Autism United... Uniting Parents, Peers & Professionals

Julie has turned her friend's stories into animated characters, each living with a special challenge or situation. Through their friendship with GRANT the Jigsaw Giraffe and mentors, they understand that they are Different ... but MORE, too!

To learn about our BOOKS
https://www.jigsawgrant.com/
To view my ECO-ART
https://www.jigsawgrantart.com/

I have TWO websites for 2024!

New ABA & Autism Clinic! Autism treatment and ABA Therapy in Amarillo TX. Galliant is now serving the Texas Panhandle, Amarillo TX, and the Permian Basin with in home autism treatment, in clinic, and school based applied behavior analysis (ABA). Extensive work with individuals who have an ASD (autism spectrum disorder) and

We are still in need of buddies for Night to Shine! If you would like to love on our special needs community, register at https://www.nighttoshineamarillo.com/volunteer-registration

Every guest at Night to Shine gets paired with a Buddy. Their buddy spends the evening with them, making sure they have the time of their life! Ask anyone who has been a buddy before, and they will tell you it’s the most fun they’ve had in a really long time!

The event is 2/10/23 from 5-10pm at the Amarillo Civic Center!

“Autism and Your Family Finances” can help you take control of your money, build wealth and secure your child's future The "Autism and Your Family Finances" e-book can help families take control of their money, build wealth and secure their child's future.

Can occupational therapy help with autism? Can occupational therapy help with your child with autism? Occupational therapy could help them develop many skills.

https://www.wrightslaw.com/speak/23.02.tx.htm

Special Education Advocacy Summit at St. Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio, February 2, 2023 - February 5, 2023 The St. Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio, TX presents the Special Education Advocacy Summit, a two and one-half day legal advocacy training program on February 2 - February 5, 2023

Bring your family & friends to Christmas in the Gardens!🎄
6p-8:30p

THANK YOU to our sponsors Graham Brothers Jewelers & Amarillo National Bank

Please share!!! All proceeds go to a great cause that provides local autistic children with funding for their special education. Smokey Joe's on Route 66 will be hosting this event. There will be live music, food, drinks, live and silent auction, and a co****le tournament!

Join us for the fun and register for the corn hole tournament by sending us a message. We hope to see you there!

Sharing on behalf of Galliant Autism Care!

Honestly one of my favorite posters ever!!

Dear Colleague Letter on Implementation of IDEA Discipline Provisions (July 19, 2022) - Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Topic Areas: Discipline ProceduresDear Colleague Letter on Implementation of IDEA Discipline Provisions (July 19, 2022) (PDF) PDFView PDFDear Colleague Letter on Implementation of IDEA Discipline Provisions (July 19, 2022) (PDF)400 MARYLAND AVE. S.W., WASHINGTON, DC 20202-2800 www.ed.gov The Departm...

PDSG and ADVO Special Needs Financial Planning Seminar Register to attend this free training in partnership with ADVO Companies and sponsored by Superior Health Plan. July 17 from 9 to 2. Lunch is provided for all who request, and one set of printed material will be provided per family. Babysitting is available but space is limited. Email panhandledsg@y...

God does not give special children to special people… — Mothering Rare I will be the first to admit I have said this phrase before I had Emery. I understand that majority of the time, people say this with the best intentions. I’ve learned so much just in the few short years of parenting my daughter and one of those lessons has been that this phrase is not true. I wis...

Texas ESC Region 16 - Special Education Evaluation Specialist Primary Purpose: To assist school districts and charter schools in meeting the needs of all students with disabilities. Qualifications: Education/Certification: Master’s degree required, specifically Texas Diagnostician certificate LSSP preferred Special Knowledge/Skills/Experience: Recent Texas p...

Some of you have asked how you can tell the difference between autism and ADHD. I really like this graphic, as it breaks it down very simply.

Just a couple of points.

This is not all encompassing and is not meant to be.

Interrupts others, sensory issues, and finds eye contact uncomfortable should be in the middle.

Autistic Qualia (.qualia) wrote a lengthy and informative description to go along with this graphic. Please visit her page (follow her) and look for this post so you can read the description).

A woman stopped me today, standing solo with her son on the beach of Lake Michigan. "Ma'am, I have to ask you about your son's hangers. Is he on the spectrum?" Yes, I replied. She smiled, a huge smile. "This is my son, Justin. He never leaves home without his smoke detector." I then realize that Justin is carrying a sand bucket, but inside with a huge grin, he showed me his dry smoke detector. "Don't give up hope, Justin just started speaking in the past few years." How old is Justin? I asked, "twenty seven."

We ended up spending time with them. They shared chips with us, and we shared our oranges. They let Liam use their floaties. The girls that came with them spent over an hour playing and splashing with my girls so I could go out deeper with Liam.

These hangers..... They're proving to more than hangers. They are a comfort and sometimes a gateway, a beacon of safe space, to meet other families like us.... Who get it bc, well they never leave home without their smoke detector.

My boy is absolutely much better & we prepare accordingly but weeks of the sonic booms get to be too much.
I’m not talking M-80’s 🤨

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTdt6ETnS/?k=1
♥️♥️

LyricAudios🦋 on TikTok LyricAudios🦋's short video with ♬ original sound

Hello! We have guest music therapists Helen Dolas and Ronald Borczon joining us for Awareness Week! All of the events they are joining us for are below! We are so excited for this opportunity!

Ah, prom season. What once was a dance has become an industry. With an industry comes a season. And with a season comes an onslaught of "feel-good" stories in which well-meaning, non-disabled kids invite disabled friends to prom and the news heaps praise on them for extending invitations that the media seem to assume that we all agree are - can only be - charitable.

I have no doubt that in the vast majority of these stories the act of inviting a friend, disabled or otherwise, to prom is just that. It's not, by any stretch, some grand act of charity. It's not done for pats on the head; it's done because these kids know they'll have a good time with the person they're inviting. Many of the kids even go out of their way to say that to whomever will listen, but it does little to deter the more fervent head-patters.

** To be very clear, an invitation to prom is not the problem. The way in which these stories are presented is. **

The formula is consistent. There's the popular hero upon whom the story is focused. We hear all about how wonderful they are. About how they could have gone to prom with anyone. About where they plan to go to college. About how well-liked they are and about all of the activities in which they participate.

The other kid? Is incidental. One-dimensional. An afterthought. Worse, a prop.

Just for "fun" I Googled the words 'disabled prom story' when I first wrote this post a couple of years ago and, among the 815,000 hits that popped up (yes, really), one of the top three stories read, "Feel Good Story: A Prom Date They'll Never Forget." So I opened it.

It was an article about a girl whom I’ll call M. She sounded lovely. We heard a lot about her. About the sport she played and the particular event within that sport (and how she made the state finals. Go, M!). We heard about where she planned to go to college, about what she would study there and about what she hoped to be when she grew up.

We heard all about her last two proms and why she decided that she wanted to take one of "the Special Ed boys" to this one. We heard about how she befriended the guys in the sub separate class and how she got angry when her friends called them "those weird kids." We heard about her dress. She sounded like a really great kid.

We then heard from a school staff member who told us that she cried when she saw the proposal, live and in person.

From J, the boy whom M invited to prom, we heard ... nothing. The article said that "the school didn't release his last name." I suppose reporters have no way to find out someone's last name other than through the school? Like, um, asking him. They didn't. So we knew nothing about him. Not a quote, not a single personal detail. Nothing.

Every story was similar. Every one of them was about the person doing the asking and how great it was that they, as it was worded in one of the articles, "didn't mind" their date's disability.

A few years ago, I wrote about a story that I’d read in the Good News section of the Huffington Post. The story was entitled, 'Qdoba Worker Feeds Customer With Disability, Reminds Us All To Help Someone Today.'

Underneath a news video packaged around the recording of said worker feeding said customer was the following text:

“Faith in humanity, restored!

A worker in a Qdoba fast food restaurant in Louisville, Kentucky was caught on video feeding a customer who was unable to feed herself. Ridge Quarles told WAVE 3, the local NBC station, that the customer was a regular who traveled to the restaurant via a bus used by people with disabilities. He told the station:

I had helped her through [the] line and sat her out in the lobby, got her a drink, got her utensils and napkin and kind of started to walk off and I was like, “Is there anything else I can help you with?” and she turned around and she was like, “Sir, if you don’t mind could you help me eat?”

The footage was captured by customer David Jones, who had helped the woman to enter the store.

“He didn’t stop to think about, ‘Well, should I help her, should I not,’ he just went over, put the gloves on and started feeding her,” Jones told WAVE 3.

Jones said he filmed the moment to show his friends “there’s still some good people in the world.”

This was what I wrote in response:

“I think it’s nice that this young man went the extra mile for a customer who was, thankfully, able to ask for the help that she needed. I’m not sure that the fact that he didn’t refuse her request is enough to restore my faith in humanity, as it did for the author of the article, but I agree that it was nice. I’d imagine that the woman whom he helped thought it was nice too. But imagining is all that I can do, because as far as I can tell no one asked her.

I wonder what her name is.

I wonder how she feels about being videotaped while eating – while needing to be fed. I wonder how she feels about that video being shared online and subsequently put on television without her consent. I wonder if anyone anywhere along the line thought that perhaps they should consult her before hitting publish.

She’s a regular at the restaurant. According to the reporter, she patronizes the place enough that they know how she gets there, what she orders for lunch, and what she prefers for dinner. Enough that the young man was able to relate precisely what she said each time she came in.

But in the video, the reporter says, “we don’t know her name or her story.”

It wouldn’t have been hard to find her if they’d thought it was important. But clearly, the story isn’t about her, even though it’s her story. Once it was packaged for public consumption – for people who aren’t disabled, for those who would view it as a one-dimensional act of kindness to be passed on – it was no longer hers.

I think so often of the incredible Ted Talk with which Stella Young left us before she died. The one in which she said, “And these images, there are lots of them out there, they are what we call inspiration p**n.” And the audience laughed because, well, p**n is a funny word. And she said:

“I use the term p**n deliberately, because they objectify one group of people for the benefit of another group of people. So in this case, we’re objectifying disabled people for the benefit of nondisabled people. The purpose of these images is to inspire you, to motivate you, so that we can look at them and think, “Well, however bad my life is, it could be worse. I could be that person.”

But what if you ARE that person?”

–

Now that prom season is approaching, these stories are bound to start popping up again, as they always do. It's easy to get wrapped up in them. It's even easier to share them. But before you do, I beseech you to ask yourself how it would feel to read them from the disabled person's point of view.

If you were the woman no one even bothered to interview. If you were the kid with no last name. If you were the one whom no one could believe the cheerleader would ask to the prom - the one whom no one reading those articles could ever think might end up being the actual girlfriend or boyfriend of their one-time, feel-good date.

How would you feel?

Stella asked, "What if you ARE that person?"

So I ask again … what if you are?

{image is a photo of my daughter, Brooke (in purple), with her friends (7 in total) before their prom last year. Not that it's the point, but they all look fabulous.

I sarcastically asked here at the time, “If every one of the kids going to prom together has a disability, then who gets to be the hero?” It wasn’t meant to be funny.

Photo shared with permission, as always.}

I don’t want autism awareness.

In fact, I don’t want autism acceptance either.

Here’s why:

Awareness by definition means “knowledge of a situation or fact.” You can have knowledge of autism and do absolutely nothing about it. Awareness doesn’t equal action.

And acceptance? Acceptance can be done begrudgingly. There are a lot of things I passively accept. I accept that Monday rolls around after every weekend. I accept that the forecast called for rain on my wedding day. We can accept that things exist without ever having to embrace them (like people with disabilities).

So I guess this month of April, I’d like you to consider ditching autism awareness or acceptance and move toward autism inclusion. Because that definition means “a sense of belonging.” To bring in. To understand and embrace.

Let’s put it this way: I’m raising two children with autism. As their mom, I know them and accept them more than any other person on this planet. And yet, I still spend thousands of hours and thousands of dollars every single year learning how I can better support them.

What if the world did the same?

Don’t just tell your kids to be kind, get online and order books on neurodiversity. Employ people with autism—then have a coffee with them. We aren’t some subgroup to be studied from afar.

Real change can’t just be the responsibility of the disabled.

It starts with radical “inclusion” by everyone else too.

We are little over a week away for our annual golf tourney!! We still have a few spots available. Feel free to contact us if wanting to participate. Thank you!

One of my favorite poems ❤️

Again and again.