I’ve written a few other blogs on special autism observation days (some links farther down). April is widely known as Autism Awareness Month. The last few weeks, there has been a lot of buzz on groups that I am associated with on the Neurodiversity movement and changing “Autism Awareness” to “Autism Acceptance.” There have been some great resources shared and I decided to post a few of them here. These essays and other resources will give you much more insight into what the adult autistic community is fighting for than I can myself.
And keep scrolling down for some books to read.
Resources
Shifting the paradigm from awareness to acceptance
Throw Away the Master’s Tools: Liberating Ourselves from the Pathology Paradigm
5 Guidelines to keep in mind during Autism Acceptance Month
What’s wrong with the puzzle piece and “light it up blue”?
The Ableist History of the Puzzle Piece Symbol for Autism
Fighting for the closure of ATU’s in the UK
She was so desperate, she swallowed a toothbrush
Autism Awareness Bingo
Watching all of those autism awareness articles, memes, and inspiration porn roll through your Facebook (or other social media) feed? Why not pull out this Autistic Party Giraffe card and see if you can get bingo?
Books to Read
Normally I put my books and blog entries before other parties’, but out of respect for “nothing about us without us,” I will reverse this and put books by #actuallyautistic authors first:
Books by Actually Autistic Authors (Goodreads list)
I included a number of autism positive books (some by autistic authors) in my International Day of the Stim Blog
Steve Silberman’s Neurotribes sets out the modern history of and corrects a lot of misconceptions about autism.
And finally, I have autistic characters in a number of my books (sometimes labeled autistic, sometimes not.) People’s perceptions and treatment of autistic characters becomes a central issue in these two:
One day it will be every month of the year, hopefully