An essay by Melanie Yergeau. The map is new, and I know it all. I hop from one painted state to the next, reciting each capital, each state bird, each state nickname, each state flower, each state population as of 1989, the year imprinted on the spines of my World Book Encyclopedia set.
ASAN President Ari Ne’eman was profiled in Newsweek Magazine discussing the Autistic community’s concerns around genetic testing and the need for a new direction in…
Where do rights come from? We go out to the world and we tell them in so many ways that it is time for our rights to be realized. We talk about inclusion, we talk about integration, we talk about access, but when we are asked why, our answers are typically phrased in the language of either cost-benefit or desperate need. The one turns our civil rights struggle into a conversation on policy technicalities; the other evokes the very charity-oriented model of disability support that we have been trying to escape.
Like other people with disabilities, many autistic people who are victims of abusive relationships are particularly vulnerable and may have great difficulty escaping from a life-threatening situation. If, because of the bigoted stereotype that the autistic partner is always to blame for family problems, an abused autistic’s cries for help go unanswered, this could result in her death at the hands of her abuser.
Augmentative and Alternative Communication: Since communication difficulties are experienced by many, if not most, people on the autism spectrum, funding research in this area should be a high priority. Advances in communication technology, and the development of AAC options that are affordable, will have a practical application to the lives of people on the autism spectrum, throughout the entire lifespan.
