Welcome!

Welcome, new readers. Your support is greatly appreciated. Please be advised that, due to the way my brain functions, my typical pattern of online presence consists of 1-5 days of intense activity, followed by weeks or even months offline. I am trying to learn to engage on a more regular basis, but my disabilities don't…

Things that need saying

This blog is where I write primarily about disability rights, drawing both from my job as a caregiver and from my own experiences as a person with chronic illness. I  have a BS in psychology, with a concentration in cognitive and neuro psych. Since graduation, I have worked as a psychology research assistant, tutor, and as…

In Which I Use My Imagination

I want to help you imagine it, too. Perhaps it will help you, as it helped me, to be more patient with the profoundly autistic people in your life, and more openminded about what thoughts may lie behind their actions.

Words, words, words

Musings first, then the part about words. ******* In my typical way, I have suddenly gotten back into heavily using this blog after months of barely remembering that it exists. It always takes me a while just to remember how to post stuff and where my profile is and what various icons mean and things…

A photo story

(Note: This is a post I started months ago and never finished. This is how my brain works. No posts for half a year and then multiple ones the same day. Frustrating!) Trying something new here -- an Insta post turned blog post. My 8-year-old client is making wonderful progress. When we reconnected a few…

Autistic People Imitate Just Fine

Many people, including professionals, think that autistic children don't learn by imitating, the way neurotypical/non-autistic children do. But they do imitate. They may just imitate different things, and in different ways.

Yes, THOSE Kids

Life isn't always easy. Love isn't always easy. Autism isn't always easy. Embrace them all anyways.

Stop Pathologizing Autistic Play

A topic came up in an autism support group I frequent. A mother said that her son's Early Intervention therapist was trying to get him to stop "repetitive play," and play more the way typical children do. The mom didn't see any harm in repetitive play, but the therapist claimed her son was doing the…

Playfulness Yields Insights

A lot of my time with "Euterpe," a young woman with developmental delays and a strong speech impediment, is spent on vocal play. That might be the formal term for it anyway: we're just playing around, and it's largely a matter of me trying to keep her entertained, which takes some doing. [Note: my code…

Blogging while disabled: A quick cross-post from my social media

I woke up this morning. This may not, in fact, sound like much of a surprise. I am obviously not in a coma, so technically speaking I wake up every morning. However, to give you some idea of what I mean, let me detail how I woke up yesterday. Yesterday, after drifting in and out…

Rosy glasses?

Many non-autistic parents of autistic children complain that people who are pro-neurodiversity put an unrealistic positive spin on life with autism. They say we ignore the struggles, the pain, and the unhappiness experienced by both parent and child. I think this complaint oversimplifies the neurodiversity approach. I think it's possible to acknowledge struggles without making…

Behavior diagrams and flow charts

I often think of things from the perspective of a scientist or engineer trying to solve a problem. It can help bridge the gap between different communication styles, such as autistic and non-autistic, in a way that respects both. Here is an example: Autistic children are often taught to look up and make eye contact…