By Nils Skudra Recently I had the opportunity to watch The Horse Boy, a deeply intriguing and thought-provoking documentary on a couple’s efforts to find an effective source of therapeutic treatment for their young son on the autism spectrum. This documentary, released in 2009, provides a highly com…

The Art of Autism kicks off our 8th Annual Arts & Poems for Peace Project. We will be posting on Facebook peace submissions throughout the month of October. By Dawn Baker The Oxford English Dictionary writes that peace is ‘freedom from disturbance’. The Hebrew root for peace (shalom) is a bles…

By Ron Sandison I felt a sense of nostalgia watching the video of Joey Hicks, a thirty-year-old, nonspeaking adult with autism, soothing to the music of the Grateful Dead at the Gorge Amphitheatre in Washington. In the TikTok video that went viral, Joey is rocking-back-and-forth absorbed in the mus…

By Ron Sandison In March, my family was interviewed by Netflix for a new reality show Travel on the Spectrum. The show will feature three families who have a family member with autism as they travel to Myrtle Beach for week vacation. Netflix decided to produce the show when they learned that 80% of …

by Joel Ashton-Fogle Waiting Room 1 Arriving in a state. Heart racing. Bracing self and pacing, chasing, facing wait with weight Afraid of light. Afraid of sound. Each breath exploding, foreboding Eroding ground Concrete ejection seat Might hurl me into obsolete. Confiscation, condemnation, Where is…

Becoming a professional speaker takes hard work, confidence, and practice. By Ron Sandison In April for Autism Acceptance Month, I spoke to 3,500 students and staff. During the past 7 years, I have spoken to over 250,000 people and I have presented everywhere from Israel to Madagascar. I speak at ov…

by Daniel Antonsson In my teenage years, I was a cautious boy. Girls seemed like they came from another planet and I had no idea what to talk with them about whatsoever. I was interested in motorcycles and martial arts while girls liked stuff like fashion, horses and boys (at least as far as I knew)…

By Aaron Bouma When people think of autism, sometimes they think of the television series The Good Doctor or the robotic talking Rain Man. What people don’t realize is these misconceptions harm autistic people and are stigmatizing and ablest. How do you cope with these misconceptions? How do …

In 2010 HBO’s biopic Temple Grandin won five Emmys. Claire Danes won for Best Actress for her portrayal of Grandin. By Nils Skudra Among the autism-themed films that I have seen, one of the most outstanding biographical depictions is the 2010 HBO film Temple Grandin, starring Claire Danes as t…

Even if the change seems small, it will still need to be processed and preferably before you go to bed! By Catherine Londero Consider anything that is unexpected I have always been aware that struggling with change is a trait of being autistic and I definitely identified with that with the bigger ch…

By Amanda Porche For as long as I can recall I have always felt like and outsider. I believed that I was this deep, dark individual that nobody could possibly understand. Some of this comes from being an autistic child and starting school with significant verbal and developmental delays. I knew I wa…

The poem, “More Than One Way to Fly,” I wrote in honor of my son, who is on the autism spectrum. The poem, which illustrates the relationship between a social Chickadee and a solitary Brown Creeper, is an appeal for neurotypicals to reach out to the marginalized. By Tami Ullom More Than One Way to …

“The buzz from the show opened doors for me to expand my reach, which is extraordinarily gratifying!” Kaelynn Partlow By Ron Sandison I enjoyed watching the Netflix series, Love On the Spectrum and hearing each participants’ story and the challenges they experienced with dating. The show beautif…

Art as a Language for Autism: Building Effective Therapeutic Relationships with Children and Adolescents (2023) Jane Ferris Richardson By Connie Gretsch MA Art Therapy, M Ed Art Integration, SLBP Special Education, Expressive Art and Special Educator Jane Ferris Richardson is an art therapist, play…