Bryant and Michael So many new things happening at Autistry. We welcome two new mentors to our Autistry staff, Bryant Luong and Matt Glenwright. Bryant has a degree in psychology from California State University, Fullerton and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in occupational therapy at Domini…

Update 2/29/2016 I’m collecting favorite quotes about autism from some of my favorite people. Please share your own in the comments and if I like it, I may add it to the list. 1. “If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism,” Dr. Stephen Shor…

Downs Design® and NBZ Jeans® with  no buttons and zipperless jeans addresses dressing challenges for people with special needs. By Keri Bowers I recently ran across an amazingly altruistic clothing company and fell madly in love with both their clothing line and their central mission. As the mother …

Autistic people, diagnosed or not, are not here to prove themselves to you, me or anyone else by virtue of “how autistic they are.” By Jocelyn Eastman CN: A Teensy Bit of Vulgarity and Bad Language for effect I’m truly a lucky woman. I don’t have any diagnosed children who would have compelled…

By Michelle Damiata Autism is not just a disability; Autism is something that requires understanding and empathy. Autism is a mental disability that affects a child’s social skills and learning skills as well. It can also affect the way a child’s thinking and it can make it difficult to comprehend …

If all we do is try to shape the child’s behavior “from the outside”, utilizing techniques such as verbal commands, token reinforcements, intellectual validations and extinctions (“do you “understand me?”) and fail to “see” how and where in the psyche and physical body they experience stimuli and ex…

by Debra Muzikar In the last decade the world has changed dramatically. Today’s teens unlike prior generations have grown up with iphones, ear buds, tablets, and apps. Although many teens may be digitally savvy they may lack the personal skills needed to make new friends or land a job. Smile &…

by Debra Muzikar Editor’s Note: The official trailer for Normal People Scare Me Too was released yesterday. James Jagow’s created the musical score for the trailer. It’s 2002. Keri Bowers is raising her 14-year old autistic son, Taylor, in Thousand Oaks, a suburban community in …

Acknowledging Mastery at Autistry: Certification. We teach skills as an integral part of working with students at Autistry. If a student wants to make a pillow, they learn to sew. If a student wants a bookshelf, they learn woodworking. A model tank, they learn model building, painting, decaling, wea…

“Life and death, energy and peace. If I stop today it was still worth it. Even the terrible mistakes that I made and would have unmade if I could. The pains that have burned me and scarred my soul, it was worth it, for having been allowed to walk where I’ve walked, which was to hell on E…

“There’s this one thing a friend of the Dalai Lama said after being tortured and imprisoned: to solve his imprisonment, he had compassion for his torturers, not anger, but compassion. Replace anger with compassion and you get a happier person,” Ben By Nancy Lea Speer It is said that if a Great B…

Being autistic is not about living in a vacuum, sucking in everything around you, living in an existence shutout from your environment. If anything, the environment becomes more real, more painful, more evident. By Jocelyn Eastman Part 1 in a 3-Part Series TW/CW: Upsetting dialogue, discussion of p…

Update 1/18/2016 I’m collecting favorite quotes about autism from some of my favorite people. Please share your own in the comments and if I like it, I’ll add it to the list. 1. “If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism,” Dr. Stephen…

Brian Be, movement addict / dancer Spoke N Motion Dance.org features him in his solo during their spring show at the Colorado Ballet. Watch “Loss & Joy … a father’s story.” *** FB: BrianBeArts Twitter: BeArtsWellness Email: BeArtsWellness@gmail.com SpecialAcademy.org/…