Autistic and neurodivergent people experience many “sensory icks” regularly. Autistic writer Shamiha Patel shares her personal checklist of sensory triggers.
Tag: neurodivergence
I had poured so much of myself into my protagonist. When my agent called my character childish, naive, and vulnerable, I couldn’t help but feel she was calling me childish, naive, and vulnerable.
Reading A Kind of Spark, I felt a part of myself represented and explained on the page that I’d never seen anywhere else before. I feel so much for Addie, the 12-year-old autistic main character: How she puts herself in the historical stories of witches, and how the injustice of their history upsets her, while others seem detached.
If your workplace wants to successfully recruit autistic and neurodivergent job candidates, consider these insider tips on how to make the hiring process easier.
[image: Illustrated cover of the book Hoshi and the Red City Circuit, by Dora M Raymaker, featuring a person in silhouette sitting on the ground fending off rays of power from a pitchfork-wielding person silhouetted in red.] Kelly Israel Introduction Hoshi and the Red City Circuit, the debut work by Dora Raymaker, is first and foremost an excellent page-turning detective story about private investigator Hoshi Archer’s race to discover who murdered three Operators. Operators are a caste of people with disabilities. They are also the only people who have the ability to run the multi-layered, complex technology of the future. It is next a story about Hoshi herself and the many friends, allies, acquaintances, enemies, and lovers she has known and cared for on her way to becoming the person that she is. Hoshi is also a story that grapples with the intellectual and developmental disability (I/DD) community’s ghosts and…
Kerima Çevik theautismwars.blogspot.com The author’s idea of what displaying autism positivity looks like [Image: a Black woman over 50 with braided gray hair wearing Neurodiversity 3.0 by ThinkGeek, a black T-shirt with a world globe design on the upper chest area in the shape of a human brain, colored in physical map fashion i.e., water is colored light blue and land masses green, clouds white, looking to her left over bent wire-rimmed glasses in that way that mothers look at their children when an outrageous behavior has just ensued.] There is an article in a paper called The Daily Net, about singer Toni Braxton’s 16-year-old son Diezel working as a professional model for the past two years. The article refers to him as “formerly autistic.” It goes on to say he has, “fortunately, moved past” autism and is now a celebrity himself. Apparently, when her son was thirteen, Ms. Braxton…
[Image: Book cover: blue background with rows of scribbled-out red hearts interspersed with casual white lettering reading “The Love Letters of Abelard and Lily | Laura Creedle”] Kathryn Hedges www.khedges.com The greatest strengths of the YA book The Love Letters of Abelard and Lily by Laura Creedle were the realistic portrayals of two very different neurodivergent teens, and their gentle romance. It was wonderful for an autistic character (Abelard) to break so many negative stereotypes and for a non-autistic character (Lily) to accept his differences so enthusiastically. They are an adorable couple with great promise (except for conflicts over her tardiness and his need for promptness). I also empathized with Lily’s struggles with unsympathetic teachers and her own feelings of failure. However, I was angry and disappointed by the tragically ableist conclusion. (Spoilers ahead, in case it matters.) I expected this to be a story about two neurodivergent characters who…
Sara M. Acevedo [image: Book cover of The Out-of-Sync Child Grows Up: Title in teal text, on background photo of five older kids running across a field, from behind.] The Out-of-Sync Child Grows Up is the newest book from Carol Stock Kranowitz in her “Out-of-Sync” Child series. Subtitled “Coping With Sensory Processing Disorder in the Adolescent and Young Adult Years,” the book focuses on the everyday experiences of parents, caregivers, and medical professionals who support adolescents and young adults marked oppressively by diagnoses like Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD). Although a significant number of the concepts and practices included in this book are discredited and marked as abusive by autistic and other neurodivergent people ourselves, the book has received substantial praise from non-neurodivergent authorities in the therapeutic professions, as well as from clinicians, parents, and educators. The book has also been praised by The Children’s Hospital in Boston, and contributors of…
Patricia George-Zwicker www.persnicketypatricia.ca [Image: White woman with dark hair wearing black-rimmed glasses, and intently reading the book NeuroTribes.] When Shannon Rosa contacted me and asked if I’d be interested in doing a guest review for Steve Silberman’s highly anticipated book NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, I excitedly and nervously said yes! Like so many others, I’ve been anxiously awaiting what I hoped would be a game changer for the Autism community and Autistic people. I’ve visited many book stores over the years in search of credible information or stories by people like me, especially stories and information from Autistic women. I often left disappointed and frustrated by the lack of history, compassion, accuracy and the almost non-existent input from actual Autistics like myself, finding instead a minefield of cures, desperation, martyr parents, male-dominated information and — said with respect — books about or by one…