ADULT MISDIAGNOSIS: THE DEFAULT PATH TO AN AUTISTIC IDENTITY
By Autistic Science Person, TPGA
I was lucky. This story isn’t about me. But it really could have been.
I found out I was autistic before ever being misdiagnosed with anything.
It’s time to ban seclusion in New Jersey schools
New Jersey is considering new legislation after a story broke that shines a light on the practice of seclusion in New Jersey schools. The proposed legislation is focused on reporting and data. New Jersey, it is not time to track the abuse. It is time to end it.
Entrevista con Angélica Vega sobre Justicia Reproductiva por el Mes de la Herencia Latine 2022
By Kayley Whalen, AWN
En honor al Mes de la Herencia Latine y considerando la reciente decisión Dobbs de la Corte Suprema que derogó Roe v Wade, conversé con una colega latina defensora de la justicia reproductiva y la justicia por discapacidad, Angelica Vega, para hacer una entrevista para este blog.
On Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, Codependency, & Identity: How to get out from behind the masks
By Terra Vance
After publishing an article and slideshow on rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD), tens of thousands of people shared and commented across social media about how much it explained their own experiences.
To recap, RSD is common in neurodivergent people (NDs) and is a heightened sensitivity to real, perceived, or anticipated rejection.
Autism Research and the IACC: Your voice matters!
It is more important than ever to make sure autism research reflects what matters to all of us. Make your voice heard by submitting a comment to the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee before each meeting! Learn more about the IACC, and how to submit a comment, with our new resource!
The IACC advises on federal funding for autism research. They make recommendations on how autism research funding is prioritized. You can push the IACC to advocate for research that matters to our community by submitting a public comment telling them what kind of research you want to see. You can do that by submitting a comment using this form, and asking the committee to prioritize the research you care about. This toolkit will help you with sending in a comment.
The toolkit is available in two versions:
- Our Easy Read edition. The Easy Read version is written in Plain Language. It uses large text and uses images to support the text.
- A Plain Language version with smaller text and not as much white space.
“Subnormal”: How a British Postwar Education Scandal Gives a Human Context for ‘Neurodivergence while Black’
By Tré Ventour-Griffiths
Positionality
As a Black neurodivergent [ND] public historian and artist-academic, I have experienced many challenges in how I have been dis-abled by the environment around me. This is the positionality this article was written from.
Autistic masking is why I have no friends
By Faith Vance
At a very young age, I learned a hard lesson, one I’m still working to overcome. I learned that if I wanted people to like me, want to spend time with me, and be my friend, I had to completely hide my interests and who I truly was as a person.
Stimpunks.org: A Knowledge Commons at the Edges
By Ryan Boren
Create open sourcecommunities instead of walled gardens of intellectual property rights – to create a global knowledge commons and to maximise collective intelligence. REPLACING CONTROL WITH ECOLOGIES OF CARE | AUTISTIC COLLABORATION
Ben Nelson-Roux and Chris Nota: Two tragic tales of systemic failings
This article was Co-Authored by Tanya Adkin and David Gray-Hammond
Trigger Warning: Death, drug and alcohol use, suicide, systemic failure, mental health crisis, inpatient psychiatric care.
The 13th of September 2022 saw the opening of inquests into the deaths of two teenage boys.
Autistic shields, Autistic communities
By Katie Munday (they / them), Aucademy
I have spent most of my life creating and maintaining a shield for myself (see Autistic realisation and shielding). It allows me to protect myself from toxic neurotypicality – the insistent need for society to make everyone comply to the ideals of the neuro-majority.
Functioning burnout: can’t stop, won’t stop
By Katie Munday (they / them)
So many of us Autistic folk struggle with burnout – the extreme fatigue which comes from sensorial, emotional and mental overwhelm.
TALKING WITH ASIAN AMERICAN AUTISTIC AUTISM RESEARCHER JENNY MAI PHAN
BY SHANNON DES ROCHES ROSA, TPGA
Jenny Mai Phan is an incredible person and advocate in our community: She’s an Asian American autistic autism researcher, an Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) member, and the mother of four children, two of whom are autistic. She also does research into adolescence and sexuality for autistics, which is topic that really needs more focus and resources. We talked with Jenny recently about her experiences, and her work. ….
Understanding monkeypox–and social media misinformation: Interview with journalist Benjamin Ryan
Noncompliant – the podcast with Anne Borden
This is pt 2 of 2 special podcasts about monkeypox, Covid-19 and science communication.
Is mental “illness” actually the brain trying to protect itself?
By David Gray-Hammond
Up until about a year ago, I still sat firmly in the camp that, while I viewed myself as multiply neurodivergent, I was mentally ill. Over the past year I have been unlearning this lesson, and realising that mental “illness” is completely unquantifiable, and instead, I was suffering because I had been repeatedly traumatised, and then lived in a world incapable of accommodating the particular neurodivergence I had acquired. Psychosis.
Grace Liu – Approaching Autistic Adulthood: The Road Less Travelled.
Book review by Katie Munday (they / them), Aucademy
Approaching Autistic Adulthood: The Road Less Travelled is a personal development book written by Grace Liu. Grace writes about the musings, memories and mishaps of a bi-racial, Autistic, lesbian writer regularly on her blog Unwritten Grace.
WHICH THERAPIES ACTUALLY HELP AUTISTIC CHILDREN?
BY SHANNON DES ROCHES ROSA
At two-and-a-half, my autistic son spoke more words than many other autistic kids in his early intervention speech therapies group. At the time I knew very little about how varied autistic traits could be, so I assumed this pattern would continue.
“REAL AUTISM” ADVICE FROM A REAL AUTISTIC PROFESSIONAL
By Ann Memmott, TPGA
I want to talk about people who insist that “real autism” is a thing, and who wander about saying things like:
“Those autistic people who are against extreme control of autistic children—they have no idea what a Real Autistic Child is like and how much damage they can do to themselves and others—we’re only being kind.”
THE IMPORTANCE AND POWER OF AUTISTIC SELF-DIAGNOSIS
BY SOLVEIG STANDAL, TPGA
We autistics need to have a serious talk about autism and self-diagnosis: what self-diagnosis means, and what effects it will have on us when inevitably both autistic and non-autistic people attempt to gatekeep our own autistic identities.
“There are a lot of areas autism researchers have viewed as deficits that can actually confer advantages”: Talking with MIT researchers Anila D’Mello and Liron Rozenkrantz
Noncompliant – the podcast with Anne Borden
I had an amazing conversation with Drs Anila D’Mello and Liron Rozenkrantzfrom MIT about their research review and other work about autism, rationality and cognition!
Autism, diagnosis, identity, and culture
By David Gray-Hammond
For a long time now, we have heard the phrase “If you have met one Autistic person, you have met one Autistic person”. This saying is an oversimplification of the fact that Autistic people have a wide variety of experiences, privileges, and neurocognitive styles. The question I want you to ask yourself is this:
Why is every Autistic person different?
International Badass Activists 