By Dan L. Edmunds, PH.D. They said to persevere. I began to perseverate. They discouraged me. Be joyful they said. I flapped my hands with a joyful feeling. Not like that they said. They used a lot of words whereas I had not many. They said I needed to speak like them and when I did they said it was…

By Nils Skudra This morning I had the opportunity to watch My Name is David, a compelling short film featuring the actual words of David Shapiro Sharif (May 28, 1997 – April 23, 2022), a young autism advocate who recently died suddenly at the age of 24. Made in Claymation, the film provides a…

“…my artists are reminded every day that we are not just advocating for ourselves, but for people with disabilities all over the world, because we are showing them that this is possible. This is the only art studio in the country that is managed by artists with disabilities,” Mehri…

“Empowering your young person is the key to giving them the skills they need to live an independent life. If you do things for them that they could learn or even do for themselves by themselves, then you are DISEMPOWERING your young person,” Tom Iland By Debra Muzikar What is your first…

By Henny Kupferstein, M.A. Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) for autistics is based on Pavlov’s operant conditioning for dogs. In this video, you can see the lone dog waiting for permission to have fun. Watching this clip, I can almost hear the ABA kid saying, “Miss Ashley–what am I working for? Aft…

I believe much of my misery was rooted in my perceived inability to make thoughtful, empowered and meaningful choices in my life—choices about my thoughts, my attitude, my perspective, and my behavior. By Emily Grey Berman The Vision I always wanted to be a mother. I had this vision of raisin…