What happens when your adult child needs hospitalisation?
What happens when your adult child needs hospitalisation? Please find our most recent blog, this one from the parent of a young adult with autism. If you happen to have any further suggestions or resources to help out families who find themselves in this situation,...
Press Release: Vaccine passports would deepen discrimination against people with autism
Press Release: Vaccine passports would deepen discrimination against people with autism Thinking Autism charity warns that vaccine passports could further entrench discrimination against people with autism In World Autism Month, national charity Thinking Autism has...
The Neglected Side of Autism – Why We MUST Talk Medical
The Neglected Side of Autism – Why We MUST Talk Medical We are getting it wrong and ignorance is hurting A few weeks ago, I read some posts on an autism support group that upset me profoundly. Questions were being asked about how to stop a child with autism from...
Finding your kindness: Autism and COVID-19
Finding your kindness: Autism and COVID-19 Finding your kindness: Autism and COVID-19 I’m holding my son’s hand as we walk through the parking lot toward the grocery store. People give us looks. He’s 17 and they likely cannot understand why we’re holding hands. We’re...
My Son’s Autism and Disability: Unintended Consequences of a Polarised Debate
My Son’s Autism and Disability: Unintended Consequences of a Polarised Debate The social and medical models of disability What could possibly motivate a busy parent like myself, with not enough hours in the day, to take time out to write about the social and medical...
Autism and auditory processing
Autism and auditory processing The impact of auditory processing issues in autism It is well understood that many on the autism spectrum experience challenges with processing a range of sensory information. This is wonderfully covered in previous Thinking Autism blogs...
Misperceptions of ASD Neurodiversity and Health Recovery
As a Chartered Psychologist, child development researcher and author in the autism/ASD field, I frequently meet misperceptions of neurodiversity in relation to programmes for autism and health recovery. Somehow or other the belief has developed that to offer such help to an individual on the autistic spectrum is to deny their neurodiversity. In this blog I suggest a new way of looking at this subject…
An Introduction to Vision Therapy as a Treatment for Autism
I hope that my journey in vision therapy will serve not only as a roadmap for people with mild autism to find their way out of the labyrinth of disability but as something that can provide clues to help those with more severe autism find their way to a life more fully lived.
Turning the Tide of Behaviourism
Turning the Tide of Behaviourism Please find below some thoughts from Romulus Campan, an adult with autism and a delegate at our recent conference. I had the pleasure of talking to Rom at the conference. I cannot remember the last time I met someone so open-minded,...
Autism acceptance – false dichotomies and the damage done
When discussing autism—especially on the internet and in the media—there are way too many people who recklessly engage in false dichotomy. It’s a kind of extremism that gets us nowhere…I can say with 100% certainty that while I seek treatments for my child with autism, my acceptance of him is unconditional.
What is wrong with The Labour Party’s “Autism Neurodiversity Manifesto” and autism identity politics?
Recently in the UK, a “Neurodiversity Manifesto” has been shared by the Labour Party. It has five key principles, each of them lacking in nuance, unreflective of the lived experiences, and ignoring research data.