Autism is treated differently than other developmental disabilities. It goes directly to why Autism Acceptance Month—a critical step up from Autism Awareness Month—is so valuable and important a distinction and change. Awareness historically has been more about something being wrong and a cry for help and donations. Awareness has been more about the “plight” of…
Adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities are at greater risk—three times greater than the general population—of COVID-19 complications and/or death. That risk factor is higher than those of most serious medical conditions. Yet only 10 states have listed adults with IDD as a prioritized population in their vaccine action plans. I serve as a member…
I have been reading the proposed changes to North Carolina’s Innovations waiver services and supports, which are designed for individuals with significant intellectual or developmental disabilities, in order to offer some comment to the state and the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services. One thing I’ll be giving feedback about isn’t actually changing but…
Favorite Person The excitement of hello vibrates and shines not with the promise of what’s to come but just for itself the best moment possible every morning, every day. How lucky that I get to see my favorite person every day that I have a favorite person to love. I remember when a moment a…
A best-selling author for decades, Wayne Dyer was one of the most popular teachers in the self-help, mind/body/spirit, and New Age communities. This interview was my first with Wayne. At the time I was editor in chief of New Age Retailer (now Retailing Insight), the main industry trade magazine for the category, and this piece originally…
To have and to hold until death has no part He had a secret. He grabbed you and pulled you in hugged your head against his chest, shoulder tightly so tightly I’d never imagined such a hug with strength I didn’t imagine he had with strength he didn’t have when he could no longer raise…
Autism and disability pride movements assert unique cultures and identities. Can intellectually disabled people be more openly and equitably represented in them—and also better develop intellectual disability as a unique, empowered movement all its own? When I tell my intellectually disabled and autistic 19-year-old son, Nicholas, that I love him, he often responds with…
I came upon a box of a few dozen random—utterly random—photographs yesterday: family photos in NYC from a half-century before I was born, pics of my childhood on Long Island, my first wedding, my son’s earlier years, my summer camp, his summer camp, graduate school. I scanned a few of them, put them back, and…
Sometime after her sister, my mother, died and before her Alzheimer’s developed to the point she didn’t recognize or know me, my aunt Hattie started using this especially emotional turn of phrase at the end of our phone conversations. I’d say, “I love you,” and she’d reply, with vibrant care and warmth, “I adore you.”…
I am a judge for the Independent Book Publishers Association’s Benjamin Franklin Awards. Perhaps surprisingly, this work predates my years in book publishing and extends back to, I think, 2002. It’s hard to date it precisely, because it began so long ago that I had an entirely different and now defunct email address. The IBPA…
These weekend wintry early mornings in which at times I’m feeling a little drawn—hardly inclined to roll out of bed, bundle up, and get out into the forest and nature—are probably the most necessary times to get up and walk through the woods. I know that, and I’m skeptical I would still have the discipline…
I opened my talk at the 2019 HANd Autism & Neurodiversity Conference, themed as “My Autism Journey—Various Perspectives,” in this way, less for the little allegory itself, which is obvious and unremarkable, and more for my own realization with it, which comes near the end and then led into the substance of my talk. I also…
I told this story in my keynote address at the HANd Autism & Neurodiversity Conference in fall 2019 at Appalachian State University in North Carolina. Some of my son Nicholas’ hardest years were between when he experienced that early regression in his communication and connection through about third grade. His frustrations around expressive communication, his…
I recently interviewed the owners of Crystal Visions in North Carolina for Retailing Insight, the successor to New Age Retailer magazine, marking the retail store’s 30th anniversary in 2019. See that interview with Blair Justice and Joan Colburn here. Doing that work threw me back in time a bit: I was an editor for New…
I was invited again this year to give a short talk as part of the Disability Day of Mourning vigil held in Western North Carolina on the campus of the University of North Carolina Asheville on March 1, 2019. The Disability Day of Mourning is an annual event to honor and remember disabled…
