2011: The TPGA Year In Review

Liz Ditz What a year! We published 189 posts from 114 authors, many new to Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism. The complete list is below the fold. We branched out. I started to categorize the blog posts using the section headings from the book, and realized a lot of the posts didn’t exactly fit. We published a lot more posts by autistics, and more on adult issues in autism. Advocacy wasn’t a heading in the book, but was a big subject this year, and into the future. Technology and research were also covered with more posts than in previous years. Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism went to, and reported on, conferences: the International Meeting for Autism Research (IMFAR), the International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference, Hacking Autism’s App Hackathon, UCSF’s Developmental Disabilities Conference, and BlogHer.  In terms of virtual events, we observed Autism Awareness Month by posting daily, and promoted and…

A Different Kind of Cool

Jack Gallagher www.jackgallagher.info I have been a professional comedian for 30 years. My resume includes appearances on the Tonight Show, Cheers, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, an ABC sitcom and appearances as an opening act for such diverse performers as Tony Bennett and Warren Zevon. However, my most important role is that of a father to an autistic child. In addition to the aforementioned credits, I have also written four one-man plays. The latest is entitled “A Different Kind Of Cool” and chronicles the relationship I have with my son Liam. While I have been lucky enough to have all of my plays receive positive reviews, ADKOC has garnered the most attention of anything I’ve written or performed. I’ve heard from people all across the country as well as Australia, Sweden, and Finland. To say it has hit a nerve with people who has seen or heard of it is…

Introducing: The Loud Hands Project

Julia Bascom juststimming.wordpress.com Our Story: The Loud Hands Project is a publishing effort by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. Currently, we are raising money towards the creation of our first and foundational anthology (Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking) and accompanying website. Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking features essays, long and short, by Autistic authors writing on autism acceptance, neurodiversity, Autistic pride and culture, disability rights and resistance, and resilience (known collectively by the community as having loud hands). Questions posed to the contributors might include what does autism mean to you; why does Autistic culture matter; what do you wish you had known growing up Autistic; how can the Autistic community cultivate resilience; what does “loud hands” mean to you; and how do you have loud hands? The anthology is the first of a projected series featuring contributions from Autistic writers stressing the preservation and celebration of Autistic culture and…

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Let Me Stim, Let Me Stim, Let Me Stim

The holidays are upon us, and that means hanging with folks who might need a nudge or a gentle reminder about holiday kindness and accommodation for autistic kids and adults, on being nice about understanding autistic behaviors versus assuming naughtiness. One thing we’ll be seeing in our house as my son adjusts to an atypical schedule is stimming. Lots of stimming. Some of Leo’s stimming needs redirecting, but most of it is functional and self-soothing. Our friends and family get why Leo stims and what he needs, they have his back; Leo will be fine, we’ll be fine. But if you or your child need stimming functionality backup or want to help understand why stimming doesn’t just matter but can be very necessary, I suggest citing Zoe’s About Stimming, or Julia Bascom’s The Obsessive Joy of Autism. Or, you could just sing folks this song, which I came up with…

Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism Named “Book of the Year”

We couldn’t be more grateful, humbled, or thrilled about the first wave of reviews for the new Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism Book! Steve Silberman, investigative reporter for Wired and other national magazines, declared Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism his Book of the Year (!): Covering a wide range of nuts-and-bolts subjects — from strategizing toilet training and and planning fun family outings, to helping your kid cope with bullying, to identifying the issues that a skilled speech-language therapist can work on with your child, to spotting and avoiding “autism cults,” to navigating byzantine special-needs bureaucracies and providing your child with appropriate assistive technology, to fighting for your kid’s right to an individualized education — the Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism is bracingly free of dogma, heavy-handed agendas, and pseudoscientific woo. What distinguishes it from, say, the fine guide for parents recently made freely downloadable by the National Autism Center, is…

Our Book is Here! Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism in Print.

Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism is available in print today! We couldn’t be more proud. It has been an amazing year and a half since we began this adventure. We’re so pleased that the great work of our contributors is now available to any person searching for reliable, experienced, positive information about autism. For all today’s smiles and pride, the truth is Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism’s inspiration was our persistent frustration with the negative autism stereotypes and misinformation we faced in parenting our children with autism, or advocating with/amplifying the signal of the amazing Autistic communities. As stated in our Mission, this book is the resource we wish we’d had when autism first became part of our lives: a one-stop source for carefully curated, evidence-based information from autism parents, autistics, and autism professionals. We want to thank all of the amazing contributors to this website, and those authors in…

I’m Not a Bad Parent … Right?

Deanne Shoyer www.smallbutkindamighty.wordpress.com   Deanne is the mother of gorgeous twin boys, five years old, who are both on the autism spectrum. I’ve read a number of blog posts where the writer describes the ways that strangers or relatives make them feel their parenting skills are inadequate. This post will not be adding to that number. It is about a struggle I’ve had in dealing with some challenging behaviours from Oliver. My reactions to those behaviours led me to conclude (at least initially) that I wasn’t being the best mother I could be. Oliver had been displaying some pretty aggressive behaviour towards Owen: pushing him hard enough so that he would fall over, kicking him (usually once Owen was on the floor) and pulling his hair. The worst incident happened when Oliver pushed Owen off a chair and Owen fell on his head. It got to the stage that Owen…

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Differentiating Between Real Science and Fake Science

Emily Willingham biologyfiles.fieldofscience.com Pseudoscience is the shaky foundation of practices — often medically related — that lack a basis in evidence. It’s “fake” science dressed up, sometimes quite carefully, to look like the real thing. If you’re alive, you’ve encountered it, whether it was the guy at the mall trying to sell you Power Balance bracelets, the shampoo commercial promising you that “amino acids” will make your hair shiny, or the peddlers of “natural remedies” or fad diet plans, who in a classic expansion of a basic tenet of advertising, make you think you have a problem so they can sell you something to solve it. Pseudosciences are usually pretty easily identified by their emphasis on confirmation over refutation, on physically impossible claims, and on terms charged with emotion or false “sciencey-ness,” which is kind of like “truthiness” minus Stephen Colbert. Sometimes, what peddlers of pseudoscience say may have a…

Finally Finding Holiday Gifts for Kids With Special Needs

Shannon Des Roches Rosa www.Squidalicious.com www.ThinkingAutismGuide.com Our family’s holiday traditions include: nightly panic over conjuring surprises for the 24 tiny drawers in my kids’ advent box, sending holiday postcards weeks after Christmas to a random one-third of the folks we love — and answering queries from family and friends about holiday gifts for Leo, our eleven-year-old son with autism. I am quietly freaking out over those first two, but thoughtful questions about appropriate gifts for Leo — I appreciate those, so much. While finding presents that appeal to my son can be tricky, I’ve become a pro at it and make suggestions with confidence. Here’s my advice for parents, grandparents, aunties, caregivers, godparents or friends looking for that perfect gift for kids with special needs. Don’t get derailed by age ranges on toy labels, because they don’t always apply. One of Leo’s all-time favorite toys is a Flip Flop Egg…

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 coherent enough at one point to express her fear that the child would cost her too much, both emotionally and financially. “Rochester told detectives that she thought having an autistic child would emotionally and financially “ruin” her life.” Let’s take a look at some of the things she might have read before she made a decision to kill a six month old baby. While there may have been other reasons for the infanticide, including her state of mental health, the following examples could greatly add to her worries. First, let’s look at common “information” about…