Thanks very, very, very much to everyone for your kind words about the big change. It is definitely a change and I’m still adjusting—-I’m very interested in knowing what you think. Thanks to all those—-Kev, Emily, Mike, Lisa—who’ve given the new autism blog a shout-out It’s been fabulous blogging with Dora and I’m very excited to be part of the Change.org community.
There’s been a couple of questions about what will happen to this blog: While I won’t be writing it after this week, someone (I’m not sure who) will be taking it over. As far as I know, the …read more

Starting January 5, 2009, voting for the 2008 Weblog Awards begins—–and this blog, which I’ve been writing since April of 2006, is among the finalists for best Medical/Health Issues Blog. I’m included in some good company, including Respectful Insolence—-The Differetial—-Junk Food Science—-Stirrup Queen.
Thanks to everyone for reading Autism Vox, writing in, sounding off—-it’s been a great year and onward into a new one (very very soon!).

And here’s autism on a list of CNN’s top 10 health issues of 2008, with more than a nod to the vaccine issue …… and from Mark Miller’s special needs blog, his list of the “top 10 moments” in disability policy and politics.
Your top 10 of 2008?

First, huge applause for Bonnie Sayers for organizing, garnering prizes, managing Autism Twitter Day.
Did you tweet? (I did, though not as much as I would have wanted to—-a thing called giving exams, and grading exams, and end of semester business…….)
What did you think? Do it again?

Yes, it’s today, Tuesday, Dec 16th  – 9AM, 12:30 PM and 8 PM (Pacific Standard Time). Autism Twitter Day is open to Twitter members, specifically those who are members of the autism community, whether you’re a parent, sibling or relative, and too those on the spectrum. Prizes will be given out, most geared to children and young adults with autism or Asperger syndrome; lots more information about the day is here.
The hashtag to be used for autism twitter day is #ASD. So, if you post a tweet today on the topic of autism / positive autism awareness, please use the …read more

My post on a new theory of autism and genetics is included in the 26th Mendel’s Garden, hosted by a free man (thank you—it’s an honor!).

As the October 1st issue of Scientific American Mind reminds us, words have power. I know this even more whenever I hear my son Charlie speak. He was very, very late to talk and he first didn’t talk at all, but used sign language. Today he speaks in short phrases and sentences, and almost-sentences.
A lot of words get thrown around about autism on the Internet, on blogs and newspaper and media websites and who knows where else. Too often, even most often, it seems that the vast percentage of those words are in the realm of misinformation, as the numerous …read more

After a big day at the beach yesterday, it’s been a very quiet Labor Day around here, Charlie humming and hanging (and getting in some cello practice after a few weeks’ hiatus). My dad took some videos of Charlie swimming and we all watched those, and Charlie and Jim went on a bike ride past four train stations. (And I’ve been more than glad that it’s Labor Day as, felled by a stomach thing, I would not have been able to do too much laboring today).
The announcement about Governor Sarah Palin’s daughter and reports about Hurricane Gustav kept us all …read more

Some software and other updates have been going on behind the scenes here, so if this blog loads slowly or (alas and argh) a comment does not go through, please bear with us. Over in the sidebar, the lists of comments and recent posts have not been updating (Learning All the Time (Whether You Know It Or Not) was posted on Friday morning) and I’m hoping that will get fixed soon. In the meantime, I wanted to point out discussions about the YouTube video of an autistic teenager getting beat up—about how autism, unlike measles, is not an infectious disease—–about …read more

Charlie and I went to the playground today.
That probably doesn’t seem to be anything much to report, especially given other things going on this week. Charlie and I haven’t been to the playground in a while—in several months—and there was a time when we went at least twice a day. After school and before dinner. Mid-morning (on a weekend or holiday) and sometime after 3pm. Many posts when I first started blogging recount those hours of Charlie climbing and trying to walk up slides with the summer sun beating down on us.
With the sun just starting to set, Charlie climbed …read more