Autism Resources

Overview

This resource collection in progress is mostly autism-specific. I collected some of the links as early as 2013-2014, when I first got into disability rights. My views may have changed, or the links may have broken. I do, however, attempt to update it from time to time.

Table of Contents

• Being Autistic and Autistic Traits
  • Overviews and General
  • Executive Functioning
  • Communication and Movement
  • Emotional and Sensory Processing; Stimming
  • Autistic Burnout and Adaptation
• Autistic, Neurodiversity Culture and History
  • Culture
  • History
  • Resources en español, em português
• New to the Autistic Community?
  • Feeling weird about discovering you’re autistic?
  • Welcome to the Autistic Community!
• Broad Disability History: Primer
• Blogs, People, Organizations, and Publications I Like
  • Blogs and People
  • Organizations and Publications
• For Allies
  • Please read “Being autistic and autistic traits” links, and the “autistic, neurodiversity culture and history” links
  • For non-autistic people who want to be allies (general)
  • Planning Autistic Friendly and Accessible Events
• Autistic Life Hacks
  • General school and education
  • Postsecondary Education/College
  • Executive dysfunction
  • Events, gatherings, and holidays
  • Coping with or avoiding sensory overloads, shutdowns, and meltdowns
  • Friendships, relationships, and dating
  • Transitioning to adulthood, health care, volunteer work, accessing support services, and employment
  • Dealing with ableism and autism awareness
  • Cooking
  • Other helpful resources
• Media representation and misrepresentation
  • Cases of positive representation
  • Tips for representing autistic people, and Misrepresentation
• Learning about disability policy and advocacy
• Policy and advocacy areas
  • Overviews of ableism
  • Autonomy, Self-Determination, Supported Decision-Making
  • Murder, filicide, abuse, and neglect of autistic/disabled people 
  • Education
  • Health care
  • Communication access
  • Law enforcement, incarceration, and the legal system
  • Employment
  • Autism Speaks
  • Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC)
  • Institutions and neo-institutions (excluding JRC)
  • Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA), autism therapies, and cure culture
  • Diagnostic disparities, autism research, supports and services
• Projects and articles dedicated to intersectionality
• Web accessibility
• Other Resource Lists

Updated March 2019 with five ish? new links. 

*
*

Being Autistic and Autistic Traits

Overviews and General

• Amythest’s YouTube channel
• What is Autism? in Plain Language
• Inclusive Autistic Traits: Austicality has put together their “best attempt at an inclusive, accurate, useful, and value-neutral” description of autistic traits (not a set of diagnostic criteria)

Communication and Movement

• Echolalia (YouTube video by Amythest Schaber for their “Ask an Autistic” series)
• The naked mechanisms of echolalia (blog post by Mel Baggs)
• Asynchronous Communication
• What is scripting? (YouTube video by Amythest Schaber for their Ask an Autistic series)
• Scripted language and authenticity (Blog post by Bev Harp)
• Autism, Speech, and Assistive Technology
• The Talk at Just Stimming
• Regulating My Body at Faith, Love, and Hope… With Autism
• Rethinking Autism: Implications of Sensory and Movement Differences
• Methods of Communication: My Research Paper at Emma’s Hope Book: “To what extent is it possible to compare the ways in which methods of communication are being taught to autistic students who cannot use spoken language to communicate their complex ideas?”

Executive Functioning

• What is executive functioning? At Neurowonderful (Ask an Autistic YouTube video + reading links)
• One person’s executive dysfunction may not look like another person’s

Emotional and Sensory Processing; Stimming

• Chronoception: Autisticality’s experience with sense of time (i.e. perceiving time passing)
• Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD) (Blog post by Mel Baggs at the web archives of autistics.org): CAPD “makes it difficult to process sounds, particularly speech sounds.”
• The ABCs of Stimming (Illustrated series by par-la-fenetre on Tumblr)
• Stimming 101 (Blog post by Kirsten Lindsmith): Stimming is is a form of movement, often in repeated patterns, that regulates or stimulates an autistic person’s senses
• What is alexithymia? (YouTube video by Amythest Schaber for their “Ask an Autistic” series); Emotional Dysfunction: Alexithymia and ASD (Blog post by Cynthia Kim): Alexithymia is having a difficult time figuring out emotions and describing them
• Meltdowns
• Shutdowns
• New York Stimmy: Sensory Overload and Public Stimming
• Rethinking Autism: Implications of Sensory and Movement Differences
• Sensory Sensitivities and Atypical Sensory Processing
• The Difference Between a Sensory Sensitivity and Disliking Something
• Sensory Diet
• The Dark Side of the Stim: Self Injury and Destructive Habits
• Processing a Sensory Overload
• Sensory overload

Autistic Burnout and Adaptation

• Autistic regression and fluid adaptation (Blog post by Cynthia Kim); Help! I seem to be getting more autistic! (Blog post by Mel Baggs in the web archive of autistics.org): The authors discuss when autistic people begin appearing more visibly so and experience a “loss of skills.” They then detail some causes, and alternative ways to describe this autistic experience.

*
*

Autistic, Neurodiversity Culture and History

Culture

• What the Neurodiversity Movement Does – and Doesn’t – Offer by Emily Paige Ballou
• Up in the Clouds and Down in the Valley: My Richness and Yours by Mel Baggs
• Being Autistic Together by Jim Sinclair
• Cara at Lyssa and Me: “On a sheet of paper I write a few lines. Blog addresses, websites, videos. I push it towards her. This is us. This is how it starts. One by one, like exhausted swimmers, we pull them to safety.”
• The Celebration of Autism by Amythest Schaber: Amythest discusses some personal experiences, what they consider the Celebration of Autism to be, and why it is necessary.
• Autistic Culture: on the beauty, pain, and struggles of Autistic culture, and how it can grow.
• This is Autism Flash Blog sponsored by Boycott Autism Speaks: a compilation of Autistic people speaking about what their autism is, rather than what Autism Speaks claims it is.
• The Obsessive Joy of Autism by Julia Bascom: “If I could change three things about how the world sees autism, they would be these. That the world would see that we feel joy… That the world would stop punishing us for our joy… And that our joy would be valued in and of itself, seen as a necessary and beautiful part of our disability, pursued, and shared.”
• Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking, ed. Julia Bascom: this book is a collection of Autistic experiences by various individuals.
• What Every Autistic Girl Wishes Her Parents Knew: anthology from Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network, editors Emily Paige Ballou, Sharon daVanport, and Kristina Thomas
• All the Weight of our Dreams, editors Lydia Brown, E. Ashkenazy, Morénike Giwa Onaiwu – anthology by autistic people of color
• Autistics Speaking Day: Annually on November 1st. Founded in 2010 by Corina Lynn Becker and aided in promotion by Kathryn Bjornstad. It was a response against an autism “awareness” campaign (Communication Shutdown), and was a call to center and celebrate autistic voices.
• Autism Acceptance Month: Founded by Paula Durbin-Westby as a way to retake Autism “Awareness” Month in April, this is ASAN’s site dedicated to it.
• Autistic History Month: In the month of November, submissions are accepted and links gathered for celebrating autistic/neurodiversity history.
• Autistic Self-Identity: by bendingthewillow: Guide for NT and allistic individuals when referring to autistic people
• #AutisticPrideDay 2016
• A love letter to the autistic community by the Autistic Beekeeper: “Like many autistics, I’ve long felt a sense of otherness. The way I view the world, my body language and speaking patterns, the challenges of sensory processing, these things are not represented in any other community I belong to.”
• A discussion about theory of mind
• Critic of the Dawn by Cal Montgomery: Written in 2001 for Ragged Edge Magazine about disability community politics and more
• Defining Autistic Lives by Cal Montgomery: Written in 2005 for Ragged Edge Magazine as a documentary film review, and the shifting lines people draw between “high-functioning” and “low-functioning” autistic people.
• Disabled not Disordered: Autism and the social model
• Defending and (re)defining self-advocacy

History

• Critic of the Dawn and Defining Autistic Lives
• Autism and the Disability Community: The Politics of Neurodiversity, Causation, and Cure (Presentation by Ari Ne’eman at Emory University, 2013): This gives a really good background on disability history and how it has evolved over time, addresses the social vs. medical model, and more
• Web archive of Jim Sinclair’s writings (an early neurodiversity activist)
• Don’t Mourn for Us by Jim Sinclair (foundational neurodiversity piece)
• The History of ANI by Jim Sinclair (on the history of Autism Network International)
• The Future (and the Past) of Autism Advocacy by Ari Ne’eman (on the future and past of autism advocacy)
• The “Ransom Notes” Affair: When the Neurodiversity Movement Came of Age by Joseph Kras (on the Ransom Notes Campaign in the 2000s; and the response by the neurodiversity community which proved to be the launching pad for many more advocacy campaigns)
• the “effeminate boys” studies by Emma at Lemon Peel (on the origins of applied behavioral analysis, or ABA, and its ties to LGBTQ+ conversion therapy)
• A Conversation on Institutions (at autistics.org library, web archive version)
• A discussion about theory of mind (at autistics.org library, web archive version, a discussion on one of the theories about autism that purports we have no theory of mind)
• Autobiography of Anonymous (at autistics.org library, web archive version, the autobiography of an anonymous autistic born in 1965, personal autistic history)
• The entire autistics.org Library via web archive
• We’re Still Fighting Bad Science: On Andrew Wakefield and the Vaccine Deniers by s.e. smith (some history of the anti-vaccine movement and Andrew Wakefield’s fraudulent study here)
• What I’ve learned in the past year by Autistic Amoeba (personal autistic history)
• Flowers v Gopal: Ugly Laws, Amistad, Blind Tom Wiggins, & The Legal View of Autistic People at Intersected (some disability history, historical autistic figures tied into the modern day)
• Behavior and genetics, Part 2: Eugenics by Urocyon (blog post from 2010 on genetics, disability, autism, and eugenics)
• My sort of people, just as real as theirs by Mel Baggs at Ballastexistenz (on finding community)
• Neurodiversity.com (archived site)
• Let’s have a conversation by Bev at Square 8 (on communication and language)
• New York Times piece on autistics communicating on the Internet, 1997 by Harvey Blume (ableist in parts)
• Autistic History: My Grandfather’s Story at A Quiet Week in the House
• In Memory of Elsie Lacks by Kerima Çevik (on the daughter of Henrietta Lacks)
• Autreat website
• Library of the History of Autism Research, Behaviorism, and Psychiatry at neurodiversity.com
• Autism’s Lost Generation at The Atlantic
• Ransom Rant
• Ransom Notes Campaign
• The Early History of Autism in America at Smithsonian Magazine (This article is by two authors who wrote a distressingly problematic book on the history of autism, In a Different Key. However, this article didn’t seem like the book – what do you think?)
• Autistic History Month 2013
• History of the Puzzle Piece
• Autistics Speaking Day 2013
• Autistic History Month 2016
• Reviving the Concept of Cousins
• My Friend the Tiger: Autistic History Month Part 1
• “The Internet is Ours!” Autistic History Month Part 2
• Reflecting on History, Resisting Hate (On Hans Asperger)

Resources en español (Spanish), em português (Portuguese)

• Neurodivergencia Latina: Manuel Díaz (en español)
• Autismo, Liberación y Orgullo: Sara María Acevedo y Mónica Vidal Gutiérrez (en español)
• O autismo em tradução: Alexia Klein (em português)

*

*

New to the Autistic Community?

Feeling weird about discovering you’re autistic?

• To “I wish I didn’t have Asperger’s”
• Dear Emily (for Blogging Against Disablism Day)
• Truth Is
• Against Shame
• Overcoming Internalized Ableism
• Speech without a Title
• Confessions of a Woman in a Refrigerator (Speech without a Title 2.0)
• On stimming shame
• The one where I talk to myself about shame
• Dx *this*

Welcome to the Autistic Community!

• Welcome to the Autistic Community (Tumblr blog, not affiliated with ASAN’s publication – a place for newcomers to the community ask questions without being criticized by the mods for asking)
• Welcome to the Autistic Community (ASAN resource)
• Autistic Women Welcome Packet from Autism Women’s Network

*

*

Broad Disability History: Primer

• The 1977 Disability Rights Protest That Broke Records and Changed Laws
• History and Modern Effects of Eugenics (blog)
• History of Eugenics and Modern Effects Reading List: a list of books and other readings on the history of eugenics and its modern effects
• We need to call some modern practices eugenics – and don’t
• Germany to probe Nazi-era medical science
• California’s sterilization victims deserve reparations, researchers say
• Trove of data discovered on California’s eugenics history
• Disability is often written out of history – we need to ask why (on Alfred Nobel)
• The Contributions and Achievements of Disabled People are Largely Left out of History Books (on Frida Kahlo)
• Post on the Ugly Laws
• NFB review of book The Ugly Laws
• Rooted in Rights review of The Ugly Laws
• Disability Studies Quarterly
• Fields of Stones (on institutional history)
• Sterilization’s Cruel Inheritance
• For the Public Good: The Shameful History of Forced Sterilization
• From Institution to Inclusion
• After 40 Years, A Conclusion Approaches for Landmark Lawsuit (on Forest Haven, D.C.’s institution for people with I/DD)
• Asylum: Inside Central State Hospital, once the world’s largest mental institution
• Ragged Edge Magazine
• Bright Lights and Dark Corners: What We Carry
• Rhode Island’s Ladd School
• The MIT Science Club for Disabled Children
• Christmas in Purgatory
• Anya Souza, activist with Down Syndrome “I am a person, not a disease” (protesting International Down Syndrome Screening Conference in 2003)
• Nursing homes
• Freeing people from nursing homes
• Ed Roberts on Sex, Karate, and Life with a Disability
• The Life and Occasionally Scandalous Times of Yoshiko Dart
• Justin Dart’s 1987 Statement of Conscience
• Letter to a Baby Thrown from a Bridge by Astra Milberg
• Us/Them (poem)
• Accessible Society topics page
• Disability Social History Project
• Lead on Network’s Black Disability History series
• Ramp Your Voice! Disabled Black History: Shining a Light on Disabled Black Authors & Their Work
• Carrie Buck’s letters, and badly written narratives about them
• Farms for Disabled People Aren’t An Innovative New Idea
• The Queer, Disabled, and Women of Color Suffragettes History Forgot
• Black Disability History Twitter Chat

*

*

Some blogs, people, organizations, and publications I like (current, archived)

Blogs and People

• Autistic Futures / Traveling Show (Larkin Taylor-Parker)
• We Are Like Your Child
• Just Being Me… Who Needs Normalcy, Anyway
• The Black Autist (Timotheus Gordon, Jr.)
• Amy Sequenzia
• Ballastexistenz (Mel Baggs)
• Sometimes a Lion (Ari Ne’eman)
• Neurowonderful (Amythest Schaber)
• Just Stimming (Julia Bascom)
• Emma’s Hope Book (Emma Zurcher-Long)
• Autistic Hoya (Lydia X. Z. Brown)
• Cracked Mirror in Shalott (Savannah Nicole Logsdon-Breakstone)
• Unstrange Mind (Max Sparrow)
• Chavisory
• Real Social Skills
• We Always Liked Piscasso Anyway
• Faith, Hope, and Love… With Autism (Philip Reyes)
• Diary of a Mom (Jess Wilson)
• The Autism Wars (Kerima Çevik)
• The Autistic Beekeeper
• Squidalicious (Shannon Rosa)
• I’m Somewhere Else (Amanda Forest Vivian)
• The Third Glance
• standing in the way of control (Finn Gardiner)
• Yes, That Too (Alyssa Hillary)
• Black NeuroQueer Punk
• Autisticality
• Autism Through the Medium of Cats
• Reports from a Resident Alien
• The Misadventures of Mama Pineapple
• Morton Ann Gernsbacher
• Sarah Kurchak
• Respectfully Connected: Journeys in Parenting and Neurodivergence
• Web archive of autistics.org Library
• Autistic History Month (begun anew)
• Naked Brain Ink

Organizations and Publications

• Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network (AWN Network)
• Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN)
• Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism (TPGA)
• Autistics United Canada
• NOS Magazine
• Ragged Edge Magazine

*

*

For Allies

Please check out the “Being autistic and autistic traits” links, and the “autistic, neurodiversity culture and history” links

General (for parents, educators, professionals, friends etc)

• For Parents – on the Autism Acceptance Month website
• We Are Like Your Child
• Respectfully Connected: Journeys in Parenting and Neurodivergence
• You should tell your kids they’re autistic
• This is what it’s really like to have an Autistic child
• A Checklist for Identifying Sources of Aggression
• My Son Belongs in Your Child’s Class
• Dear Autism Parent
• Why Your Difficult Kid isn’t a Counterexample to Acceptance
• Love, Devotion, Hope, Prevention, and Cure
• Context matters for social skills
• How to redirect stims that harm the autistic person
• What about dignity and respect? When our disability attitudes fail us
• Meltdowns vs tantrums
• Accessing Accommodations after High School
• Back to School Tips from an Autistic
• Tips for Teachers: Supporting neurodivergent students
• Context matters for social skills
• Autistic-Friendly Teaching Styles
• Youth with Autism: Roundtable Views of Services Needed During the Transition into Adulthood
• Why Healthcare Providers Need to Recognize and Respect Neurodiversity
• U.S. Department of Education’s “A Transition Guide to Postsecondary Education and Employment for Students and Youth with Disabilities”
• 7 Things the Autistic in your Workplace Needs From You
• How to support an autistic child in the classroom
• You Have To Understand
• On Assigning Friendships
• Things to Do If You’re My Teacher
• Things Not To Say if You’re My Teacher
• Scattered Skills & the Autistic Worker
• Job Skills and the Disabled
• Open letter to disability professionals
• Observe Autism Acceptance Month in April
• The Problem with Functioning Labels
• Boycotting Autism Speaks
• How to support an autistic person during autism awareness month
• Loud Hands: Or, Why Can’t My Adulthood Be Valid to You Because I’m Autistic?
• Why I dislike person first language
• Experiencing autistic culture as a non-autistic person
• Inclusion and Acceptance are the Most Effective Autism “Therapies”
• Living With an Autistic Roommate
• Autism: What Hospitals and ERs need to know
• Why Aspies Need Space after Work and School
• Information/infographic on helping people in autistic shutdown

Planning Autistic Friendly and Accessible Events

• 5 Tips to make your Pride Events more Inclusive
• Solving conflicting access needs [PDF]
• How to make your event autism-friendly, part 1: Introduction
• How to make your event autism-friendly, part 2: Sensory Needs
• Accessible Event Planning [PDF]
• Best practices for inclusion of AAC users [PDF]
• Having a sensory friendly birthday party
• Accessibility: One Size Doesn’t Fit All
• Planning Inclusive and Accessible Organizing Trainings (ASAN White Paper)
• Notes on Accessibility: Autistic Access Needs [PDF] (ASAN resource)
• Planning Accessible and Inclusive Organizing Trainings: Strategies for Decreasing Barriers to Participation for People with I/DD

*

*

Autistic Life Hacks

General school and education

• Disabled Learning
• Dealing with isolation at school
• Telling teachers about executive dysfunction

Postsecondary Education/College

• Navigating College
• 10 Ways to Refocus for those with ASD/SPD
• Is College Possible?
• How to deal with college exams while autistic
• Spoonie Student Resources
• Why accommodations are so important in higher ed
• Talking to college professors about autism
• Getting disability services in college
• Examples of accommodations in college
• The ADA At School
• Surviving awful roommates

Executive dysfunction

• Executive Functioning Apps (Android)
• Time Management App
• Autistic Life Hack
• You feel like shit.
• Emergency cleaning: unfuck your whole house in the shortest time possible
• Sporks to live by
• Organization hacks
• Wikihow can be helpful for dealing with executive dysfunction
• aTimeLogger app (free on Android)
• How to Do a Difficult Task
• How to clean a room
• Ridiculous yet effective ways to deal with Executive Dysfunction
• real adult™ tip from a real adult™ with executive dysfunction

Events, gatherings, and holidays

• An Autistic’s Holiday Survival Guide
• Holidays with Asperger’s/Autism: Surviving that One Relative
• Autchat on Coping with the Holidays
• Surviving the Holidays with Autism
• Surviving the Holidays with Sensory Processing Disorder
• Eventful Autism

Coping with or avoiding sensory overloads, shutdowns, and meltdowns

• How to reduce sensory overload
• 10 point overload scale (for meltdowns and shutdowns)
• Emergency chat app
• Emergency chat now available for Windows!
• Emergency chat update
• All about Overload
• Overload Prevention Tips
• How to Avoid Meltdowns

Friendships, relationships, and dating

• Sexual activities while autistic
• Solving conflicting access needs [PDF]
• Nobody teaches us how friends should treat us
• How do I ask my friends to make accommodations for me?
• Starting a disability support group
• Boundaries 101 (this is not going to be 100% applicable to all situations)
• Learning social skills (Autchat)
• Finding disability community
• Finding disabled people in your area
• On (A)sexuality
• Asexual, Aromantic, Autistic
• Intersecting Trauma: Autism & PTSD (some useful tips for navigating it in this post)
• Navigating Queer Girl Culture on the Spectrum

Transitioning to adulthood, health care, volunteer work, accessing support services, and employment

• Networking and informational interviews
• ASAN’s Roadmap to Transition: A Handbook for Autistic Youth Transitioning to Adulthood
• Some steps involved in job searching
• Autism and Interviews
• Ask an Autistic on Tumblr: “talking to professionals” tag
• Health care resources
• Sample script for professional emails
• How to request a workplace accommodation
• Volunteering while Autistic/Disabled
• Undercover autism: disclosing autism in the (academic) workplace
• Worse than Inconvenient
• Convenience Store Inconveniences
• Scattered Skills & the Autistic Worker
• Job Skills and the Disabled
• Teenage job hunting while autistic
• Autonomy First! Accessing good supports without sacrificing your independence
• Accessing Home and Community Based Services: Book resource from ASAN

Dealing with ableism and autism awareness

• Autism Acceptance Day Self-care Checklist
• 5 Strategies for Fighting Internalized Ableism
• PADSA Webinar, “Same Old Story: Strategies to Combat Media Misrepresentation” [YouTube video]
• PADSA Resource Guide, “Same Old Story: Strategies to Combat Media Misrepresentation” [PDF]
• On stimming shame
• Ableism 101: Internalized Ableism
• Overcoming Internalized Ableism
• Against Shame
• How to cope with Autism Awareness Month
• Joining the Disability Rights Movement
• Identifying beneficial autism charities

Cooking

• Autistic and Poor: cheap/low spoons cooking and DIY items for autistic people
• Low spoons gourmet
• Autistic cooking
• Low spoons cooking
• Cooking (Autchat)

Other helpful resources

• conversationscripts on Tumblr
• scriptforall on Tumblr
• Real Social Skills: social skills for autonomous people, authored by a disabled writer.
• Coping with a Crisis When You Have Unreliable or Intermittent Speech
• ASAN’s Autism and Safety Toolkit
• Are you a writer? Check out Rose Lemberg’s Writing While Autistic series.
• Autchat archives
• Stimtastic Care Packages on Tumblr
• AutBurnout Twitter chats
• Coping strategies (Autchat)
• Disabled Parenting Project (for disabled parents!)
• Autism and Jury Duty: How I Survived Jury Duty
• Stimming Apps
• Text to Speech apps

*

*

Media representation and misrepresentation

Cases of positive representation

Documentaries (Disclaimer: I have only seen some of these, and most simply come recommended by others. Not autism-specific)

• Loving Lampposts
• Wretches and Jabberers
• Who Cares About Kelsey?
• Citizen Autistic
• Unspoken
• Vectors of Autism
• Life, Animated
• Best and Most Beautiful Things

Book Reviews (fiction) at Disability in Kidlit (includes critical reviews)

Books (nonfiction, mostly autism-specific)

• Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking
• What Every Autistic Girl Wishes Her Parents Knew
• All the Weight of our Dreams: On Living Racialized Autism
• QDA: A Queer Disability Anthology
• Authoring Autism: On Rhetoric and Neurological Queerness
• Typed Words, Loud Voices
• The ABCs of Autism Acceptance
• Neurodivergent Narwhals
• And Straight on till Morning: Essays on Autism Acceptance
• Knowing Why: Adult-Diagnosed Autistic People on Life and Autism

And more.

Tips for representing autistic people, and Misrepresentation

• What Good Representation of Autistic Characters Looks Like: Part I: Interiority and Neurology and Part II: Diversity in Autistic Characteristics and Demographics
• I Fear for My Fellow Autistic People: On Media Misrepresentation
• Privacy vs. Popularity
• Social Media and Privacy for People With Disabilities
• On Digital Exhibitionism by Autism Parents
• Autistic Representation and Real Life Consequences
• Meltdowns and Privacy
• PADSA Webinar, “Same Old Story: Strategies to Combat Media Misrepresentation” [YouTube video]
• PADSA Resource Guide, “Same Old Story: Strategies to Combat Media Misrepresentation” [PDF]
• DREDF Media and Disability Page
• The Inspiration Porn Resolution
• Confessions of a Woman in a Refrigerator (Speech without a Title 2.0)
• Someone Who Moves Like You
• I’m Not Your Inspiration Porn: On Being a Disabled, Queer Survivor
• Script Autistic
• #CrippingTheMighty 1 Year Later
• So you want to write a book about autism
• How to write a disabled character
• Representing Autism
• Supercrip Mythology and Lowered Expectations
• The Stories We Don’t Tell: My Mom on Raising an Autistic Child and Why She’ll Never Write about Me

*

*

Learning about disability policy and advocacy

• A Self-Advocate’s Guide to Medicaid
• Civic Engagement Toolbox For Self-Advocates
• Affordable Care Act Toolkit for Self-Advocates
• Real Work For Real Pay: A Self-Advocate’s Guide to Employment Policy
• Pacific Alliance on Disability Self-Advocacy webinars and resources
• Self Advocacy Resource and Technical Assistance Center (SARTAC)
• Self-Advocacy Online

*

*

Policy and advocacy areas

Overviews of ableism

• Ableism 101: General Individual Ableism and Microaggressions
• Ableism 101: Systemic Ableism

Autonomy, Self-Determination, Supported Decision-Making

• If you want to track a disabled person, maybe ask them first (GPS tracking/etc)
• Autism Registries are Dangerous
• ASAN’s Invitational Summit on Supported Decision Making and the Transition into the Community: Summary, Conclusions, Recommendations (2016-2017)
• ASAN’s The Right to Make Choices: International Laws and Decision-Making by People with Disabilities
• ASAN’s Autism and Safety Toolkit
• The National Resource Center for Supported Decision-Making

Murder, filicide, abuse, and neglect of autistic/disabled people

• ASAN’s Anti-Filicide Toolkit [PDF] and the Disability Day of Mourning
• ASAN’s Disability Memorial website
• Killing Words by Zoe Gross
• Parents by Savannah L. Breakstone
• On Our Backs, We Will Carry Them
• I felt the need to do this, for DDoM 2017. It’s not good but it came from something real.
• List of Murdered Disabled People of Color (created 2013)
• When you’re autistic, abuse is considered love
• We need to talk about the domestic abuse of autistic adults
• I’m Not Your Inspiration Porn: On Being a Disabled, Queer Survivor

Education

• Five Ways Schools can Support Fat, Disabled, LGBTQ+ Students at GLSEN
• Disabling Punishment: The Need for Remedies to the Disparate Loss of Instruction Experienced by Black Students with Disabilities [PDF]
• The Woodland Hills High School to Prison Pipeline
• Violent and Legal: The Shocking Ways School Kids are Being Pinned Down, Isolated Against Their Will
• Restraint and Seclusion: Hear our Stories [YouTube video]
• Why Are Autistic Students Being Pushed Out of College Housing?
• Disabilities and (Dis)Acessibility on College Campuses

Health care and mental health

• How Doctor’s Offices and Queer Culture are Failing Autistic LGBTQ People
• Experiences of Autism Acceptance and Mental Health in Autistic Adults
• Autistics, Effects of Autism Awareness Campaigns, and the Mental Health Care System (AACC 2016)
• Transcript, Sources and Contact Info (AACC 2016)
• Intersecting Pain: Sexism and Ableism in the Medical Field
• Disparities in healthcare for the disabled
• Why I’m afraid of doctors
• Why Healthcare Providers Need to Recognize and Respect Neurodiversity
• Our Lives, Our Health Care: Self Advocates Speaking Out
• Mental Health and Autism: Why Acceptance Matters
• Autism and Suicide: How Many More?
• Autistica’s report (on premature death in Autistics)
• The Effects of Stigmatizing Language on Suicidal Autistics at TPGA
• Why do people autistic people die so young? Telegraph UK
• Bonus Time at Autistic Academic
• Talking About Suicide at Traveling Show
• AUCD Webinar on Autism and Suicide
• INSAR 2018: Autism and Suicidality Special Interest Group (SIG)

Communication access

• A call to scientists to develop communication tools for autism
• ASAN’s Communication Rights Initiative
• Accessing Communication Supports Toolkit  from ASAN and UCSF
• Inclusion of AAC Users [PDF]

Law enforcement, incarceration, and the legal system

• The Woodland Hills High School to Prison Pipeline
• Talila A. Lewis, course syllabus for “Disability Justice In the Age of Mass Incarceration: Perspectives on Race, Disability, Law & Accountability” at Northeastern School of Law, Summer 2016
• NCIL’s We Can’t Breathe Project: The Deaf & Disabled Margin of Police Brutality Project
• Change.org petition for #JusticeForKayleb, created by Morénike Giwa Onaiwu and Lei Wiley-Mydske (explains the unjust arrest and felony charges against an autistic black student, Kayleb Moon-Robinson)
• Racial Profiling and the Black Autistic: The Case of Neli Latson
• Police are ‘Murdering Disabled Black People,’ Residents Tell DOJ
• Caged In: ACLU Report on Prison, Solitary Confinement, and Physical Disability
• Whatever happened to Arnaldo Rios?
• Autism Registries are Dangerous

Employment

• Autistic Meets (Work) World
• Why is the autistic unemployment rate so high?

Autism Speaks

• New Autism Speaks Masterpost
• How the ‘Autism Speaks’ Charity Failed the People It Set Out to Serve
• Big Talk, Little Change for Autism Speaks’ Research Agenda (December 2017)
• 2018 ASAN Flyer: Before you donate to Autism Speaks, Consider the Facts [PDF]

Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC)

• Judge Rotenberg Center Living Archive by Lydia X. Z. Brown (Autistic Hoya): On an institution for disabled people in Canton, Massachusetts. Staff at the facility use electric skin shock on the “students” and the facility is plagued by abuse and neglect complaints.

Institutions and neo-institutions (excluding JRC), Community Integration, Housing

• Keeping the Promise: Self Advocates Defining the Meaning of Community Living (2012 from ASAN and others)
• Congregrate vs. Scattered site housing for people with I/DD [PDF] (2014 brief from ASAN)
• Stop Isolating Autistic Adults and Calling it Community-Based
• Autism and Adult Housing Choices: Separating Myths From Facts
• Successful Community Living for People with Developmental Disabilities
• ASAN’s Invitational Summit on Supported Decision Making and the Transition into the Community: Summary, Conclusions, Recommendations (2016-2017)
• Farms for Disabled People Aren’t An Innovative New Idea
• What Makes Institutions Bad
• ACLU FAQ on the Home and Community Based Settings (HCBS) Rule (2018)
• Developmental Disability Community Faces Housing Crisis
• Autistic and Homeless: Psychological Impact

Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA), autism therapies, and cure culture

• ABA
• Quiet Hands
• Why I Left ABA
• The Spread of Compliance Training
• How Indistinguishability Got Its Groove Back
• First-Hand Perspectives on Behavioral Interventions for Autistic People and People with other Developmental Disabilities
• Real Social Skills’ ABA tag

Diagnostic disparities, autism research, supports and services

• Black, Female, Autistic, and Hiding in Plain Sight
• The DSM-5 has not improved services for autistic adults
• Accessible autism services (lack thereof)
• NOS Magazine’s reporting on the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee
• Big Talk, Little Change for Autism Speaks’ Research Agenda (December 2017)
• Participatory Autism Research Starter Pack
• Recent Study on Overlap between Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and Autism
• Toward a Behavior of Reciprocity [PDF], from Morton Ann Gernsbacher (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
• Remarks from Julia Bascom at United Nations Autism Event (April 2018)
• Autism and psychiatric medication: Caution advised

*

*

Projects and articles dedicated to intersectional advocacy

• Include all of us!
• Tips for intersectional advocacy
• Intersectional Advocacy webinar [YouTube video]
• Lessons for our Future from the Disability Intersectionality Summit
• Intersecting Pain: Sexism and Ableism in the Medical Field
• Intersecting Pain: When Gender Meets Disability
• Disability Intersections
• Intersecting Selfhood: Trans Identity, Autism, and Mental Health Disability
• Double Rainbow: Autism and Race
• Monstering Magazine
• Collection of articles on race and disability
• Deaf Poets Society (intersectional disability literary magazine)
• LGBTQ People With Developmental Disabilities Need Respect, Privacy, and Access to Community
• I’m Autistic and Sick of Feeling Excluded from Queer Spaces

*

*

Web accessibility

• A good introduction
• How to Make Your Blog Accessible
• The Cognitive Disability Accessibility Guide
• A Web for All: Accessibility and Inclusive Design
• Center for Plain Language: An Instant Way to Shorten Your Sentences
• Best Practices for Accessible Social Media webinar
• Alt text and image descriptions made simple
• How to caption YouTube videos

*

*

Other Resource Lists

• Neurowonderful (Amythest Schaber)
• Autistic Hoya (Lydia X. Z. Brown)

 Back to Top?

Advertisement