by Meikele “Lee” Needles I dreamed of being a mom. I wanted to be a good mom like my mother. Happy, gentle, and supportive of me just as I was…but would do whatever needed to protect my baby. What a premonition of my future! And I had no idea what was in store. I met, married and we started our Family in Helena, Montana. Our first Daughter was normally active and even advanced in a lot […]
by Carey Handley I remember the day we were told our daughter would never drive, would never live alone, would never reach many of the milestones most children will. And then there was the day she stood beside us in court as the judge declared her permanently disabled and granted us Guardianship. I listened as the judge asked her questions, some of which had to be rephrased so she could understand them. On each of […]
by Tulika Prasad Autism is a complex diagnosis. It’s a spectrum so it makes it all the more difficult to put it within the boundaries of a set of characteristics. As they say, every autistic individual has very unique traits and since it’s not a physical disability , sometimes autism is simply considered to be the result of bad parenting or a set of behavior anomalies that a person might have and therefore ignored or […]
by Maxine Rosaler I really can’t say what bewildered me more–the callousness with which the people at the school district responded to my requests for them to help my autistic son, or the occasional encounters with kindness I had along the way. My first encounter with kindness occurred during my son’s second week in kindergarten at a special needs school: The principal had called to tell me that she didn’t think the school was an […]
by Lynne Pearson We didn’t do a lot of birthday parties for Edward when he was younger as we pretty soon got the idea that he didn’t enjoy them. At his 5th birthday party we had invited a few friends round (mainly the children of our friends). We had organised some games and all the kids, with the exception of Edward, loved playing them. Whilst the games went on Edward was at the bottom of the […]
