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Autistic Lived Experience: A Song Request at a High School Dance That Backfired
Had I known then what I know now, the DJ calling the shots at this dance would not have heard this request despite how much I loved the song in question. It comes down to the fact that context matters, as do the hidden rules of the social situations in which we find ourselves. These realities often...
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What I’d Like to See Change in the Disability World Over the Next 50 Years – Part 2: Know and Teach the REAL History
Occurring all across Western culture is a deep reckoning with the historical treatment of people of African descent. And assisting mightily in this process is the concept of unlearning. Without unlearning, we now know that we will continue to sanitize and apologize for our ancestors. Unlearning...
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Autism Gets an Update: A National Autism Strategy for Canadians
Note: While there are many areas of inequity, this article will focus on diagnosis and support services as seen by the Autistic writer living in Ontario, Canada. Autism in Canada One in 66 Canadians is autistic. Collectively, we face numerous challenges to accessing services and supports,...
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We Are All on the Same Side: Unite the Spectrum
We are writing to explain why we do not need more labels to describe autism. We, the authors, became acquainted with each other in 1996 through a common mentor, Stanley Klein, the editor of Exceptional Parent Magazine, when we each published our first books: Beyond the Wall: Personal Experiences...
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What I’d Like to See Change in the Disability World Over the Next 50 Years – Part 1: Let’s Change How We Define “Disability”
Note: Autism Spectrum News has allowed me to herein adapt an old piece of mine into a three-part series. I jumped at the chance as the piece needed an update. Frequent readers of mine know the following statement: “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature….Life is...
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From Stigma to Acceptance: Insights from a Concerned Autistic Self-Advocate
My imagination often transports me into the thick of relatively grandiose situations. These episodes provide needed opportunities for release. In my mind, I sometimes have it out with my opponent during a presidential debate and winning, giving my acceptance speech after having won some...
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Designing a Sensory-Friendly Workplace for Autistic Adults
Autism is a lifelong condition, yet there is a noticeable lack of research on adults on the autism spectrum (Fairbank, 2023). Despite limited studies, challenges are emerging, one being a lack of sensory-friendly workplaces (Pryke-Hobbes et al., 2023). While the struggles of entering the workforce...
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Autistic Lived Experience: Unable to Be There for a Friend in Need
In hindsight, I view my sophomore year of college as being the most challenging year of my life. Up until then, I was living in the sweet bliss of unawareness. I had no concept of how compromised my self-esteem was or what self-esteem even meant, and I had a flawed sense of how my words and actions...
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Five Comfort Tools to Empower Your Driving
When driving a vehicle, sensory issues are important considerations for autistic people. Driving uses almost every sense in the body, like sight, smell, and sound, and all these senses are processed simultaneously, every time you get behind the wheel of a car. If you’re not able to process...
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Nurturing Comfort: Sensory Processing Through an Autistic Lens
What grates on your nerves? The slurping sound made by an open-mouthed eater or by someone smacking gum and popping bubbles? What about ticking clocks? Or the coworker who repeatedly clicks their pen, ad nauseam? Why do such noises bother autistic people? Maybe it’s because stimuli and sensory...
