As mentioned in my post of the Exploring the Spectrum Conference, on Thursday (March 2nd) afternoon, Patricia and Steve Silberman did an interview with CBC Radio’s Mainstreet NS show. It’s now up as a podcast on CBC at http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/892970051734. And trust me, it’s definitely worth taking 15 minutes to listen to it; Patricia and Steve both manage to cover a lot in that time with the interviewer.
So, way back in December, my friend from CAPP, Patricia, told me that Autism Nova Scotia was having a conference March 2nd and 3rd, and she had managed to get Steve Silberman (the author of Neurotribes) as the keynote speaker (he was great, BTW). She also said that they were doing a panel of women autistics, and asked if I would like my name mentioned as a possible panelist. I said “Yes!”. 😉 (Who wouldn’t? Especially given I’m getting more into advocacy.)
Over the next two months various details got ironed out, and I was confirmed as a panelist, and very eager to go.
And I had a really great time.
(Note: Long – it covers a lot over the course of the two days! Also note there are pictures included.)
Check this out! Excellent reasons for hiring autistics, and the CEO in question even comments that having autistics/neuro-diverse teams helps everyone in the team do better!
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-39052653
‘Later!
🙂 tagÂûght
This October, the Autism Society of Newfoundland and Labrador is celebrating Autism Awareness and Acceptance Month with the theme of “Ask About Autism”. The (genius) brainchild of the Advocacy and Communications Manager, Tess Hemeon, Ask About Autism involves activities all month long encouraging people to ask questions to professionals and autistics about autism. Something I can thoroughly get behind, because how can we teach people what they want to know if they don’t ask? (Yes, we can tell people things; but those may not be the things they feel they need to know.)
It’s been a while, I know. Between dealing with the effects of my heat allergy in July and August (yeah, summers in St. John’s are a lot cooler than, say, summers in Toronto, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t get warm), and then catching a nasty cold in the first week of September (I’m still coughing), I haven’t had a lot of energy to spare to be updating.
But the CAPP Advisory Group met in Toronto on Monday, and we had a great time. We were informed of the basic stats of the responses to the Community Round Tables, the surveys, and the written submissions – and I just want to say a large “Thank You!” to all those who responded. The numbers exceeded what our mandate called for, which is wonderful, and provides even more support for the need for a Canadian Autism Partnership.
April 2nd. WAAD. Officially World Autism Awareness Day, though I can’t think of an autistic I know who doesn’t feel it should be World Autism Acceptance Day.
This was going to be a very short post, because today I did most of my “getting my point across” on Twitter. But then I decided to look at this a different way – what have I done over the past year to contribute to Autism Acceptance?
Because for once, I can answer that I’ve done more than maintain my blog.
Last year, I wrote a letter to the ASNL about Light It Up Blue (which the ASNL continued this year, unfortunately) – it’s also been passed out to Autism Canada’s leadership.
Since then, I have also joined both Autism Canada’s ASD Advisory Board, and the Canadian Autism Partnership Project ASD Advisory Board. I have been part of discussions about creating conferences specifically for autistics in Canada, and about building a Canadian Autism Partnership. I’ve made friends with more autistics throughout Canada by this – really good friends at that. And those have helped me gain the confidence both in myself and my views of being autistic to speak out even more.
I have also started work on the project that my Social Club group is calling Spectrum Storybooks. It’s going to be a long-term project, but will be so useful. Something like that is needed, and we’re going to help fulfill that need.
So I don’t know about the world as a whole – there’s still a lot of things wrong with the public view of autism – but I’ve done things this past year that I can be proud of. And that? That’s something worth celebrating.
(Except I know exactly when I’ll be coming back. 😉 )
So, back in November/December, I applied to be a member of Autism Canada’s ASD Advisory Board. On my application, I filled in that I was interested both in being part of the planning for a conference specifically for autistic adults (AKA a Canadian version of Autreat), and as a stakeholder in discussions, polls, surveys, etc. The latter has gotten me involved in CASDA (Canadian Autism Spectrum Disorders Alliance) as a stakeholder for the Canadian Autism Partnership Project (CAPP), a Federal initiative whose goal is to: “address key issues such as information sharing and research, early detection, diagnosis and treatment, and supporting families” (quote from Canadian Autism Partnership: Canada’s Economic Action Plan).
The first face-to-face meeting of stakeholders is going to be in Halifax next week. (I’m rather looking forward to it.)
And even more, because my sister and my oldest niece and my nephews all live in a suburb of Halifax, so I’m going to be spending some time with them as well.
This is very much an aside, not a standard post, but I think it needs to be said.
Sunday, I posted a recommendation link post to Nick Walker’s “What is Autism?” I then proceeded to go and read his entire blog (called Neurocosmopolitanism). There aren’t very many posts there at the moment (from what I can see, he’s quite the busy man – and there is a new one up today), but the ones that are, are well thought-out, and thought-provoking.
One of those posts – the second one – has a very long title: Throw Away the Master’s Tools: Liberating Ourselves from the Pathology Paradigm. I’m not going to go into loads of details here – that will be reserved for the recommendations post I intend to put up sometime this week – but there is something important that I want to say straight out.
This post – with its description of the pathology paradigm, how it damages us and impoverishes society (not necessarily mentioned, but I’m a firm believer in the “Patchwork Quilt” society, rather than the “Melting Pot”), and its suggestions for how to build a neurodiversity paradigm (that is not solely about autism, but other “conditions” involving differences in neurological wiring) really made me think. And one of the things that most made me think was about language use, and how it affects our views of ourselves. In particular, the term “Autism Spectrum Disorder”.
Nothing wrong with the term “Autism Spectrum”. That’s a very good term. It’s the “Disorder” component that Mr. Walker takes issue with, and argues against very well indeed. He points out that using the term “Disorder” makes it appear that there is something “wrong” with us – which is exactly the sort of thinking that autistic advocates are trying to fight. That the neurodiversity community is trying to fight.
So. I have gone through my links list, and changed each description/category of “ASD” to “Autistic”. I have not yet decided whether I will do this to my posts or not – I suspect not, simply because they provide a record of how I thought at the time. But the change has to start somewhere, and who better for it to start with than ourselves and our allies?
🙂 tagAught
[Added Note: I have also changed the title of my post category and tag of “ASD” to “Autism Spectrum”.]