As an autism sexuality advocate, writer, and professional speaker, one question that people often ask me is, “Why did you choose this line of work?” Autism was not something that I discovered or knew that I was meant to do with my life. I didn’t take a year off after graduating college, didn’t backpack through…
It’s fun for students to learn about their classmates using the Kit for Kids peer education program. Now that fun is more easily available! For the first time, OAR’s Kit for Kids activity workbooks can be ordered as paperbacks. First created as a digital download in 2013, the activity workbooks are organized by grade levels…
OAR has expanded its commitment to peer education by awarding grants ranging from $500 to $5,000 to support projects that promote autism awareness and acceptance. When children understand autism, they develop better relationships with their peers with the disorder. OAR has helped educate more than 135,000 children through the Kit for Kids Peer Education Program…
OAR is currently accepting applications for the Graduate Research Grant Program and Applied Research Competition. Since 2002, OAR has funded over 285 research studies, bringing its funding total to more than $4.2 million. OAR expects to build on this success in 2021, continuing its support of research studies that offer meaningful outcomes to individuals with…
A routine hearing test administered to newborns around the world may also be able to alert doctors and parents to autism, according to a study, “Prolonged Auditory Brainstem Response in Universal Hearing Screening of Newborns with Autism Spectrum Disorder,” published in the journal Autism Research in October. As noted in an article on the Spectrum…
Growing up, school for me was, in a word, difficult. I knew this ever since about fifth grade when I first began receiving actual homework. Sure, it was an easy and kind of fun homework, a weekly packet with a word search at the end, but somehow something as simple as that couldn’t capture my…
The New Year is a time for all families and individuals to look forward to creating new opportunities and starting fresh with possibilities. The challenges, hardships, and bad memories from the previous year are gone – a chapter closed in your life’s book. The New Year kicks off a new chapter and you, as the…
The Meaning of Peer Support in Behavioral Health What comes to mind when you think of the word peer? Someone who we can connect with who encounters similar experiences. Experiences that we share with a peer may include age, culture, education, employment, gender, health, language, and religion. In behavioral health, a peer in this context…
Our common bond as parents, no matter our educational level, is that we all walk into individual education program (IEP) meetings wondering if we are going to fight for and get what our child needs in order to succeed that school year. “Fight” is not an adversarial word here. It is a strong word meant…
The social communication impairment that prevents children with ASD from expressing themselves or asking for what they need not only negatively affects their well being, it also contributes to elevated stress for parents. The time and money required for therapies for their children also may prevent many parents from devoting resources to their own self-care.…
