Autism in easy English: Stimming

This post is about stimming. It is part of a series talking about autism in simple language. The goal is to help explain autism for ESL/English Language Learners.

Autism in Easy English: Introduction

A series of posts about autism, in simple English language. My goal is to help explain autism and answer questions especially for English Language Learners/ESL.

What’s Wrong With “Better” ABA?

This is a preliminary post. There are a bunch of references I need to add, and plenty of examples and stories I could share. But I want to get the basics down now, while they're on my mind. There are a gazillion critiques of ABA out there, largely from adult autistic people, and some from…

More Challenged Than Challenging, part 1

We can't make aggression disappear completely, but we can make it less likely, less frequent, and less intense. Over the years, we've done a lot to make my client's life more orderly and predictable. As a result, he's generally a happier and calmer person, and slower to anger than he used to be. He is still someone with limitations that frustrate him unbearably at times, and he doesn't have as much emotional maturity as most people his age. But he is also much less prone to violence than he used to be. I think that's definitely worth the effort!

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…