Dan Swearingen | September 23, 2009
For many people on the ASD spectrum entering adulthood, finding appropriate gainful employment is a challenge. This is unfortunate because people with ASD have skills that can be profitable for an employer. Our experience in Autistry Studios has been that there is an astounding range in skills and interests in the people we work with [...]
Dan Swearingen | September 12, 2009
I’m beat! The presentation and the Resource Fair went very well. I’ll post more about the fair and our presentation later but we had some requests for a copy of the slides we used. Here it is in PDF (Acrobat Reader): Preparing our Teens to Work
Dan Swearingen | September 11, 2009
Janet and I are presenting a mini workshop “Preparing our Teens to Work” this weekend at the CONNECTING PEOPLE TO RESOURCES resource fair tomorrow at Dominican University in San Rafael. Besides the mini workshop we will be manning a table displaying some student projects and information about Autistry Studios. Several Autistry Studios parents and students [...]
Dan Swearingen | August 23, 2009
At one point we considered a service dog for Ian. Mainly, we saw a dog as a way to facilitate Ian interacting with peers. The idea is that kids are attracted to the dog and talk to Ian while petting the dog. As Ian spent more time in mainstream classrooms we saw that he gets [...]
Dan Swearingen | August 21, 2009
While being introverted and liking time alone is very common for people with ASD that does not mean they have no desire for friends or social interaction. When they do actually want social time with peers they can find it particularly awkward and stressful. AP Science Writer Alicia Chang has posted a great article today: [...]
Dan Swearingen | August 20, 2009
There is a really good, huge article by Cintra Wilson in the September 2009 issue of O, The Oprah magazine titled An Inconvenient Youth: Raising Children with Autism “I used to eat myself alive about how much money or time I was spending with Padraic,” says Heather, who has three other children. “You know that [...]
Dan Swearingen | August 1, 2009
As a parent of an autistic child you find that you read reporting on autism at several levels. On July 6, the LA Times reported on the case of Joshua Fry: Case of autistic Marine brings recruiting problems to the forefront Lots of info and questions raised a relatively short story: 1. Are the Marine [...]
Dan Swearingen | July 7, 2009
One of the core values of Autistry Studios is that the students’ interests are the key to their growth and the foundation of our work. People with ASD can have extremely intense interests — so intense and obsessive that parents and caregivers can feel they need to treat them as perseveration. However, those compelling, obsessive [...]
Dan Swearingen | June 18, 2009
Are many of the issues we identify as part of Autistic Spectrum Disorder really just typical male or typical teenager/young adult behavior? Emily Bracken recently posted an article at the Huffington Post Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) Or Typical Male Behavior (TMB)? Now, I don’t mean to belittle those with Aspie -as it’s known in the lay-community, [...]
Dan Swearingen | June 15, 2009
David kirby in Huffington Post comments on Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Rep. Christopher Smith’s (R-NJ) calls on HHS to fund comparative studies on vaccinated vs. un-vaccinated children but i think the most interesting part of the article is tacked on at the end: Seven studies to watch APPROVED STUDIES: 1) The National CADDRE Study [...]
