please let them or us know. -SR) Sailing Autistic Seas: Hurricane Sandy Resources Love That Max: Disaster Relief for Families of Kids With Special Needs Here are three on-the-ground reports from autistics and autism families. If you know of other stories or want to add your own, please do so in the comments. Carol Greenburg @AspieAdvocate tweeted her traumatizing but necessary trip into Manhattan from…

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Disability

Coming Out Autistic at BlogHer

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Jean Winegardner @stimey So I am at BlogHer. And it is crazy and wonderful and overwhelming and fun and some of my favorite people are here and I have a lot to say about it and photos to post, but I have something rumbling around that I have to get out. I’ve been thinking a lot about my own autism at this conference. Partly because of my social and sensory issues, but also because autism is so central to what I write about. When people meet you at BlogHer, they ask what you write about. I usually say, “I write a humor blog about autism and rodents,” partly because it’s true and partly because it’s funny to see people try to digest that information. I usually follow up with, “I have a son with autism.” This year, however, when I’ve said that, it has felt less honest. This is because…

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Disability

Finding Not Even WrongLand

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Jean Winegardner www.stimeyland.com Photo courtesy of the author I am always apprehensive about parent-teacher conferences. Nothing bad ever happens. Sam has never gotten anything but glowing reviews. Quinn is Quinn, which is wonderful and charming. And Jack? Well, I always hear that he is very smart, that he is “making sufficient progress to meet goal(s).” In fact, I never really hear anything that surprises me, but I still feel angst walking in to those meetings — at least to Jack’s. Today was different. I’ve noticed Jack struggling more and more this year. I’ve started to wonder if an inclusion classroom is the best setting for him. (That’s a whole other set of angsty feelings.) I’ve started to see his autism-specific deficits bumping up against the curriculum. But here’s the thing. Jack’s teacher sees this, recognizes it for what it is, and gave him the appropriate marks to reflect it. She…

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Disability

Jean Winegardner’s Interview with Ryan Cartwright of Alphas

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Jean Winegardner www.stimeyland.com Ryan Cartwright as Gary Bell of “Alphas” I am always interested to see how television shows use autistic characters. Thanks to a column I wrote for Autism Unexpected, I was able to conduct an email interview with Ryan Cartwright, the actor who plays autistic character Gary Bell on Syfy’s show “Alphas.” Ryan had some great answers to the questions I had about creating an autistic character for television. He was interested in seeing his full answers published, and I agreed. (Don’t forget to read my full story about the show as well: “He’s not autistic, but he plays one on TV.”) Check out what Ryan had to say, and be sure to let me know if you’ve watched “Alphas” and, if you have, what you think of it and its portrayal of autism. Jean: How did you approach playing an autistic character differently than the other roles…

Disability

‘Autistic’ or ‘Person With Autism’?

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Jean Winegardner www.stimeyland.com When I write my column Autism Unexpected for Washington Times Communities, I use the words “person with autism” and “autistic person” pretty interchangeably. Every once in a while, I get a comment telling me I should use “person first” language, meaning I shouldn’t use the word “autistic” to describe a person. Because I’ve heard this criticism more than once, I feel it necessary to tell you that I not only use the word “autistic” intentionally, but thoughtfully and with purpose. The theory behind person-first language (“person with autism”) is that it recognizes the person before the disability and stresses that there is more to a person than just autism. I asked my blog readers and my Twitter followers which they preferred, and the majority, mostly parents of children with autism, reported that they prefer the person-first terminology. Person-first language is an easy philosophy to accept. It makes…

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Disability

The Autism Path

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Jean Winegardner www.stimeyland.com I feel that when I got my son Jack’s autism diagnosis, it was as if I had been given directions to a trail head that started us down a path. The path was different than the one I’d planned on and this path was rockier than the one I left behind, but still, it was a path. Walking along this autism path was better than milling around aimlessly in a meadow, unable to find a trail head of any sort. When I think of Jack’s autism and where it takes us, I can actually see this path in my mind. It is made up of dirt and rocks and it winds through and up a mountain pass. I’m walking it with Jack, and my other children walk on either side of me. Sometimes the rocks in our path cause only Jack to stumble, but sometimes they are…