Stuff about the theory of disability activism:
- A conversation about ableism getting left out of social justice conversations, why it’s still a thing, and why it’s much more than a list of words not to say
- Lisa D. on what an autism rights movement could give us besides words
- Dani Alexis questions the distinction between disability and impairment
Shared experiences:
- S.R. Salas on being an autistic empath
- Cynthia Kim on scripting and nonfunctional language
- Ariane Zurcher also on scripting
- Deanna Niles on homeschooling with a hand puppet
- M. Kelter on how to work with an autistic person who hates autism
Pan-disability stuff:
- Real Social Skills on people who can walk but use wheelchairs
- Amanda Forest Vivian on the role ego dystonia plays in ableism
- Lenzi Sheible on how ableist rhetoric plays into reproductive justice discussions on both sides
- s.e. smith on the need to discuss disabled teens’ sexuality (TW talking about sexual abuse)
- Abby from goesbycaptain on disability and anti-rape activism
- Lisa D. on inconvenience as a barrier to services
Misc:
- In the US, ASAN and others successfully got the Combating Autism Act renamed as the Autism CARES Act, but substantive problems with the actual policy in the act still remain. (Letter to Congress about the implementation of the act)
- Eric from Autistic SHS on problems in biases with how comments are moderated at The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism
- Real Social Skills on the basic problem with social skills education
- A video made by non-speaking teenagers
- Open source autism diagnostic tools
- AASPIRE health care toolkit
Finally, we have Sad Things, Special Kelli Stapleton Edition because apparently this topic simply will not stay out of the news:
- If you are new here and need a recap, Kelli Stapleton is one of many parents who have tried to murder their autistic children. Her daughter, Issy, survived the attempt. Her case is getting more media attention than most because she was a popular “autism parent” blogger before this occurred. Recently it was back in the media because the case went to trial and she was found guilty of first-degree child abuse.
- Kelli Stapleton appeared on the Dr. Phil show. Many autistic people felt that Dr. Phil’s coverage was much too sympathetic, or that it shouldn’t have happened at all. (ASAN statement)
- Other ASAN statement on the case
- Also some people were making blog posts saying that anyone could snap and try to kill their autistic children if they were under enough stress. In response there was an #IAmNotKelliStapleton flash blog.
- There were some good posts that I’ve decided not to link to because I’m really tired of this topic, including posts very strongly making the points that have already been made in other posts about Kelli Stapleton I have linked to, and posts by mentally ill mothers who had far fewer resources and supports than Kelli Stapleton did and still never considered harming their children. However, I will link to a couple of other posts that showed up in the flash blog:
- Anonymous poster makes important points about how media attention & excuses for KS encourage other abusive parents (TW physical abuse)
- Anonymous poster turns “I am autism” rhetoric back around on itself
- Also, if you are not convinced yet of how damaging ABA therapy can be, even without aversives (Issy was in an intensive ABA program for most of her life), ischemgeek has the most harrowing post on the topic I have yet seen