Paula Durbin-Westby

Autistics, Media, and Misrepresentation

Paula Durbin-Westby is an Autistic advocate and an autism parent. She and her son recently appeared in the PBS P.O.V. documentary Neurotypical, a film meant to challenge public perceptions of Autistic people as well as allow Autistics to represent themselves. Paula’s portrayal in the final version of the film, however, was not at all what […]

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April 2013 Is Autism Acceptance Month on TPGA

This April will once again be Autism Acceptance Month on Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism, in the spirit of Paula Durbin-Westby’s Autism Acceptance Day and Month initiative at autismacceptanceday.blogspot.com, and ASAN’s Autism Acceptance Month project. We want to help make April matter, in terms of helping spread the word and further acceptance and understanding of

A Video Explanation From a Nonspeaking (at times) Autistic

Paula C Durbin-Westby paulacdurbinwestbyautisticblog.blogspot.com I am not a completely nonspeaking Autistic, of course. Many people have seen me speak and some do not even know that I lose speech at times. My loss of speech is temporary, and can last a few seconds to a few hours or the good part of a day. Sometimes

For Autistic Teens Feeling Doomed or Broken

You are not alone. Many teens who receive an autism diagnosis feel broken, and suffer from pain of acceptance — even to the point of suicidal thoughts. And the resources you need are not easy to find. So we asked several adult autistics who were once autistic teens themselves: If you were in this headspace,

Paula C. Durbin-Westby and Autism Acceptance Month

We’re featuring “Slice of Life” conversations with Autistics of all ages — kids through adults — throughout April’s Autism Acceptance Month. Our goal is to help TPGA readers understand that autistic people are people who have interesting, complicated lives and who are as diverse and varied as any other population united by a label. We

Mother, Afraid of Costs of Autism, Kills Child

Paula C. Durbin-Westby paulacdurbinwestbyautisticblog.blogspot.com I am writing here about one aspect of this horrible killing of a six-month-old baby, that of the mother’s fears about the costs of having an Autistic child: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/06/stephanie-rochester-trial_n_1131305.html Whether or not the parent was not legally sane at the time of the killing is not what interests me. She was

The Self-Advocate/Parent Dialogues, Day Ten: Paula C. Durbin-Westby

We held a dialogue series last week between self-advocates Zoe, blogger at Illusion of Competence, and Ari Ne’eman, President and co-founder of The Autistic Self-Advocacy Network; and parent Robert Rummel-Hudson, author of Schuyler’s Monster and blogger at Fighting Monsters With Rubber Swords. The series continued this week with Melody Latimer, director of The Autistic Self-Advocacy

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