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Autism Rights, Wrongs, and Acceptance: A Two-Way Street
Though I was diagnosed autistic as an infant, I was unaware I was different until second grade, when I was shuffled between special and regular education classes, when I decided, mostly on my own, that I would transition to mainstream school. While I was a great student throughout my scholastic...
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Scientific Setbacks: Medical Stigma and Political Interference Threaten Autism Healthcare
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently said many autistic children were “fully functional” and “regressed … into autism when they were 2 years old. And these are kids who will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll...
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Medicaid Cuts Will Put People Like Me at Risk
My name is Jimmy Tucker. I have a learning disability, and I am on the autism spectrum. In school and in adult life, I never felt like I fit in. I’ve always felt different, and that made things harder for me. But Medicaid-funded programs have helped me find my way. These are the supports I rely...
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Setting the Record Straight on Autism
Proposed HHS changes particularly threaten autism science. Key Points: Most individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can achieve developmental milestones like others. The recently proposed registry of individuals with ASD is an unethical breach of patient confidentiality. More...
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Can Being Denied Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) Cause Lifelong Trauma?
Complex trauma happens when someone feels they are trapped and alone in continuing threatening or unsafe circumstances, like child abuse, war, or racism (World Health Organization, 2019). In situations where a person experiences threats every day, changes occur to the part of the nervous system...
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What I’d Like to See Change in the Disability World Over the Next 50 Years – Part 3: REAL Culture Change
In 2003, I was about to say “no” to the offer to start what would become GRASP. I had been a minor-league diplomat who, throughout the ten years of working for my organization (if you can believe this…), they had gone through five Executive Directors in one six-year period. Twice, I was...
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Real Boys Cry: Gus Walz, Neurodiversity, and the Fight for Disability Rights
It was a heartwarming viral moment that many will never forget. As the father of Tariq, my adult son with autism who is nonspeaking, it struck a deep chord in me. Most men have grown up with the maxim that “Big Boys Don’t Cry.” Breaking that traditional masculine model with exuberant cheers...
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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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AHRC NYC’s Memorial Goldfarb Symposium Highlights Court Rulings Overlook Impact on Disability Community
Applying a disability lens to the U.S. Supreme Court decisions makes it clear that recent rulings, including affirmative action, have a significant impact on the community, according to a panel of experts at AHRC New York City’s first Memorial Michael Goldfarb Symposium. “People of color...
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Autistic Lived Experience: When I Learned that Helen Keller Believed in Eugenics
To say that learning about this for the first time felt like a punch in the gut is a gross understatement. Though I heard it from what I consider to be a credible source (the PBS documentary series The U.S. and the Holocaust), I nonetheless could not bring myself to believe the truth because I...
