The late Whitney Houston says it best as she expresses that “everybody is searching for a hero; people need someone to look up to” in her hit song “Greatest Love.” Younger individuals with autism who are striving for success and looking to find their place in the world need people who can inspire and encourage…
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…
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 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…
I have a unique position as both an autism researcher and a member of the Autistic community. I co-founded and co-direct the Academic Autism Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education (AASPIRE) along with my colleague, Christina Nicolaidis. AASPIRE is a long running — 14 years now! — community-based participatory research (CBPR) partnership between academic researchers…
OAR will soon open applications for the 2021 OAR Scholarship Program. The application period will begin on Monday, December 7, 2020, and applications will be accepted until Monday, May 3, 2021 at 11:59 p.m. ET. Applicants can apply to either the Schwallie Family Scholarship or the Lisa Higgins Hussman Scholarship. Each offers $3,000 scholarships to…
My mom once told me a story about a doctor’s visit, a check-up that I had when I was a young child, in maybe 2001 or 2002. One thing you should know about me as a kid – I was deathly afraid of everyone and everything. I could not look at anything, nor could I…
Right now, in the midst of the pandemic, the autistic community is in a very vulnerable place. With former commitments and structures stripped away or altered in format, it can be difficult for us to cope, especially those of us who may face social isolation due to challenges with social skills or health issues. Social…
For as long as the autism and disability communities have existed, they have engaged in a robust conversation about labels. This ongoing conversation has been tied to deeper conversations about disabled people’s worth, needs, and rights. When OAR was founded in 2001, person-first language, which places the personhood of the individual before their disability, was…
Online employment works well for many individuals. For example, working from home allows me, an autistic with multiple disabilities, the same opportunities as other employees. Living with COVID-19 has revealed that many jobs can adapt to remote employment. Companies that were hesitant to embrace telecommuting have discovered its many benefits, including reduced costs and lower…
