Jayne Lytel was a successful syndicated columnist when her son Leo was diagnosed with autism. Using her reporting skills to better understand her son's health issues, she helped Leo gain essential abilities. After four years of therapy, he no longer meets the diagnostic criteria for autism, attends a mainstream school, and is a thriving, healthy child. Act Early Against Autism is a practical and empowering guide for parents on how early intervention can change their child's future. Includes information on: - How to recognize early symptoms - Financial challenges - Alternative treatments - Devising and revising therapies

A empowering handbook for parents of special needs children reveals how early intervention can transform the future of a child diagnosed with autism, furnishing useful information on how to recognize early symptoms of the ailment, deal with the financial challenges, find the right treatment plan and therapists, negotiate the system, and more. Original.

Impactful and integral to our economic recovery after the pandemic, The Autism Full Employment Act will rebuild and improve autism employment programs. Employment remains the issue today for many adults with autism. During the pandemic of 2020, authors Michael Bernick and Dr. Lou Vismara, along with other adults with autism, practitioners, and advocates, set out to develop an Autism Full Employment Act. At the time, the national economy was decimated, and it was clear that it would need to be rebuilt, starting in 2021 and beyond. The Act is an attempt not only to rebuild autism employment programs, but also to address the limitations and short­comings of the current system. The Autism Full Employment Act shows how there can be a place in the job world for the wide range of adults with autism, ADHD, and other learning and mental health differ­ences—many of whom are not employed today. Bernick and Dr. Vismara review the autism employment initiatives in recent years among major employers, state and local governments, autism-focused businesses, and autism transi­tion programs, and present strategies to build on these initiatives. They set out more fully the meanings of “autism talent advantage,” “autism friendly workplace,” and “employment for the more severely impacted.” Six broad strategy areas are explored. Interspersed with these six strategy areas are notes on related issues of “professionalizing the direct support workforce,” “transitions,” and “comorbidities.” Bernick and Dr. Vismara end by considering why no government action or pro­gram can replace the employment journey of each adult with autism, but how instead the Act can hasten these journeys.

"This book is a message from autistic people to their parents, friends, teachers, coworkers and doctors showing what life is like on the spectrum. It's also my love letter to autistic people. For too long, we have been forced to navigate a world where all the road signs are written in another language." With a reporter's eye and an insider's perspective, Eric Garcia shows what it's like to be autistic across America. Garcia began writing about autism because he was frustrated by the media's coverage of it; the myths that the disorder is caused by vaccines, the narrow portrayals of autistic people as white men working in Silicon Valley. His own life as an autistic person didn't look anything like that. He is Latino, a graduate of the University of North Carolina, and works as a journalist covering politics in Washington D.C. Garcia realized he needed to put into writing what so many autistic people have been saying for years; autism is a part of their identity, they don't need to be fixed. In We're Not Broken, Garcia uses his own life as a springboard to discuss the social and policy gaps that exist in supporting those on the spectrum. From education to healthcare, he explores how autistic people wrestle with systems that were not built with them in mind. At the same time, he shares the experiences of all types of autistic people, from those with higher support needs, to autistic people of color, to those in the LGBTQ community. In doing so, Garcia gives his community a platform to articulate their own needs, rather than having others speak for them, which has been the standard for far too long.

Current rates of autism diagnoses have been cause for concern and research as well as rumor and misinformation. Important questions surround the condition: how early can an accurate diagnosis be made? At what age should intervention start? How can parents recognize warning signs? And what causes autism in the first place? There are no easy answers, but the Handbook of Early Intervention for Autism Spectrum Disorders gives researchers, practitioners, and academics the science and guidance to better understand and intervene. Background chapters survey the history of professional understanding of the disorders and the ongoing debate over autism as a single entity or a continuum. Chapters on best methods in screening, assessment, and diagnosis reflect the transition between the DSM-V and older diagnostic criteria. And at the heart of the book, the intervention section ranges from evidence-based strategies for developing core skills to ethical concerns, cultural considerations, and controversial treatments. Included in the Handbook's broad-based coverage: Designing curriculum programs for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Mainstream education for children with ASD. Teaching independent living skills to children with ASD. Social skills and play. Behavioral and mental health disorders in children with ASD. Training and supporting caregivers in evidence-based practices. Teaching cognitive skills to children with ASD. The Handbook of Early Intervention for Autism Spectrum Disorders is a comprehensive reference for researchers, professors, and graduate students as well as clinicians and other scientist-practitioners in clinical child and school psychology, child and adolescent psychiatry, social work, rehabilitation, special education, and pediatric medicine.

In Authoring Autism Melanie Yergeau defines neurodivergence as an identity—neuroqueerness—rather than an impairment. Using a queer theory framework, Yergeau notes the stereotypes that deny autistic people their humanity and the chance to define themselves while also challenging cognitive studies scholarship and its reification of the neurological passivity of autistics. She also critiques early intensive behavioral interventions—which have much in common with gay conversion therapy—and questions the ableist privileging of intentionality and diplomacy in rhetorical traditions. Using storying as her method, she presents an alternative view of autistic rhetoricity by foregrounding the cunning rhetorical abilities of autistics and by framing autism as a narrative condition wherein autistics are the best-equipped people to define their experience. Contending that autism represents a queer way of being that simultaneously embraces and rejects the rhetorical, Yergeau shows how autistic people queer the lines of rhetoric, humanity, and agency. In so doing, she demonstrates how an autistic rhetoric requires the reconceptualization of rhetoric’s very essence.

Provides development milestones for ages 2 months through 5 years.