A Christmas Tale about the gift of music by Lori Jagow From my small apartment, the tune of “Good King Wenceslas” blared from my son’s shiny brass trumpet. My eight year old son, Jimmy, practiced for his first Christmas concert in the school orchestra. Jimmy is autistic and his music teacher recomme…

By Debra Muzikar I write this blog on the eve of my son Kevin’s 22nd birthday. For typical children there are certain ages that are milestones – age 5 – first day of Kindergarten – age 16 – driver’s license – age 18 – graduation from high school. This is no different for childre…

By Tom Clements As a teen, when most of my schoolmates were out exploring the world of dating and relationships, I remained the inveterate oddball, choosing instead to indulge my special interest in maps and to engage in the sort of activities that had as little to do with physical intimacy as possi…

By Debra Muzikar As I write this blog, there is a video that has gone viral with a hashtag #StoptheBullying showing images of a ten-year old child (who happens to be Donald Trump’s child Barron) making a case that the child is autistic. This last week Rosie O’Donnell added to the specula…

It’s a myth people with autism don’t have a sense of humor. Matt Kaiser proves the stereotype wrong. By Matt Kaiser My name is Matt Kaiser. I am 42 years old and am on the autism spectrum. For the last 10 years, I’ve been a performing stand-up, improvisation, prop routines, clowning and …

Update 11/21/2016 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 Sho…

Diagnoses like autism, ADHD and dyslexia, to name a few, are examples of neurodiversity. The battle may be harder, but hope is not yet lost. By Carly Fulgham The last civil rights battle just got harder. You may think I mean the fight for equal pay for women, or equal protection under the law for no…

By Patrick Jasper Lee This film is a dedication to some of the great artists, writers, and composers and their contribution to to our understanding of life. Many of these artists if they were living today would have been given labels of autism, bipolar or schizophrenia. “Tomorrow We Won’…

By Debra Muzikar Last year The Art of Autism posted a blog on Person First Language (PFL) which proved to be educational for me and I hope for others. This year I’m tackling the word neurodiversity, which is much more complex. I didn’t know some people object to the word until I moderated a neurodiv…

I think we’ve developed a ‘patchwork’ sort of world in relation to Autism. By Jeanette Purkis I’ve been a diagnosed Autistic person for more than half my life. Here are some observations of where we were, where we are now and where we might be headed in terms of respect and Neurodiversity and other…

The Art of Autism encourages those on the autism spectrum to vote. For many on the autism spectrum, disability funding is in essence decided through the voting process. Many candidates have disability platforms. Below is an excerpt from an article about disabilities and voting called Election Day Eq…

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind,” Virginia Woolf By Patrick Jasper Lee Autism and fiction aren’t commonly mentioned in the same sentence. It took me some time to realize that there seems these days to be f…

My feeling of being waste material stuck to my soul early in life, and it’s been my biggest challenge to release that sense of worthlessness. By Eva Angvert Harren What is it about relationships that’s so hard to get? I know that “everybody” has challenges with relationships, however when you are on…

I am very much a lone-wolf and an intrepid one at that. I venture into hot pot restaurants most white people would consider too foreign or too edgy, I read the menus in their original Chinese and order my food in either Mandarin or Cantonese which I’ve taught myself. By Tom Clements Aspergians are n…