It’s hard to believe we have been covering INSAR, the annual meeting of the International Society for Autism Research, for fifteen years. The autism research landscape, being expansive and varied, both has and has… not evolved during that stretch to focus on the needs of existing autistic people, and their families. (It should be noted […]
Autistic author, journalist, lawyer, and professor Katie Rose Guest Pryal is an invaluable autism parenting and neurodivergent self-advocacy resource, with several books plus a column at Psychology Today. We talked with Pryal about her recent and very excellent book on parenting neurodivergent kids, Your Kid Belongs Here. Shannon Des Roches Rosa: I really want people […]
This Teacher Appreciation Week, I’ve been thinking about my mom, who taught special education in Seattle Public Schools, and all our amazing teachers. I’m proud Washington is ranked the third best state in the nation for teachers. To all our teachers — than Facebook
If you are familiar with the empowering concept of the Double Empathy Problem—in which blaming autistic people for lacking empathy is reexamined and turned inside out—then you know that British sociologist and social psychologist Dr. Damian Milton came up with the concept in 2012. You know that the Double Empathy Problem (DEP) has resonated deeply […]
The English muffin has to be toasted evenly.Not too dark on the edges, not pale in the center.I clean the toaster before I use it. Every time.The jelly is homemade. Smooth. No seeds. These foods are not boring to me.They are the reason I can sit at a table at all. People think this is […]
AutINSAR is an online and in-person discussion about autistic priorities in autism research. It began at the 2017 INSAR International Society for Autism Research meeting in San Francisco, as a frustrated community response to INSAR’s chronic neglect of existing autistic priorities and needs. Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism now co-hosts the AutINSAR chat each time […]
If you are familiar with the empowering concept of the Double Empathy Problem—in which blaming autistic people for lacking empathy is reexamined and turned inside out—then you know that British sociologist and social psychologist Dr. Damian Milton came up with the concept in 2012. You know that the Double Empathy Problem (DEP) has resonated deeply […]
I was 30 when my son’s Yeshiva principal called and asked to speak to my husband. When I pressed for details, I was told my 8-year-old was “awkward” and struggling, and that we should pursue testing. An evaluator within our Chassidic community in Brooklyn recommended an autism assessment. Soon after, several of my children received […]
I was 30 when my son’s Yeshiva principal called and asked to speak to my husband. When I pressed for details, I was told my 8-year-old was “awkward” and struggling, and that we should pursue testing. An evaluator within our Chassidic community in Brooklyn recommended an autism assessment. Soon after, several of my children received […]
This collection of personal experiences attending conferences, authored by Xavier Penn, explores what’s still going wrong in autism research. Content note: Discussion of involuntary psychiatric holds and self-injury Introduction: Oral Sessions I phrase my questions achingly, cautiously, edit after edit, before it’s time to (shakingly) press play. The second evening someone says enthusiastically, “You know, […]
As harmful autism disinformation campaigns go, grievance parents‘ attempt to break off “profound autism” as a separate diagnosis via smearing neurodiversity advocates is notable—mostly for its spitefulness. While we’ve previously analyzed how fact-free and twisted these “profound autism” arguments are, and talked with concerned researchers about how a separate “profound” diagnosis would be a disservice […]
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 […]
