THINKING PERSON'S GUIDE TO AUTISM
Autism news and resources: from autistic people, professionals, and parents
“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 International Society for Autism Research, emerge during the pre-conference sessions. We went to the 2019 pre-conference on autism and mental health and were impressed by Dr. Rachel Moseley’s presentation on self-injury in autistic people without intellectual disability—and are grateful that Dr. Moseley was able to make time to talk with TPGA editors Carol Greenburg and Shannon Rosa about her research. Shannon Rosa: Dr. Moseley, can you first tell us a little bit about yourself, and your background and affiliations? Dr. Moseley: I’m a researcher at Bournemouth University. I did all my studying and my PhD…
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 incredibly diverse gut microbiomes during INSAR 2019, How her research is not about “special diets for autism,” how GI issues are co-occurring conditions and not a core trait of autism, how there’s no one universal single bacteria that is associated with autism, how GI profiles are ofter family- rather than neurotype-specific, and how this research may translate into real world supports for autistic people. —- Shannon Rosa: Thank you so much for being here. Can you tell us a little bit about your background and what brought you into this area of autism and gut microbiome research?…
Dr. Catherine Crompton is doing ground-breaking research on autistic social dynamics and communication, so we were thrilled to interview Dr. Crompton about her work on Information Transfer between Autistic and Neurotypical People during INSAR 2019. We were fascinated (and gratified) to learn about her findings that when there are communication disconnects between the two groups, it tends to be a mutual hiccup rather than an autistic-specific problem. Shannon Rosa of Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism (TPGA): I’m speaking with Dr. Catherine Crompton from the University of Edinburgh. Catherine is working on a project that examines whether performance on cultural transmission tasks varies, depending on the diagnostic status of the social partner, which basically, if you want to summarize that in layman’s terms? Dr. Crompton: It means that we’re looking at how autistic people interact with other people, whether that is different, depending on whether the person they’re interacting with is also…
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 also illegal advantages—is infuriating on multiple levels. As disability policy professional Rebecca Cokley noted at Teen Vogue: “This behavior is harmful because when celebrities and others with privilege use a marginalized community’s civil rights as a ‘VIP pass,’ it frames reasonable accommodations as something ‘special’ that you should be able to buy, versus actual civil rights that give people with disabilities an equal seat at the table.” Adrienne Wichard-Edds reported on the scandal for the Washington Post, from the perspectives of several irate parents of students with disabilities: “For children who really do struggle with…
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 was kind enough to take time, later that same day, to talk with TPGA editors Shannon Rosa and Carol Greenburg, autistic autism researcher Dr. Steven Kapp, and Autistic Self Advocacy Network Executive Director Julia Bascom. The following is a transcript of our conversation. —- Shannon Rosa: Tell us about what you discussed in the SIG. What has your research revealed about suicidality in autistic people? Dr. Cassidy: We’ve published two studies so far. The first study we did, which is free to access in the new Lancet (Psychiatry) journal, was a medical chart review, a…
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 about the most current findings and trends in autism research. But we didn’t cover everything or meet everyone we wanted to, because doing so is not physically possibly without a Time Turner. (If you ever want to experience abject FOMO — fear of missing out — by all means, go to IMFAR.) Overview Ninety-nine percent of the researchers at IMFAR are the nicest, most well-meaning scientists one could ever meet, which makes for a friendly atmosphere. We were happy to see significant progress on some research fronts: only a single presentation about vaccines, and it…
The Autism Awareness, Care, and Training (AACT) school in Accra, Ghana is a place of peace, calm, and competence—plus the occasional whoop, shout, or “eeeee”—while students and staff radiate not just positivity but confidence. This is because students are encouraged to learn to the best of their abilities, and are appreciated for exactly who they are. AACT is a remarkable place.