Brookfield Zoo makes summer camp inclusive and fun
by David Perry
On day one of Zoo Camp, Nico pet a baby goat. Although my son loves animals, he had been too fearful to get close to them, so this was a pretty big step. What he wouldn’t do, unfortunately, was sit with the other kids in his group for lunch.
When I dropped him off on day two, one of his counselors sprang toward me, smiling, with a new plan. Instead of trying to bring Nico to a crowded table, she’d ask him to sit down first and then bring the other children around him. It worked. READ MORE
by David Perry
On day one of Zoo Camp, Nico pet a baby goat. Although my son loves animals, he had been too fearful to get close to them, so this was a pretty big step. What he wouldn’t do, unfortunately, was sit with the other kids in his group for lunch.
When I dropped him off on day two, one of his counselors sprang toward me, smiling, with a new plan. Instead of trying to bring Nico to a crowded table, she’d ask him to sit down first and then bring the other children around him. It worked. READ MORE
Echolalia Gets Me Pickles: Autistic Playing Ultimate
by Yes, That Too
I'm Autistic. I'm in college. I play on my college Ultimate Frisbee team. I don't pass for neurotypical, either. I'm not consistently capable of speech, and Ultimate is a sport where we're typically expected to be talking to our teammates. The team knows that I will do this if I am capable, but that this is a bit of an if. And that's OK. It took some time for them to figure out that I really do understand when I should say a thing and what I should say, I'm just not always capable of doing so (it took until I managed to explain this, which it doesn't occur to me to do except right after this happens- you know, while I'm probably still not able to speak? There's a bit of a catch-22 there, but I did manage to explain eventually, after I started bringing my iPad to tournaments.) But once I explained that? That was it. READ MORE
by Yes, That Too
I'm Autistic. I'm in college. I play on my college Ultimate Frisbee team. I don't pass for neurotypical, either. I'm not consistently capable of speech, and Ultimate is a sport where we're typically expected to be talking to our teammates. The team knows that I will do this if I am capable, but that this is a bit of an if. And that's OK. It took some time for them to figure out that I really do understand when I should say a thing and what I should say, I'm just not always capable of doing so (it took until I managed to explain this, which it doesn't occur to me to do except right after this happens- you know, while I'm probably still not able to speak? There's a bit of a catch-22 there, but I did manage to explain eventually, after I started bringing my iPad to tournaments.) But once I explained that? That was it. READ MORE
Writing about autism science? 10 things
by Emily Willingham, PhD
"Word on the street--well, really on a blog from a researcher - is that the writer of the autism/inflammation New York Times op-ed, Moises Velasquez-Manoff, is working on an "annotated" version of the article that will "back up" his claims. Some annotation would have been useful to begin with; as I noted in my analysis of that op-ed, in many instances, discerning the origin of his information was difficult or impossible. I understand that something that appears originally in print can't have hyperlinks to appropriate references, but the writer certainly could have beefed up in-text citations (author names, journal publications), at least avoiding the criticism that the piece was unsatisfactorily sourced." READ MORE
by Emily Willingham, PhD
"Word on the street--well, really on a blog from a researcher - is that the writer of the autism/inflammation New York Times op-ed, Moises Velasquez-Manoff, is working on an "annotated" version of the article that will "back up" his claims. Some annotation would have been useful to begin with; as I noted in my analysis of that op-ed, in many instances, discerning the origin of his information was difficult or impossible. I understand that something that appears originally in print can't have hyperlinks to appropriate references, but the writer certainly could have beefed up in-text citations (author names, journal publications), at least avoiding the criticism that the piece was unsatisfactorily sourced." READ MORE
Goodwill
by A Diary of a Mom
"Over the weekend, I received an invitation from a Midwestern arm of Goodwill Industries to speak at their annual dinner. While I was honored by the invitation, I was unable to accept it. Given the nature of the reasons that I had to decline, I felt compelled to share my response here. -
I am so grateful for your kind words about the blog and very much appreciate your request to speak at the dinner. Sadly, I can’t accept the invitation.
In researching Goodwill, as I try to do before agreeing to speak or associate myself with any organization, but particularly one that purports to serve or advocate for the disabled, I came upon justification after justification for paying disabled workers as little as twenty-two cents an hour. A quick Google search yields the following: READ MORE
by A Diary of a Mom
"Over the weekend, I received an invitation from a Midwestern arm of Goodwill Industries to speak at their annual dinner. While I was honored by the invitation, I was unable to accept it. Given the nature of the reasons that I had to decline, I felt compelled to share my response here. -
I am so grateful for your kind words about the blog and very much appreciate your request to speak at the dinner. Sadly, I can’t accept the invitation.
In researching Goodwill, as I try to do before agreeing to speak or associate myself with any organization, but particularly one that purports to serve or advocate for the disabled, I came upon justification after justification for paying disabled workers as little as twenty-two cents an hour. A quick Google search yields the following: READ MORE
RESPECT
by Emma's Hope Book
I don’t know about you, but there are definitely days when I lose sight of long-term goals. I become impatient. I forget to respect the process… whether it’s my own, my husband’s, a friend’s or either of my children’s. I just don’t. I want things to happen on MY time frame. I like when things happen in exactly the way I imagined they would, with the speed in which I hoped for. I LOVE when things happen even faster or in a way I couldn’t have imagined and end up even better than I thought. But when things meander along, taking their time, going at a pace far too slow for my liking I have trouble… My father used to say to me, “You want what you want, when you want it.” This was NOT meant as a compliment. He was right. I am impatient. I prefer when things I want to happen, happened yesterday. READ MORE
by Emma's Hope Book
I don’t know about you, but there are definitely days when I lose sight of long-term goals. I become impatient. I forget to respect the process… whether it’s my own, my husband’s, a friend’s or either of my children’s. I just don’t. I want things to happen on MY time frame. I like when things happen in exactly the way I imagined they would, with the speed in which I hoped for. I LOVE when things happen even faster or in a way I couldn’t have imagined and end up even better than I thought. But when things meander along, taking their time, going at a pace far too slow for my liking I have trouble… My father used to say to me, “You want what you want, when you want it.” This was NOT meant as a compliment. He was right. I am impatient. I prefer when things I want to happen, happened yesterday. READ MORE
