The concept of neurodiversity emerged in the 1990’s as a way for autism advocates to affirm their identity as people with neurological differences rather than as disabled individuals.  The idea has spread as other advocates (including myself) have sought to articulate the ”diversity rather than disability” message to a broader segment of the population than...Read More

This quote came to me via email and it seems to speak so profoundly to those who look at young children, especially those with special needs, and place them in foretold futures (e.g. ”this child will never be able to …” or ”most children with this diagnosis will grow up to….”).  I’m working on revising...Read More

Today we have a guest blog from Chris Santos-Lang who is the founder and president of The Organization for Collaborative Leadership, Inc.  Chris has written about evaluativism, which, simply put, is the disregard of people with differing values, including political, social, moral, philosophical, gender-based, sexuality-based, racial, ethnic, and class-based values, among other points of view....Read More

I’m seriously concerned that the schools aren’t doing enough (change that:  aren’t doing anything!) to prepare students on the autism spectrum for a range of careers that are beginning to open up for them in the workplace.  So much of recent educational ”reform” has been about preparing our students to be college and career-ready.  If this...Read More

Today we have a guest post from educational therapist Diana Kennedy.  I connected with her through LinkedIn, and was inspired by her blog post about a student with Fragile X syndrome that she has worked with as first, a special education teacher, and later, as an educational therapist.   Diana’s business is Mindspark – Custom Learning...Read More