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A Successful Meltdown
(At the time of my writing this, my son was 3 years old.) Yesterday evening was the best meltdown we’ve had in a long time. How’s that for a starter sentence? This is an incredibly […]
Autism
Autism
Explaining Neurodivergence with Phones
One way that I sometimes explain the concept of neurodivergence — that autism, or ADHD* are different wirings of the brain, without being something “wrong” with the brain — to children (or sometimes to their […]
Autism
Communicating =/= Speaking
Communicating is not always speaking. It can be easy to write off neurodivergent people’s voices because they don’t always sound like neurotypical people’s voices. Imagine finally taking the effort and time to explain something that […]
Autism
Autism & Disability
Let’s talk about euphemisms. When non-disabled people dodge around the word “disabled” because they think it’s an uncomfortable word, that’s a euphemism. When they say someone has “special needs” or is “differently-abled” or is “challenged”, […]
Autism
Self-Advocacy
[Image descriptions: The first image has a title, “The Challenge with Teaching Self-Advocacy…It’s not them, it’s us.” over the top of an image of a child playing in a pink play tent filled with colorful […]
Autism
Sensory Profiles
“Sensory” is one of those buzzwords these days in parenting groups, on Pinterest, and in relation to different diagnoses. I’ve seen people use it to mean pretty much everything. When I talk about sensory processing, […]
Autism
Pervasively Autistic
This is what it means to say that autism is a neurodivergence (as opposed to, i.e., a disease). I think, if I were writing this quote, I would probably put quotes around the word ‘normal’ — […]
Autism
Social Skills for Neurotypicals
When you start to frame autism, ADHD, or other neurodivergences as really and truly just a difference instead of a disorder… It leaves space for realizing things like how the “social skills” that we teach […]
Autism
Autism Self-Diagnosis is Valid
In the Autistic community, self-diagnosis is accepted as a valid journey to diagnosis. There might be reasons to pursue medical diagnosis, which could include the affirmation of hearing it from an external provider/professional; needing medical […]
Autism
Dear Autism
Dear Autism, You are the reason why my little boy gets passionately invested in particular things the way that he does. Ever since he was tiny it has always been this way, because of the […]