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Supporting Young Adults: Transitioning to Post-Secondary Educational Opportunities
This fall, I dropped my oldest child off for his junior year of college. For our family, this is always a time of excitement, but also one of trepidation. The transition from high school to higher education, from childhood to adulthood, is full of new and evolving challenges. Those challenges are...
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An Autistic’s Vision for Neurodiversity-Affirming Therapy
As a neurodiversity community self-advocate, I have come across far too many stories of emotional distress and trauma in connection with neurodivergent individuals' lived behavioral therapy experiences. I understand where they're coming from and I empathize. As a late-identified autistic, I, like...
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Autistic Lived Experience: Life Magazine Labeled Me “A Bright Child Who Can’t Learn”
In April 2023, it was my distinct privilege to be invited to The Center School in Somerset, NJ, the special needs school where it all began for me as a Kindergartener back in the mid '70s, to give an author talk about my book A Long Walk Down a Winding Road. I felt as though I had triumphantly come...
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Parent Involvement as a Metric of Quality Care
A family-centered approach has been considered best practice for many years in early intervention and pediatric rehabilitation (Bailey, Buysse, Edmondson, 1992; Baird & Peterson, 1997). For students with complex medical, physical, developmental, and behavioral challenges, a family-centered...
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Supporting Families with Autistic Children – What More Can Be Done?
According to a March 2023 press release from the CDC, about 1 in 36 (2.8%) children have been identified with Autism Spectrum Disorder based on data gathered from 11 communities around the United States. This is a 22% increase from 2018, which found the prevalence of ASD to be 1 in 44...
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Beyond the Autism Diagnosis: Understanding the Multifaceted Needs of Parents
As the number of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) increases, so does the number of parents trying to navigate the complexities that accompany an autism diagnosis. Raising an autistic child is challenging for many parents, and many reported higher levels of stress compared to...
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Autism and Marriage: Making Your Relationship Work Under the Pressures of Caregiving
Having a child with autism can certainly put strain on a marriage. I should know. After over 20 years of marriage with two children on the autism spectrum, my marriage came to an end. So why am I writing an article about making your relationship work? Because it’s too important not to. My...
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Bridging the Gap: Empowering Families Awaiting an Autism Diagnosis
The prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) continues to rise. According to the CDC, 1 in 36 children are diagnosed with autism by the age 81 and as a result, the need for comprehensive family support systems has never been more pressing. Unfortunately, the barriers to clinical support and...
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Aging with Autism: Innovations for Independent Living to Address the Housing Crisis
At the beginning of the COVID pandemic, a friend came down with a particularly bad case of the virus which required emergency transport to the hospital. Laying on the gurney in the back of the ambulance she panicked as they placed the oxygen mask over her face. The EMS workers were frustrated with...
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Teamwork: Building A Successful Neurodivergent-Neurotypical Marriage
As I sit down to write this, my husband and I just celebrated our 39th wedding anniversary. We met through a mutual friend - an ex-boyfriend of mine. Joseph and I had gone our separate ways a few months before I received a phone call from “Caper” (his chosen “call sign”). I was surprised by...
