Jean Winegardner

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Autism Acceptance Month 2014: Jack and Jean

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 […]

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The Birth of an Ally

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

Hurricane Sandy: Autism Experiences, How to Help

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

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Coming Out Autistic at BlogHer

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

Selfie of Jean, a white woman with long medium-brown hair, smiling. Background: a body of water and a city skyline.

Jean’s Adult Diagnosis Story

I am very grateful to have this new piece of information about myself. I don’t consider my diagnosis to be an answer to all my life’s problems, nor do I consider it to be a deficit. What I see it as is a new lens to see my behavior through.

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Finding Not Even WrongLand

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).”

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Jean Winegardner’s Interview with Ryan Cartwright of Alphas

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

‘Autistic’ or ‘Person With Autism’?

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

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The Autism Path

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

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