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Emergency Preparedness for Autistic Individuals: What First Responders, Medical Professionals and Families Need to Know
The rise in the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder will mean a rise in first responders and medical professionals interacting with autistic individuals during emergency situations. This makes it essential for communities and healthcare facilities to prepare and train their personnel in how to...
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Creating a Personal Support Network: A Suicide Prevention Resource for Autistic Individuals
Being an autistic person living in a non-autistic majority presents many unique challenges. Lived experience describes daily trials with at times overwhelming stimulation, miscommunication, and emotional struggles, combined with reduced coping capacity, especially during crises. Differences in how...
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Emergency Readiness for Autistic Individuals: Evidence-Based Application of Visual Schedules
Individuals with autism often experience heightened sensitivity to sensory input, difficulty with abstract concepts, and communication barriers, which can complicate emergency responses. Research indicates that children with autism have higher rates of emergency service utilization than their...
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Advancing Community Inclusion for Individuals with ID/DD: History, Challenges, and the Role of Caregivers
Community-based living for people with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (ID/DD) has improved since the mid-20th century, in the context of a broader civil rights movement. A more discrete focus on the rights of individuals with disabilities arose during the 1960s and 1970s under John...
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From Crisis Response to Proactive Planning: Building Sustainable Housing for Autistic Adults
Sarah Pope, CEO of SOS Care, spent years watching families in South Carolina face an impossible choice: Keep their autistic adult children at home indefinitely or place them in the next available group home regardless of fit. As a parent, she knew this system was failing everyone. So, she acted by...
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Illuminating the Housing Crisis and Needs of Adults with Autism and I/DD
Access to safe, affordable and inclusive housing remains one of the most urgent challenges for adults with autism and/or intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD). Recognizing this, a bold initiative from the First Place Global Leadership Institute (First Place Global) informs the...
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Broadening Employment Opportunities for Adults with Autism and/or Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities (I/DD): A Call to Action
Every morning at First Place–Phoenix, a supportive housing property in Midtown Phoenix, Arizona for adults with autism and/or intellectual/developmental disabilities (I/DD), residents head out with determination and hustle. Some volunteer. Some hold part-time or full-time jobs. Others are still...
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Progress in the Eye of the Storm
You may already know the center of a hurricane is called the eye of the storm. What you may not know is that while everything surrounding the eye is wild, swirling and out of control, the eye itself is curiously calm. It’s why meteorologists send planes into the eye, so they can observe and...
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Martin’s Road Back: How Stability, Connection, and Community Made Recovery Possible
When Autism Spectrum News invited stories about supporting people with developmental disabilities through unique challenges, one name immediately came to mind: Martin R. This past weekend, Martin walked through the doors of his new home on City Island. For him, it wasn’t just a change of address,...
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At the Intersection of Autism and Gender Diversity: Supporting Neuro-Gender Queer Youth
Gender-diverse and neurodiverse youth share more than just the word ‘diverse.’ These groups are not mutually exclusive populations but instead have considerable overlap. Estimates of the co-occurrence of neurodiversity and gender diversity vary. However, some research suggests that autistic...
