Neurodiversity, Limitations of the Social Model, and Outliers, part 1

[Note: This started as a single post, but it's turning into something more like chapter, so I'm going to break it up into sections and publish them separately.] So, I recently got this thing published: Clearing Up Some Misconceptions About Neurodiversity And, overall, I've been hugely overwhelmed by the level of positive response. Thank you…

Struggling/For the Children

I haven't written much here lately. In part because my general brain energy has been at a low ebb, and partly because it's gotten harder. Looking back at my older posts, sometimes I feel sad at how they now feel naive and optimistic in some ways. My job has gotten harder. Not because of the…

Suggested Questionnaire for Healthcare and Related Professionals – please share widely

[Update!! Those who want a tool similar to this can download one for free from http://autismandhealth.org/%5D I have heard many complaints from autistic people and other people with disabilities about their struggles in communicating with healthcare professionals, etc.. I propose a simple questionnaire for professionals to use. These would be standard intake questions, and the…

Personal Interlude: Black Dog on a Leash (Living with Chronic Depression)

I am a disability-positive person. I see beauty in human diversity, and believe there is great value in the varieties of body and mind and the great wealth of experiences that ensue from those differences. That being said, I don't always see disability through rose-colored glasses.Depression, like chronic pain, like most chronic illness, is one…

Education, Control, and Abuse

My apologies for the length of this post. *** How do we teach children what they need to know in life? What do they need to know? They need, at some point, some measure of self-control: the ability to delay gratification, to think before acting, to modify aggressive instincts, to consider the well-being and desires…

Making Mistakes

(Sorry for the length of this post!) My first few times babysitting Tangles (10-yr-old girl with global developmental delay, possible autism, ataxic cerebral palsy, and seizures) made me realize just how new I am at all this. I made mistakes, lots of them. I learned a lot, too. The first hurdle was changing her diaper.…

Catching up about Tangles

I've learned so much since my first day with the 10-year-old girl I call Tangles, who has ataxic cerebral palsy and mixed partial seizures, and diagnoses of global developmental delay and profound intellectual disability. But I want to take things in order, here, as much as possible. *** The first time I met her, Tangles…

Things That Are Difficult to Say: More about my first impressions of Tangles

I wasn't, at first, going to write about this here. I was going to keep this blog for writing about Disability Rights and Disability Positivity and The Right Way To Do It. I wasn't going to talk about my mistakes, my second thoughts, my doubts... not in public, anyway. Not because I was ashamed, but…

What kind of therapy does Tangles receive?

[EDITED] Last time I introduced you to a 10-year-old girl I call Tangles, who has ataxic cerebral palsy and mixed partial seizures, and diagnoses of global developmental delay and profound intellectual disability. Here's point one of my frustration about Tangle’s situation. I've described the kind of ABA therapy that Fishy [whose primary disability is also…

Introducing Tangles

I have a new client for whom I've been providing occasional respite care for the past month, and she has taught me so much that I don't even know how to start putting it all down. She is a 10 year old girl who lives with her mother and younger sister, age 6. She's brought…