Tag: Jennifer Byde Myers

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Disability

Advocating for TPGA Principles at the UCSF Developmental Disabilities Conference

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One week ago, TPGA editors Shannon Des Roches Rosa, Jennifer Byde Myers, Emily Willingham, and Carol Greenburg spoke as a group at the University of San Francisco’s Developmental Disabilities Conference. It was an honor and a privilege to talk with a group of (mostly) professionals about how we use the power of social media to support our principles and TPGA’s mission, including autism acceptance and civil rights for people with disabilities, evidence-based approaches to autism supports and research, and debunking autism myths and misinformation. TPGA editrixes, post-UCSF session Shannon, who opened the discussion, is TPGA’s senior editor, and the parent of an autistic child. Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism (TPGA) is a book, a blog, and a community. We aim to support autistic people and their families, counter negative media messages and autism stigma, and provide positive autism attitude role models. We created TPGA in 2010 to be the resource…

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Disability

Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism: The Book

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We’re excited to let you know that Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism is coming to Kepler’s Bookstore in Menlo Park on Tuesday June 25th at 7:30 pm.  Editors Shannon Des Roches Rosa, Jennifer Byde Myers, and Emily Willingham, along with contributors Laura Shumaker and Susan Walton will be on the panel. We’ll do a bit of reading, and have plenty of time for questions and answers. We’re hoping there will be other Bay Area contributors at the event as well. If there is anything you’d like us to share at the reading please leave a comment below and we will do our best to cover the subject. Thank you for your continued support of Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism. -The Editors Share this event on Facebook If you are interested in having someone from Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism speak at your event or local bookstore please contact us at…

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Disability

Parenting in the Park

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arbitrary I took both of my children to the park the other day. It shouldn’t be some sort of big announcement that a mom takes her kids to the park, but I was by myself with my two children, who have very different, needs, wants, and abilities, and I am a chicken. There. I said it. I am a scaredy-cat when it comes to taking my kids out into open, uncontrolled situations by myself, unless Jack is buckled into his wheelchair. He has escaped my grasp so many times, wrenching my shoulder as he goes; there are dangerous situations around every corner, and he is fast. And as mature and amazing Katie is at 5, she really is still a small child who deserves to be looked after on a busy street, or a park… but it is summer, and my children are convincing, so I took them. Katie providing…

Disability

Autism: When the Right Message Goes Mainstream

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Jennifer Byde Myers jennyalice.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 Autism Acceptance posts and pictures all month long. -TPGA Editors When we first started Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism (TPGA), our goal was to put, all in one place, the best information from autistics, parents of autistic children, and the professionals who serve our communities. We always felt it was key to deliver this information with frankness and with honesty, especially regarding autistic struggles, and challenges with aspects of education and parenting. We did not want to seek pity, or place blame. Instead, we sought to highlight neurodiversity as part of the fabric of humanity, part of what it means to be human. We wanted to present a variety of perspectives about…

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Disability

Autism Acceptance: We All Grow Up

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Jennifer Byde Myers jennyalice.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   I heard a crunchy sound from a mouth that should have been empty. It is a horrible feeling when I think one of my children has eaten something dangerous. We’ve been pretty lucky around here, the most inedible items actually swallowed aren’t really inedible, the cut-off tops to strawberries, nibbles of wine corks, a little raw onion, a small piece of crayon; nothing really harmful at all. So when I heard the crunchy, chomping-on-china-plates sound, I begged Jack to spit out what was in his mouth. He…

Disability

Autism Sweeps

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Jennifer Byde Myers jennyalice.com I get a note each afternoon from my son’s teacher. She emails me and let’s me know what Jack did that day, any struggles he had, and provides information about what’s happening in the classroom, and around the school. It’s efficient, an easy way for me to catch up on what he’s doing in school, and a great way for each side of the equation to have context for conversation with Jack.  When we go out to dinner at Jack’s favorite restaurant, I write his teacher, then she and the aides can ask him questions about what he did the night before. It’s also great that the email goes to both my husband and me. So many times in the past I would read Jack’s little school journal, or talk to the teacher when I picked up Jack from school, and that information would never make…

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Disability

2012 at Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism

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2012 was an eventful year at Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism: Our book drew much acclaim, three new editors joined our team, we featured more than 30 profiles of Autistic kids and adults for April’s Slice of Life series, we went to the International Meeting for Autism Research in Toronto, our Facebook community hit and surpassed 10,000 members while remaining a nexus for thoughtful autism news and conversation, and we were cited and our editors were interviewed frequently — especially whenever autism made headlines. We also continued to publish thought-provoking and educational essays and interviews on this site, and all enjoyed and learned from the ensuing discussions. The 15 TPGA posts (with excerpts) below were 2012’s most popular — meaning hotly debated and/or praised — and give a sense of what we in the Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism community had on our minds these past twelve months. Thank you…

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Disability

Does Your Area Have Disability-Friendly Museum Days?

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Shannon Des Roches Rosa   www.squidalicious.com    Parallel exploration is a very reasonable and comforting way to socialize We’re not a family that stays home. We’re a family of excursioners. Still, there are places my eleven-year-old son adores yet which we avoid completely, because our usual techniques of “go early or go off season” can’t guarantee him a good time. One of those local places is the sensory and exploration wonderland known as the Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose — there is no time in which it is not thronging with tiny shrieking moppets, and kids Leo’s age are generally perceived as Too Big. Which is why I am so glad the CDM recently held their second after-hours Play Your Way event — essentially a private party for Leo and his crew. As my co-editor Jen Myers wrote about the evening at Dandelion: “It is an almost obstacle-free evening…

Disability

Just Say Something

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Jennifer Byde Myers jennyalice.com the cashier: Diapers eh? Expensive. I bet you can’t wait until they are out of those. me: Yes, we’ll be rich. Uh, I have a special needs kid, so it may take awhile. Oh, that’s hard. Yes, mostly for him. He gets frustrated. But he’s doing great. He’s a great kid. He goes to the Amazing Autism Wunderskool. Oh, autism.  Is he high or low functioning? Well, those terms really aren’t very accurate. Oh? No. For example, there are some autistics who will go to college, but may still have trouble putting their shoes on the correct foot. I have a friend like that. Does that make sense? Yes. I get it. My son has a lot of trouble with communication. He’s non-verbal, so that makes it more challenging for him to communicate his wants and needs. Huh. I have a neighbor. He’s about 30. He…