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Just Because We Can Mask Doesn’t Mean We Don’t Need Support as Autistic Adults
We spend a lot of time in the Autism community focused on children and how to support their needs. I admit this is the focus of my career, but we sometimes forget that autistic children become autistic adults. And while progress is often made as autistic people age and mature, there will often...
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Are Therapy and Accommodations Sufficient for Autism Empowerment?
Please note: The terms Aspie, ASD/Neurodivergent, and Autistics will be used to refer to people with Autism. A quick Google search for “supporting” or “empowering” Autistic people brings up pages recounting our impairments and suggested accommodations in education and employment. In the...
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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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The Role of Mental Health Support in Autism Care: Breaking Free of the Patterns of This World
As a mental health professional, I have had the incredible privilege of counseling individuals with Autism for over a decade. I have had the opportunity to witness and be a part of the beautiful journey that occurs when someone who received a diagnostic label of Autism Spectrum Disorder learns to...
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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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Rights and Challenges for Autistic People with Communication Disabilities in the Legal System
Police should be the last resort.... I shouldn’t have to call the police if my son is having a meltdown. When I get up in the morning, I say, “Thank God he’s not dead,” and “Thank God I’m not dead.” - Kerima Çevik, activist and parent of a nonspeaking autistic son (Sokol,...
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Why Didn’t My Pre-Diagnosis Clinicians Bring Up the Possibility of Autism?
So much was lost as a result of not knowing for so long. Lost happiness, because of having to contend with unanswered questions as to why I faced such daunting challenges which none of my peers seemed to be facing. Lost time, during which I lived without a complete picture of who I truly am, during...
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I Was Finally Diagnosed with High-Functioning Autism, Now What?
I suspected I was on the Autism Spectrum for over 20 years before I finally received a diagnosis. Like many people with high-functioning autism, my autism went unnoticed because I was intelligent enough to succeed in school and my autistic traits were not seen as neurodivergent, but as learning...
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Autism and the Troubling Risk of Suicide
This article has information about suicide and suicide prevention. For help 24/7, please call or text the U.S. Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988. Few people used to think about the risk of suicide among people on the autism spectrum. Researchers rarely studied it. Primary care doctors did not...
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Intimate Relationship Failures From an Autistic Perspective
The standard narrative positions autism as the cause of relationship trouble when a non-autistic person dates or falls in love with an autistic person. The autistic partner is assumed to be the disruptive or difficult one. Self-help books offer non-autistic partners tips on how to cope with their...
