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How CalAcademy Could Be a More Autism-Friendly Science Center

Shannon Des Roches Rosa www.Squidalicious.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 My son Leo and I are members at San Francisco’s California Academy of Sciences for two reasons: 1) We want to support fabulous, hands-on science, and 2) We depend on members-only early entry hours so we can avoid the crowds and noise that don’t always mesh so well with Leo’s exuberant autism and his favorite CalAcademy routines. Though our CalAcademy trips are usually happy ones, today’s visit was a bit bumpy. Leo’s autistic behaviors — his loud squeals of happiness while watching his beloved Planetarium show, for…

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Does Your Area Have Disability-Friendly Museum Days?

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…