This post originally appeared on the author’s blog, The AWEnesty of Autism. It is re-posted here with permission. My kids tell me that I worry “too much”. My husband knows that I worry “too much” and my friends tell me not to worry “too much”. I’m also pretty sure my son’s teachers, guidance counselors and doctors…
You do it. I do it. We all do it. As we prepare for the pending holidays, no matter how old your child is, many of us wonder: “Will he/she will be able to handle [Insert your concern here] this year?” “Should we even bother with a huge gathering or should we just celebrate on…
OAR invites graduate students to submit research proposals for its annual Graduate Research Grant Program. Since the program was established in 2004, OAR has awarded over $222,800 in grants to fund 127 graduate research studies. Last year, OAR made grants to 11 students with grant awards totaling $20,619. OAR hopes to build on this success in 2018,…
Did you ever meet someone who did not like to eat turkey on Thanksgiving? Or do you know anyone who refused to wear a costume to a Halloween party? Is anyone in your family impossible to buy a gift for? How about the stress that creeps into your soul when you tell your family you…
When Eunice Lin Nichols, vice president and campaign director for Encore.org’s Generation to Generation initiative, announced Hire Autism as the winner of the People’s Choice prize to an audience of 150 Encore Conference attendees in Boston last month, they erupted with applause and cheers. Naina Chernoff, long-time OAR supporter and autism mom who had delivered…
In an article on the CNN website, Zoe Gross, director of operations at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, notes that “autism is a diverse disability and everyone’s needs are different.” As the article describes, travelers with autism will have different needs and challenges depending on “personality, where they are on the autism spectrum, and how…
In 2014, OAR’s Board of Directors and Scientific Council decided to make every effort to schedule their annual meetings in conjunction with autism conferences around the country whenever possible. This led to meetings in Boston and sponsorship of the Current Trends in Autism conference in November 2015, followed by meeting in Columbus, Ohio, and a…
OAR-funded researcher Laura C. Chezan, Ph.D., BCBA-D., an assistant professor of special education at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., conducted a study in 2015 to test the use of an intervention that teaches children with ASD and language delays to wait to receive something they request. Numerous studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of functional…
It has never been easy for parents to visit the doctors for their children with autism spectrum disorder or ASD, rather it has been a scary thing for the children. After all, they are going to experience something for the first time. When a child is going to meet the pediatrician for the first time,…
When “The Big Bang Theory” first broke onto the scene, people who learned that I’m autistic would ask, What do you think about Sheldon? Honestly, I became so annoyed by the idea of a comic portrayal of a supposed autistic person that I wouldn’t watch the show, not even to find out whether Sheldon was like me…
