Blogs

In Jordan's freshman year of high school due to extreme frustration with his math teacher, I ended up writing a letter to the Principle and copied the Superintendent! High school has been a challenge that's for sure, it's way different than dealing with middle school teachers. I find I have to scream to be heard at the high school level in middle school I only had to whisper. Jordan's Sophomore year wasn't much better, I won't back down, and you shouldn't back down either what's that slogan? Just bring it!

Dear Mr. Principle,
Dear Mr. Superintendant,

I am an active 78-year young guy with the very good fortune of being in excellent health. For my entire life I've been a meat eater--nothing like a good steak. Most recently I've been doing considerable reading about nutrician, in particular about plant-based diet vs animal-based diet. I've reached the conclusion that the best way to prolong my active life style is by moving to a vegetarian diet, or even to vegan, I would be grateful for comments from others. For instance, is there any great advantage to vegan over vegetarian? Are there dangers for someone my age to make such a shift?

Rhonda's 16 year old son who has Autism.

“I Am”
By: Jordan Brunett

I am smart and athletic
I wonder if I will accomplish my dreams
I can hear a baseball scream into the bleachers
I see a baseball smiling at me
I want to go to college
I am smart and athletic

I pretend to be a world famous announcer
I feel excited about baseball
I touch a baseball bat

No matter what is said here or anywhere, it does not change the fact that there is an Autism Crisis. I am always open minded to learn and grow. The basis of my Autism education is through the highly criticized lens of Google University. I would say my 7 years of intensive and indepth study of books, conferences, meetings, speeches, CD's DVD's, flyers, and personal conversations with experts qualifies me as an equal to most of those with PHD's. Many who have not had any formal classroom training on autism but just hide behind their Title.

There’s been an awful lot of talk about the intense amount of stress that autism parents experience compared to other parents. http://www.topautismsites.com/r/News/Mothers_Of_Children_With_Autism_Hav... Even more stressed than parents of children with varying disabilities when compared with autism. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/for-mothers-the-stress-of-autism/ And then there are those which serve to expand upon the reasons. http://autism.about.com/b/2009/07/16/why-is-autism-stressful-for-parents...

I've re-uploaded our first 2 episodes from our new Radio Show. You can follow them here:
http://www.autismone.org/content/kendal-stewart-md-lisa-hunter-ryden-par...

The next episode is scheduled to air on Monday, August 10, 2009 @ 12 P.M. (CST).

I have just recently read an informative article from The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHoP) that reminds me of not only how ignorant I used to be regarding the inherent dangers of vaccines but also how devious and disingenuous doctors today can be in selling their pharmaceutical masters wares. The title of the article is Q A Aluminum in Vaccines: What you should know

Challenging areas for my child Jordan:
In sharing this IEP information, my hope is to help out mom's andvery educator's.
Regular Education Teachers don't have very much information provided to them on autism,they really need more in-service in this area! I teach teachers how to instruct my child...
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Information provided by: Speech teacher Kacey Newman.
1. Higher level language tasks including how and why questions, explaining reasons why and inferring.
2. Rote memory is a skill Jordan excels at, he greatly struggled with recalling sentences that are presented to him verbally.

I’ve been very discourage as of late. There is a shadow of darkness and gloom hanging over our community. A heinous monster which only serves to defeat us, only serves to further distance us, conquer and divide.

Maybe you’ve come to realize it too? That ugly assaulting being is none other than each other. It’s no secret that there exist two entirely different pools of thought in the autism community. Those of us who desire to improve upon our loved one’s health to the point that they recover from autism, and those who feel threatened by the concept.

CNN recently reported on a University of North Carolina study where researchers found that toddlers with autism had a portion of their brains, (the Amygdala) that was on average thirteen percent larger than the neurotypical controls. The study, which was published in the latest Archives of General Psychiatry, looked at 50 toddlers with autism and another 33 that were neurotypical. They were all scanned at two and four years of age.