My name is Katrina and I am the casting associate of a 20th for ABC Pilot called NOT DEAD YET and got your details from my colleague. For the role of EDWARD, we are open to an actor who is neurodiverse or on the autism spectrum and we want to make sure we’ve auditioned anyone that might be ri…

This blog post originated from a second reply sent to Myranda Uselton to her Art of Autism post about being a self-diagnosed Autistic. In my first reply to her, I was proud to be self-diagnosed, and in the second, I described why I changed my mind. Debra Muzikar (editor of the Art of Autism blog) as…

“To be loved means first of all to be recognized as existing.” Thich Nhat Hanh By Jill MacCormack What does it mean to love and be loved? I cannot say for certain but I do know that what the great Vietnamese peace activist, poet and mindfulness meditation teacher, the late Thich Nhat Hanh said, th…

Michelle Goering “Let’s just drive over there, okay?” My nineteen-year-old had been trying to find a way to visit his high school. He’d last been there in March of 2020, a senior in his last semester. Looking back at my Google calendar for March 2020, I see nothing special noted on Friday the 13th. …

Areva Martin is an award-winning attorney, best-selling author, legal commentator, talk show host, and a critical voice for social justice. By Ron Sandison Areva Martin has a son Marty who has autism. I interviewed Areva Martin for Black History Month because her advocacy for Marty reminded me of m…

By Nils Skudra This weekend I had the opportunity to finish watching the new Amazon Prime series As We See It, a compelling 8-episode portrayal of three young autistic adults dealing with the challenges of independent living. This series provides a highly insightful and sensitive look at the issues…

By Kris McElroy If someone would have asked me to rate my anxiety and excitement on a scale of 1-10 when I found out I was going to be a dad in May of 2020, I would have said, “are you kidding me? I’m like a 25 on excitement and a 50 on anxiety”. Before then I never believed I could be a parent beca…

By Danyale Sturdivant When my son Joshua was born, I cannot begin to tell you how happy I was! I had watched video’s and read books and was so “prepared”! I had everything down and was excited to take on this new venture. As life would have it, he was diagnosed with Autism at 2 ½ and that is when o…

The Art of Autism kicks off Black History Month 2022 with a poem by Art of Autism board member Angela Weddle. Do you have a poem, art or a blog to share? Email info@artautism.com. My Mother Stands by Angela Weddle My mother stands in front of Robert E. Lee. My mother stands in front of me. My moth…

By Aaron Bouma For my peoples with disabilities, stigma is something we continuously face. It is how we are perceived to be, to act, and what we are believed to be capable of as well as what expections people have when they become involved with us. Expectations can be like a scale. It can be good …

By Steve Staniek I spent 40 years in Health Physics, protecting workers and the public against nuclear risks, and by the time I retired I was a stressed-out wreck. We moved to the country where I began to study shamanism as a path to healing. I took a couple of basic shamanic courses from FSS, and b…

Spoilers ahead for the Netflix original film Don’t Look Up. by Allison Wall What’s that in the sky? Is it a bird? A plane? A planet-destroying comet? Oh. It’s ableism. One of Netflix’s original big movie hits over the 2021 winter holiday season was Don’t Look Up (directed and written by Adam McKay w…

My name is Angel, and this is my autism confession. By Angel Nikki Mann I loved being quarantined. Now before you get upset, please understand that I’m not saying I like Covid. When I first started hearing about “coronavirus,” I, like many people, was alarmed. I had just started working at a child …

By Ron Sandison When I was diagnosed with autism in 1982 only one in every 10,000 children in the United States had an autism diagnosis. As a teenager, I felt different, much like an endangered species. I was often excluded from social activities due to my outbursts and meltdowns. The neurodiversit…