Our senior editor Shannon Rosa was invited to participate in the 2021 UC Davis Neurodiversity Summit, on a panel debating the role of the Neurodiversity Movement in supporting and including autistic people with intellectual and communication disabilities.
“The way we diagnose kids overwhelmingly leads to Black and Latino kids getting diagnosed with behavioral disorders instead of autism. It also excludes a lot of women and femme people, to say nothing of transgender males and nonbinary people. We also ignore a lot of people for whom English is a second language.”
Dr. Rachel Moseley and Carol Greenburg [image: Photos of two smiling white women wearing glasses posing together. Left, Rachel Moseley has shoulder-length light brown hair. Right, Carol Greenburg’s hair is in a platinum bob.] Content note: This interview discusses self-injury and suicidal behavior. Oftentimes the most rewarding findings at INSAR, the annual meeting for the
Neurodiversity is incredibly inclusive, and as the parent of a high-support autistic teen, I think neurodiversity is MORE important for people like him—to have other people recognize his value as a human.
Dr. Ruth Ann Luna and Shannon Rosa. Photo © TPGA [image: A Latina woman with long dark brown hair, and a white woman with chin-length fluffy red hair and glasses, smiling and posing together.] Our editors Carol Greenburg and Shannon Rosa spoke with Dr. Ruth Ann Luna about her research on autistic kids and their
Autistic communication isn’t the problem; the problem is mixing communication among autistic and non-autistic people. Autistic people can usually communicate with each other just fine.
Photo © US Department of Education | Creative Commons / Flickr [image: Three students at computer workstations, seen from behind.] Shannon Rosa Senior Editor Wealthy people using their privilege to bypass regular people problems like paying taxes is nothing new. But using that clout to exploit disability accommodations—to give their college-aspiring children truly unfair and
Photo © Gayan Gunawardana | Creative Commons [image: Backlit photo of a sad ponytailed person with their head down, in profile in front of an ocean sunset.] Dr. Sarah Cassidy co-chaired a SIG (Special Interest Group) on Autism and Suicidality at IMFAR 2016, in Baltimore. We weren’t able to attend her session, but Dr. Cassidy
It’s important to remember that when an autistic person is struggling or having aggression, they are not being “bad” or trying to do something to you personally—even though it can feel like that, especially if they’re screaming at you or making you angry.
Shannon Des Roches Rosa with Carol Greenburg Your faithful TPGA editors spent most of last week in Baltimore, Maryland at IMFAR, the International Meeting for Autism Research. We gleaned as much as we could from the 2000 scientists, professionals, autistic people, and family members from all over the world who spent three full days talking
