I'm always encouraged when I come across individuals, organizations and businesses that see our vision.
The fact that there are people willing to look past the differences of opinions regarding Vaccinations, DSM, or other controversial issues - and to focus on providing whatever information we can to the general public is phenomenal. Continue reading
Lisa Domican has two children, Liam & Grace. Both have autism and as a result did not develop speech. To allow autistic children with this limitation to communicate with their parents, Picture Exchange Communication Systems (PECS) are used. The term that might as well also describe an IT protocol is used to describe a rather hardware-driven solution: It is a selection of printed laminated pictures.
"The system teaches them to hand you a picture of a drink, which you quickly reward by giving them this drink," explains Lisa. "Little by little you teach them a vocabulary of different pictures for different things, all of which have huge value to the child. At the same time you are pointing to the picture and saying the name of each item in order to encourage the development of speech." 
Alex is Alex.
I say that quite a bit. It's partially a reminder to accept him as is, that he is perfect all on his own, and to not compare him to anyone else because there is no one else like him. I remind myself to compare his progress only to him, where he was before vs where he is today. Sometimes, that's not so easy to do.
Sometimes, I'm reminded he's not as autistically normal as I thought he was.
As part of the 2013 Autism Positivity flash blog event, we bloggers were encouraged to list 1000 positive aspects about autism to combat the waves and waves of negativity through out the media and such… but instead of just 1000, I thought it would be better to aim higher. How about 1,000,000? 10,000,000? How about 140,000,000?
Because if the latest estimates are to be believed from the CDC, which puts autism near 1 in 50 school children, then out of 7,000,000,000 on the planet, we have a lot to be positive about. Continue reading
I want to apologize for being so hit and miss as of late. We’re kinda going through a really rough time and I’ve been and still am, sick.
I’ve got a few really cool things in the works for the month of April and that’s taking up a bit of my time.
There is just so much going on anymore and I’m really overwhelmed. Continue reading
About a week and a half ago I found out that I was the recipient of The Margaret L. Bauman M.D Award for Excellence in Serving the Autism Community. It was a pleasant surprise to say the least and it gave me the wonderful opportunity to attend The "Current Trends in Autism Conference" located hosted by The Autism Research Foundation in Burlington Massachusetts last weekend.
Yesterday was awful , a seriously terrible evening.
Upon further reflection, It occurred to me... Continue reading
For the last few months I've had the priviledge of writing for a new digital magazine: Autism OZ. As the name suggests, it comes out of Australia. It's a really wonderful supportive and inspiring publication and I am very excited to be a part of it. I love the international flavor from Australia to South Africa to the UK to the US and elsewhere. It is packed full on information and inspiration.
