How to Advocate for Your Nonspeaking or Minimally Verbal Child or Adult

Over the last decade, there has been an increase in autistic self-advocates coming into the public eye through their incredible means to advocate for themselves - and others like them. These individuals have become a powerful voice for boards, committees, research and quality improvement...

Supporting Teens and Adults in Becoming the Best Self-Advocate They Can

The creation of self-advocacy is a story that is one of pioneering and revolution dating back as far as 1968 (Glumbić et al., 2022). Today, many self-advocacy organizations target elevating neurodiverse voices and providing space for neurodiverse individuals to advocate for themselves. The current...

The Importance of Proactive Sexuality Education for the Autistic Population

For most adults, an important quality of life factor is romantic/sexual relationships. Autistic individuals are no different. However, they are less likely to receive sexual education in a proactive framework than their neurotypical peers (e.g., Sala et al., 2019). When sexual education is provided...

Making Meaningful Connections: Amy Kelly Discusses Value of Devereux’s Internal Family Support Group

At Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health, we are always looking for ways to better support our talented and hard-working team members. Devereux National Director of Family Engagement Amy Kelly, MBA, MNM, leads a family support group for Devereux employees and their significant others who are parents,...

Planning a Summer Vacation: Travel Tips for Families of Children With Disabilities

Summer travel season is well underway. While traveling with children can be both fun and exhausting, if you are a parent or caregiver of a child with disabilities, even more planning may be required to have a safe and successful trip. This summer, I decided to take my daughter Annie on her first...

Addressing a National Shortage of Autism Specialists

I remember the day as if it was yesterday – Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2003. It was my birthday, and I had just met with my 21-month-old daughter’s pediatrician to discuss her “global developmental delays.” In the most caring way, he told us, “You will need to see a developmental-behavioral...

Supporting the College-Bound Autistic Student: A Need for Better Transition Planning

For autistic individuals, success in college lies in an effective transition plan that acknowledges and addresses the increased challenges they will face as college students. According to a national study, 34% of autistic students who qualified for a post-secondary education program attended such a...

Managing Back-to-School Jitters: Tips to Help Children With Special Needs Ensure a Smooth Transition

Remember how it felt as a child before your first day of school? Perhaps you experienced butterflies in your stomach or loss of sleep the night before. You were excited to see your friends, but also nervous about what the new school year would bring. That is exactly how I am feeling about sending...

Taking a Person-Centered Approach to Teaching Meaningful Employment Skills

A person-centered approach is vital for providing effective employment training for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In an effort to capture the experiences of those who have received employment training, we conducted interviews with three members of the Devereux Pennsylvania...

Use of a Specialized PBIS Framework to Organize and Deliver Evidence-Based Practices to Children with Autism

A significant challenge facing autism service providers is the effective and consistent delivery of evidence-based practices to the children they serve. A number of research reviews, including the National Standards Project (Rue, Knox, Welchons, Murzycki, Pollack, & Class, 2015) and the...