I've always wondered how the autism academic crowd would react when the Autistic folk start trying to control the narrative...    Yup, i t's the academic equivalent of taking your ball home because no-one will let you score all the goals...This is getting really tiring now.

Autistic community: After Spectrum10K and mad folk trying to make us less Autistic via skype let's hope this week is a wee bit less stressful.... Angela Sandison: Hold my beer....     Angela Sandison: Why the long face?   In case you can't be bothered watching the video (it's in the link)  councillor Sandison came out with some top quality comments such as: "Can we put in some early intervention, like with parenting skills, so... we do not have so many cases,"  And the classic: "In a previous generation of children they'd never even heard of autism and now we've got so many." Usually this is the point where I waxed lyrical and add some pithy albeit really sarcastic comment but frankly I'm really, really tired of all this rubbish by now so I'm just going to say Angela, get all the way to fuck.  Then fuck off some more. Oh and as an aside (aimed at The Greens and Lib Dems) if you're gonna attempt to pretend you're an Autism ally a

  Happy 70th birthday to the one and only Mark Hamill!  My hero as a 7 yr old and still my hero today. I don't mind admitting it but  I bloody love him.  (but not in a stalker way)   

 

Another day and another misguided Autism study ( published by JAMA Pediatrics - oh look multicoloured jigsaw pieces!) has hit the headlines - and one I was about to discuss on Radio Scotland with Kaye Adams, check me* - this time focusing on training parents how to respond to babies showing early signs of autism and how it could reduce the number of three-year-olds meeting the criteria for diagnosis. Excellent! Because obviously it's scientifically possible to suck the Autism out of people before it's too late.  Well heads up guys, we're born Autistic and will die Autistic, all you're doing is teaching them to mask earlier whilst re-enforcing the view to parents that somehow having a child with an Autism diagnosis is a bad thing. I mean, it might be me being a wee bit thick but I'm struggling to see how an Autistic child no longer meets the criteria for having a diagnosis (whilst being Autistic) can in any way be seen as being a success? All this means is that no

 The latest issue of Autitude - illustrated & curated by myself (you're welcome!) and featuring a plethora of fantastic features taking in everything from poetry to prose via music and much more - is available now.          Download it here today!

 T'other week the lovely Rho (she reads this) got me this rather splendid T-Shirt.... So I thought I'd return the favour, not because she'd like one, mind, more because I find the amount of horrendously designed Autism T-shirts available online vaguely amusing. You see it's almost like that when they're not trying to wipe us out they're trying to blind us with mismatched colours and fonts.  And I'm sure psychological torture was banned under the Geneva Convention. Or at the very least under the rules of fashion. Enjoy.   Hmmm....controversial. For the rebel in the family, or the American - you choose. Alternatively we could punch anyone wearing this in the face instead? Says the dragon holding the multi-coloured puzzle piece. Plus I'm pretty sure that's not how Google works. No, It's definitely spelled Autism. Try again. Alexa....define 'sensory overload' without saying 'sensory overload'. So....just a dad then? Unless you literal