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Resources: Share the Wealth

The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism has been humming along for over a year now, and we’ve shared more than 200 great interviews, stories and how-to’s here. We’ve watched the TPGA Facebook page grow with active, vibrant discussions, and we love seeing many different perspectives pop-up in those comments. It’s encouraging, knowing these pages have provided a positive, supportive and safe environment for discussion and questions. We are seeing a community come to life here, and it’s exciting. Editing is under way on the book, The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism, with a plan to publish later this fall. In an effort to get the best resources into the print version, we are putting out one last call to our readers and contributors: Share the wealth of knowledge you have collected. If you have an online resource, book, service, government agency or other great person, place, or thing that we…

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The Eternal Autismland Conundrum

Kristina Chew autism.typepad.com www.care2.com/causes/author/autismvox photo (c) 2011 Kristina Chew It is the eternal conundrum. The same day your child has a mammoth, sweaty evening behavior storm was the day he biked the most ever in one week (172 miles), said some nice longer phrases in response to his dad’s questions about ‘where are we going,’ pedaled two miles in a downpour while he and Jim were on the bike path, told us in the middle of a car ride that he needed ‘bathroom.’ Some separate the ‘bad’ from the ‘good’ things their child does, as if to say the former are ‘not the child but the autism.’ We’ve become rather inclined to say that what Charlie does, is what Charlie does. The real Charlie is a messy and complex mix, accomplishing lovely feats and then all wound up in storming. Perhaps the effort to do all those great things —…

Ari Ne’eman at the Syracuse University Neurodiversity Symposium, Part 2

Three weeks ago, Syracuse University hosted its first regional Neurodiversity Sypmosium, with Ari Ne’eman as the keynote speaker. Mr. Ne’eman is President and co-founder of the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, as well as a presidential appointee to the National Council on Disability. He spoke both fiercely and wittily about both neurodiversity and self-advocacy in the past, present, and future. TPGA is publishing a series of excerpts from Mr. Ne’eman’s talk. This is part two. Part one was published one week ago, and focuses on the history of the disability rights movement. Part two centers on power and perception, about how “…in the autism world, what autism is — and what we should do about it — is very much under conflict.” TPGA was given an audio copy of Mr. Ne’eman’s talk by journalist Steve Silberman, who is currently researching a book about neurodiversity. Thank you, Steve. A couple of years ago,…

Why We Are Homeschooling Our Autistic Son

Emily Willingham daisymayfattypants.blogspot.com biologyfiles.fieldofscience.com Since TH was in kindergarten, he’s had a nemesis. Ironically, it was the very first person he met at his school, as we had just moved into the district. Idiots that we were, we thought she seemed pretty nice and encouraged TH to engage with her. Of course, he didn’t. Or, at least, he didn’t do it the “right” way. Two weeks into the kindergarten year, we learned that a parent had contacted the teacher, complaining about our son, claiming he’d made “death threats” against her son. Turns out, her son and this girl we’d met that first day together had teamed up against TH and had (and I’m not making this up) threatened to cut his head off and throw it in the trash. TH had parrotted this back to them, and that’s the part that the boy had told his mother, conveniently skipping over…

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Finding Resources with MyAutismTeam.com

I met with Eric Peacock, the GM of MyAutismTeam and Insider Pages. He believes strongly in community, and empowering patients, and proudly retweets many of the posts from TPGA. This is not a promotion, or an advertisement for MyAutismTeam, although Eric did buy me breakfast (thank you Eric). MyAutismTeam is a resource with headquarters based in San Francisco, near three of the TPGA editors, so being an active part of this new resource has been a natural extension of our general interest in community education. TPGA will not make any money from posting this information. It is our sincere desire to highlight companies, both non- and for-profit, which we feel can help our community, and welcome suggestions for other companies and agencies to showcase. If you choose to use MyAutismTeam, and we hope you do, please provide feedback on the site as you use it so it can become an even…

Ari Ne’eman at the Syracuse University Neurodiversity Symposium, Part 1

Two weeks ago, Syracuse University hosted its first regional Neurodiversity Sypmosium, with Ari Ne’eman as the keynote speaker. Mr. Ne’eman is President and co-founder of the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, as well as a presidential appointee to the National Council on Disability. He spoke both fiercely and wittily about both neurodiversity and self-advocacy in the past, present, and future. TPGA was given an audio copy of Mr. Ne’eman’s talk by neurodiversity-immersed journalist Steve Silberman, who said it needed to be shared. This will be the first of three posts covering the talk; this excerpt focuses on Mr. Ne’eman’s coverage of the history of the neurodiversity, self-advocacy, and disability rights movements as civil rights movements, as well as “…the peculiar concept that people with autism could be a minority group like any other.” — I see this symposium not only as the beginning of a process that’s being going on some time…

Five Ways to Help Reduce Problematic Behaviors

Kathi Flynn tips4specialkids.com If you are responsible for a child who has behavioral outbursts, you’re likely looking for ways to reduce both the behaviors and their intensity. As a behavior specialist, I have learned many reactive strategies that help to reduce existing behaviors. Though it’s critical in such scenarios to find the functions of the behaviors by conducting a Functional Behavior Analysis and setting up a Behavior Intervention Plan (BIP)1, here are five strategies/consequences to try in the heat of the moment: Ignore the Behavior Do not verbalize the behavior that is happening. If a child is doing something dangerous to himself or others, you obviously have to intervene, but you still do not have to draw attention to the actual behavior. This strategy only works if you know that your child is doing this behavior to get attention, even if the attention is negative. You don’t want to reinforce…

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Checking the “Autism” Box

Jennifer Byde Myers www.jennyalice.com My son was almost three when we realized how much he needed a label. Without an official diagnosis, it would be nearly impossible for him to get services he needed from the county or state. A label is required so bureaucrats can check the correct boxes, which allows everyone to take money out of the right vat with the right dipper. It’s a huge pain, by the way, more difficult than finding childcare or signing your kid up for summer camp. Getting someone, anyone, to write down, definitively, what is “wrong” with your child is a serious lesson in patience, persistence and the power of language. No one wants to be the first person to label your child. We begged to get “cerebral palsy, ataxia” to describe Jake’s odd way of hipping, and hopping, and stumbling around. No one worried about anything behavioral at that point,…

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Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism at BlogHer11

Shannon Des Roches Rosa www.thinkingautismguide.com Shannon, Aurelia, Robert, Julia Just one week ago, I spoke at the BlogHer11 Special Needs Minicon, joining moderator Julia Roberts from Support for Special Needs, speakers Aurelia Cotta and Robert Rummel-Hudson, and a room full of special needs community firebrands. I felt like the room was set alight by the rousing series of talks and full-room conversations about what knits the special needs parenting community together, and how we can best kick ass on our kids’ behalf. TPGA editors Jennifer Byde Myers and Liz Ditz made notable contributions to the discussion, as did TPGA contributors Laura Shumaker and Jen Bush, and TPGA friends Jen Lee Reeves and Ellen Seidman, and so, so many others (thank you!). You can check out the official transcript to get a sense of the session, but please know that said transcription is somewhat garbled and very much not verbatim. The…

International Travel with an Autistic Child

L. Mae Wilkinson www.autismisnottheboss.com Could this be the year you take your child overseas for a family vacation? Yes! …and you can have a fabulous time. Travel is enriching, educational and fun. It offers a break from therapy, homework, housework, deadlines and bedtime battles.  Travel is pure, quality, family time with no distractions. And in our case, our son always rises to the occasion by being on his best behavior. Here are some tips for those brave enough to travel internationally with an autistic child. Practice. International flights are not for novices. A child (and his/her parents) will find it comforting to have had at least a few domestic flights under the belt before heading off on a long-haul trip. Using a combination of credit card points, frequent flier miles and fare sales, we’ve been traveling since our son was three years old. Starting out, we used pictures to preview and practice…