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Issue No. 21, May 2009
Article Archive
In honor of Mother’s Day, this is one of my favorite pieces about one of my favorite people. *** One cozy winter day, while browsing through a well-known parenting magazine, I chanced on a terribly unfunny essay entitled I Sound Like My Mother. “Remember all those annoying phrases you promised you’d never repeat to your child? How many did you say today?” the article brayed. The list starts off with “Because I said so, that’s why,” moves on to “Stop crying before I give you something to really cry about,” drones away and finishes big with “Do as I say, not as I do.” I could never have “repeated” those phrases because my mother never uttered a one of them. Neither have I, and it’s not because my children never danced on my third nerve. They are the Fred Astaires of that. It’s that I simply couldn’t bring myself to speak to the people I loved best in so mean and disrespectful a manner. “This hurts me more than it hurts you.” Then what’s the point I showed the article to my mother to get her reaction. “These are clichés,” she said. “Why would anyone say these things to their children? I never needed to.” That’s not quite true. She never chose to. My brothers and I were thoroughly typical children and she certainly could have found reason to say these things had she wanted to. My mother espoused her own brand of wisdom, and as it turns out, it is just right – and then some – for raising, respecting and nurturing children on the spectrum. Not only am I grateful as a daughter for her example to me, but even more grateful that my children have her steady presence and life-celebrating attitude as they grow up. They now repeat the same recurring pearls of wisdom I grew up with, which Mom claims are but an echo of her own mother. Click here to read the full article, pearls and all On My Soapbox: Mixed Feelings About Autism Awareness Month My Facebook readers may have been a little surprised at my mid-April note about Autism Awareness Month: is it over yet? I always have mixed feelings about the whole thing. I’m not a believer in the old saw that any publicity is good publicity, and I become very exasperated at the sheer dumbness and misinformation that comes along every April. This year, there was the article that referenced “semi-autistic males.” (Would someone define semi-autistic for me, because I’m only semi-intelligent and I don’t get it.) Or the reporter who described a nonverbal child “whining” and pointing to a picture as “not really communicating.” (Not the way you want him to, fella.) Or my personal favorite, the NBC reporter who read (not!) a great book by Ellen Notbohm called Ten Things Autistic Children and Students Wish You Knew. This kind of perpetuation of stereotype and bald misinformation makes me question the veracity of today’s reporting in general, and it lets me know that I will be a busy spokesman for the cause for many years to come. Still, I have to admire how far we’ve come. The discussion now reaches all corners of the world. My website took over 100,000 hits in April and I personally heard from families around the globe – Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, South Africa, Italy, Algeria. It really drives home that there is no single face of autism, and in that diversity we will find a cure -- not for autism (which doesn’t require one), but for something more insidious: the common stereotype. When we do that, when we succeed in raising autism awareness to the level of seeing each child with autism as an individual with individual challenges and unlimited potential, and not a collection of ala carte items from a cafeteria menu of “problems” (for who?), we will have taken a giant leap for our kind that can only be good for all mankind. Last month’s link was broken. Now fixed – sorry about that!
Then stay tuned for more about Mayville in the next issue of Ancestry. My story about the 1893 murder of a police officer that outraged an entire county and reverberated for decades sprang from a chance encounter with a very unusual tombstone. It’s a page-turner! Vietnamese translation of Ten Things now available Thanks to the efforts of Kate Armstrong, president and founder of CLAN (Caring & Living As Neighbours) of Sydney, Australia and translator Duyen Van of Vietnamese Parents with Disabled Children Support Group in Western Sydney, we now have a Vietnamese translation of Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew. They and all in their organizations have our gratitude for the important work they are doing. Click here to download the Vietnamese translation of Ten Things on Ellen’s website [Word doc] To learn more about CLAN: www.cahclan.org And, learn more about Vietnamese Parents with Disabled Children Support Group in Western Sydney. Hyperlexia is a new bi-annual literary journal publishing poetry and prose about being on the autism spectrum and loving someone who is. Founding Editor Kerry Cohen tells a story that will be familiar to many:
Hyperlexia: A Literary Journal began because the noise about autism – like noise for some with sensory processing dysfunction – was too loud, too distracting. Everywhere I turned, the discussions about autism were either wrought with anger and controversy or were weighted by a hidden agenda. The layers of conversation seemed to shroud any underlying truth that could answer this simple question: What does it really mean to be autistic and to love someone who is? Read the first issue at www.hyperlexialit.com, which includes poetry by Rebecca Foust and Barbara Crooker and one of Ellen’s most-loved essays, A Thing Worth Having. The submissions deadline for the next issue is July 31st. Please visit the site to see what they are looking for.
The Autism Trail Guide: Postcards from the Road Less Traveled is featured in the “What’s New” section of the May-June 2009 issue of Calgary’s Child.
***** Newsletter archive on my website: if you are new to our newsletter community, please visit the newsletter archive on my website and browse some popular past features here. April 2009: Right on the Money// Encouraging playground interaction March 2009: On hiatus February 2009: You Said It: Your favorite articles in 2008 // A Readers’ Favorite: Three Little Words January 2009: On My Soapbox: The Less the Merrier for 2009 // Winners quit, quitters win December 2008: On holiday – see you next year! November 2008: Interview: Autism and the Holidays October 2008: Childhood Obesity: is it abuse? // A-(scavenger) hunting we will go // Happily ever after, in real life Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew Ten Things Your Student with Autism Wishes You Knew 1001 Great Ideas for Teaching and Raising Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders The Autism Trail Guide: Postcards from the Road Less Traveled If you’ve read my books and feel inclined to share your thoughts with others, please consider posting a review on my book pages at www.amazon.com. It’s easy to do and you don’t have to post your real name. Please forward this newsletter to anyone you feel might share an interest in our kids with autism. New subscribers can sign up at here.
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From Ellen’s Archive: I Sound Like My Mother – I Hope!
New! Visit me at Oregon Authors Autism Asperger’s Digest 10th Anniversary Special! Digest celebrates its first ten years (1999-2009) with a special limited-time subscription offer: 1 year (6 issues) $19.95 plus $5 s/h. 50% off regular price of $49.95. Subscribe any number of years at that rate, via their new website, or phone 1-800.489.0727Article links in this issue
I always answer my email. Ellen's website and 
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When my son began showing signs of autism, my family and I entered a world I could not have imagined. Our lives suddenly included evaluations, assessments, appointments, and an endless stream of pressure from therapists, pediatricians, and other parents – with or without special needs children – about what we needed to do. I got caught up in the wave. How could I not? I ordered books and more books. I looked into DAN! doctors. I considered every sort of therapy there was. I read about how parents cured their child of autism by spraying something in his mouth each day or injecting one milliliter of this liquid into his rear. I read about institutions. I read about bullying. I read about vaccines. I read about children being harmed by their parents’ efforts to recover them. I read about non-verbal autistic children learning to write and thereby putting forth the vivid world of feelings previously ignored. I read the words of autistic adults: what hurt them most growing up was not their autism but the pressure to be something other than who they were. The din of the many voices was terrifying. 
