May 3rd, 2008
Autism Awareness Month 2008 ended Wednesday; here in my state of New Jersey, Senator Robert Menendez marked the closing of the month by unveiling the Helpings HANDS for Autism Act. The act calls for the creation of “autism navigators” to assist families in figuring out services; training for law enforcement and other primary responders; and […]
By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 4 comments
May 3rd, 2008
Today, a daylong “town hall” meeting of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) is being held at the UC Davis Cancer Center, as reported in the May 2nd Sacramento Bee. (Previous meetings of the IACC this year and last year have been held in Washington, D.C.) The meeting offers a chance to express one’s views […]
By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 25 comments
April 30th, 2008
The Spring semester is almost over at the college where I teach and “getting some kind of job” is the main response from students to the question “what are you planning to do this summer?”. And—it occurs to me on this last day of April with May and Charlie’s 11th birthday right around the […]
By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 13 comments
April 27th, 2008
Cure or acceptance?
Does one strive to do everything one can to cure, heal, recover a child from autism with the goal of the child “losing” her or his diagnosis? Or, does one learn to accept that one’s child is different, disabled, autistic?
Parents and others in the autism community tend to align themselves with one “side” […]
By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 31 comments
April 25th, 2008
Considering how many pressing issues there are to talk regarding children and adults—education, employment, housing, to name a very few—-why do we keep getting stuck talking about the hypothetical claim of a link between vaccines and autism?
Here’s some thoughts towards why the whole issue seems to have devolved into something approaching paranoia, not to mention […]
By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 42 comments
April 23rd, 2008
Right now (afternoon of April 23, Wednesday) over at Science Blogs there’s a number of posts about Barack Obama’s statement at a Monday rally in Pennsylvnia that evidence linking vaccines and autism was “inconclusive” and that further research is needed. (It’s also pointed out that Hillary Clinton has also embraced “anti-vaccination woo”.)
While the candidates’ views […]
By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 19 comments
February 21st, 2008
Christine recently left this comment on a November 30, 2007, post about autistic students going to college:
I have a son who is PDD/Asperger, but low normal on the IQ scale. He graduated from high school and can drive. He needs social skills and life skills training and desperately wants to get training or college courses […]
By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 10 comments
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