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Autism Vox

May 22nd, 2008

A Farewell to Bouncy Castles

The bouncy castle.
How often have we beheld one rising in its multicolored puffy glory, tethered to the tramped-on grass with cords and a machine with a fan running loud and hot to keep the bounce in the castle?
Charlie would stare wide-eyed and he’d walk over quickly, his hand in Jim’s. This being a couple of […]

By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 6 comments

May 17th, 2008

Priest Files Restraining Order Against Parents of Autistic 13-year-old

This story about a Catholic priest filing a restraining order against the parents of an autistic 13-year-old to keep them from attending church on Sundays in Bertha, Minnesota, is why resources like this are more than needed—-and a spirit of inclusion and mutuality.
Tags: asd, asperger, autism, autism blog, catholic, catholicism, inclusion, mother, pdd-nos, priest, Religion, […]

By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 332 comments

May 17th, 2008

No More Than 15 Feet

Buddhist teachers make a vow never to be more than 15 feet apart.
Isn’t that a vow many parents of autistic children feel they take, at least for a few years…..
Tags: asd, asperger, autism, autism blog, buddhism blog, buddihism, mother, pdd-nos, Religion, teacher, vowShare This

By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 3 comments

May 11th, 2008

Parenting Isn’t Easy, Period—and I’m Very Glad to Be a Mother

First, Happy Mother’s Day to every mother reading this and many more (my own included, of course)!
An essay by Robert Hughes in today’s Chicago Tribune is entitled What Autism Means to a Father and much of what he says strikes home with me as a parent. Hughes captures how a parent feels as he or […]

By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 46 comments

May 7th, 2008

Back in the Swim

Last fall, I wrote about our difficulties getting swimtime in for Charlie at our YMCA pool in the later afternoon/early evenings, the time when he’s most ready to go. Our YMCA has three pools, two of which seem to be perpetually in use for the swim teams’ practices, adult lap swimming, or lessons. The third […]

By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 15 comments

May 6th, 2008

Up-Lifting Story

It was about three years ago as Charlie was turning eight that I stopped carrying him. He was always big for his age and I developed a bit of a muscle in my left arm from holding him, balanced on my hip—-he weighs as much or more than me now and the babe-in-arms days are […]

By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 1 comment

May 5th, 2008

Autism and Parents with Psychiatric Disorders

The risk of having an autistic child is doubled if a parent has schizophrenia or if a mother has psychiatric problems (depression, personality disorders), according to a study published in Pediatrics. From Reuters via WNED.org:
The study of families in Sweden with children born between 1977 and 2003 involved 1,227 children diagnosed with autism. They were […]

By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 36 comments

May 4th, 2008

The Vitality Compass: How “Old” Are You?

Thinking about long-term housing and job needs for my son and also the matter of a special needs trust and a will and one has those moments of thinking (yes, ridiculously), pity one can’t live forever……..
Maybe you’d rather not know this, but you can take a Vitality Compass quiz over at Blue Zones to find […]

By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 3 comments

May 2nd, 2008

IEP Prep and More on Disclosure

What gets “disclosed” and what does not was the issue at the center of the recently released document concerning Hannah Poling. I have “disclosure” and “transparency” of a slightly different sort on my mind right now. Charlie’s IEP meeting is today and, amid reading over documents and evaluations and forms, reading up on IDEA at […]

By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 10 comments

April 29th, 2008

The Help Is There

Nuala Gardner’s son Dale was born in 1988 and diagnosed with autism. In an essay in yesterday’s Guardian entitled The day I could no longer cope with my autistic son, she writes about how she contemplated suicide when her son was three years old but did not:
At the time I felt incredibly guilty about how […]

By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 4 comments

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