I really think you helped to turn the tone of the meeting—-away from ploddingly going over every last detail of working in the Strategic Plan (esp. when there seemed to be a need to redefine autism as relating to various medical conditions). And unlike pretty much everyone else, you stayed exactly within the time allotted and more than made your point.

There’s a comment I want to make to Phil but I’m not being able to find the right words, but it is about something you said at Autreat 07 which helped me be able to access more language, in what is likely a consciously “autistic” way of accessing it, but I can’t explain it very well! Anyway, I think about what you said all the time (the part that I remember), and it has led me to be able to speak more (quantity) and more effectively (quality). The quantity thing is interesting because I am finding that I seem to have a mild speech “impediment” (? not sure what to call it) that never showed up before, probably because I mostly spoke in short phrases and not long ones, and it is harder to sustain non-stuttering in a longer sentence, and there’s a thing I have been doing where I get stuck on the first consonant and then the rest of the word comes later. Not sure why but my theory is just that I talk more. Or else I am tired!

Most of what was shown was the drafts of the SP, but they were, again, in very small font and hard to read.

Even though there is the listing of agenda and minutes on the
IACC Meetings & Events page

It’s unfortunate that the presenters’ slides, at least as far as I saw, do not seem to be archived with the minutes for the public. The sets given in this particular meeting were very interesting and, I thought, would be useful for reference.

I am glad to hear that they moved on from the endless back-and-forth about vaccines, to services.

Lee Grossman talked the talk — “lifespan services”; I hope ASA puts more energy and bandwidth into walking that particular walk. It is an area in which ASA can, if it’s smart, rise above the squabbling and differentiate itself from the other big-money autism organizations.

As the vice-president of a (not-quite-yet-as-big-money) regional autism organization on the forefront of young-adult and adult issues, the Asperger’s Association of New England, I know that the demand for lifespan services in key areas such as housing, employment, postsecondary and vocational education, personal care and household management, and living in the community as a citizen and consumer, is burgeoning.

We can argue until the cows come home and endorse Temple Grandin’s professional work, as to what the causes are, but I think all sides in the causes-and-cures debate agree that there is by now a large identified population of autistic children who will be autistic adults in the next decades.

More of the “autism community” needs to join AANE and other forward-looking organizations in the effort to secure and establish much needed young-adult and adult services.

I am very glad to hear that Paula Durbin-Westby of the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network got to speak, and made the points she made. I first met Paula at Autreat 2007 and have been impressed with her work since then. It is vitally important that the IACC hear from autistic self-advocates: nothing about us, without us.

I’m also glad to hear that Jeff Strully got to speak; Jeff is a former board member of AutCom, the Autism National Committee, and a staunch ally of access to communication and civil and human rights for autistic people.