There is some confusion about what neurodiversity-affirming assessment actually looks like in the real world. Some people worry that affirming care means rubber-stamping whatever someone already thinks, while others worry that differential diagnosis—a systematic process used to identify the most accurate condition(s) (or neurotype) from a set of possible competing conditions (or neurotypes)—inevitably undermines lived […]
In retrospect, it’s so obvious that I was autistic when I was a kid. But because I was a little girl in the ’70s and ’80s, no one picked up on the fact; they just called me “weird” and “intense” and “emotional” and “too sensitive,” among other unpleasant things. I was diagnosed autistic four years […]
For months, people have asked my opinion on the popular Telepathy Tapes podcast, and its premise of non-speaking autistics not only reading minds but bringing the world messages of love and peace. (You’ve probably been asked about it, too, if you have even a tangential autism connection.) And I’m here to tell you: The Telepathy […]
I couldn’t sleep. I just stared into the darkness, replaying everything the vet and his assistants had told me. Every now and then, I forgot that my cat was dead. My hand would instinctively reach out to the familiar spot beside me, where Timon always slept. And then the realisation would hit me like a […]
It is still incomprehensible that we lost Steve Silberman more than a year ago. While got it together well enough to speak at his memorial service, it has taken me until now to be able to share my tribute to him, from that ceremony. For those who didn’t know Steve, please read his compassionate history […]
The Special Education Needs Services (SENS) Department proudly joins the global community in observing the International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPwD) under the 2025 United Nations theme, “Fostering Disability-Inclusive Societies for Advancin TCI Sun
Recently, I asked my son to take his night meds, and his nervous system disability activated his fight-or-flight response. He pushed me, I fell, and then he hit and scratched, leaving red marks on my arms and chest. Later that night, he texted to start the repair process, but I wasn’t ready. The wounds were […]
Content note: This essay discusses suicide. “It’s really dark in here,” my frowning boss told me the moment she came into my office. She knows I’m autistic; I’ve been here for three years. We also work in an industry that claims to know about autism, and to support autistic people. I could only shrug, too […]
A lot of times now when parents of newly identified autistic kids ask me what they should know, the first thing I say is: “We get tired.” This is so important. The way we autistics process is often on hyperdrive. The activities that are like strolling for many allistic people are like sprinting for us. […]
Autistic writer Fergus Murray’s Growing Up With Monotropism and Weird Pride is a crucial part of the brand-new autistic non-fiction anthology Someone Like Me. Murray’s chapter is part technical primer, part auto-ethnography, and wholly moving. Murray takes the concept of monotropism—the autistic tendency to focus intensely that was was initially developed by their mother Dinah […]
Note: This article discusses rape and abuse. I remember the shock when I realized that my ex had raped me. And that it had taken me nearly two years to the day to realize that what had transpired that evening had been rape. I had always been uncomfortable about what had happened. But it’s not […]
If your child has recently been given an autism diagnosis, as my son was in 2003, here’s what I want you to know: Learn from me, don’t be me. I recently came across a happy photo of my family and my parents, taken around the time Leo was first diagnosed. Leo was obviously such a […]
