Shannon Des Roches Rosa squidalicious.com Leo making me make fart noises, because that is never not funny to him. [image: Photo of the author’s teen son squeezing her cheeks so she will make a raspberry sound with her mouth. Both are wearing hats, outdoors.] Last week my son Leo and I had a pleasant arm-in-arm walk* around a fancy shopping center while his sibling was at an appointment. We strolled past the coin collector’s shop and the jodhpurs boutique, then popped into the housewares store—just in case they had any unintentionally awesome fidget toys (which, being gadget central, of course they did). Finding delight in utilitarian objects is part of what being autistic means for my son. Another part is being a traveling one-person party. I go with his flow, as long as he’s not being disruptive. So as we wound our way past the store’s racks of remarkably specialized cooking…
Tag: Medicaid
Spectrum Disordered www.facebook.com/asdisordered We’ve all heard or experienced horror stories about accessing services and supports. Often the idea of receiving services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD), including autism, conjures up images of institutions—visions of Willowbrook. Or, ideas of what is “optimal” for us look like segregated lives, or “intentional” communities where the true intent is to lump us together under the guise of “keeping us safe.” Regularly, the idea of seeking supports to live in one’s daily life carries an expectation that the cost will be any and all independence and autonomy in having positive control over that life. These fears are rooted in fact and truth, both of how things were and in some cases, continue to be. But that does not mean they are a universal truth! There are a lot of really great disability support providers out there! Unfortunately, there are also plenty of…
Lydia Wayman autisticspeaks.wordpress.com I went to a Town Hall meeting today regarding the cuts to the Pennysylvania Department of Public Welfare budget, which means cuts to Medicaid. And so many people were saying that the results of cuts to Medicaid services for kids with autism (because probably 75% or more of the people there appeared to be parents of kids with autism, along with clinicians who work with people on the spectrum, and autistics themselves, like me) would result in the necessity of long-term institutionalization. In essence, sure, you’ll save the money now when we lose services because we can’t afford the copays, but it’s going to come back to bite you when we need to be institutionalized one day. I read my piece in front of all those people and made my point, which was basically the same as what I just described, too. They took my letter to…