Autism Interview #70: Tom Iland on Law Enforcement, Self Discovery, and Advocacy

Interviews
Diagnosed with autism at 13 years old, Thomas “Tom” Iland has worked hard to achieve his goals: learning to drive, living on his own, graduating from college, obtaining full-time employment and having a girlfriend. Tom recently left his career as a certified public accountant (CPA) to educate, inspire and motivate people affected by autism and other learning differences. One of only 4,000 Distinguished Toastmasters in the world and a member of the National Speakers Association, his mantra “Know Yourself. Love Yourself. Be Yourself.” has been featured in keynote speeches in autism conferences around the country and is among the topics in his award-winning, bestselling book, “Come to Life! Your Guide to Self-Discovery.” This week Tom shared advice about advocacy and his background as a public speaker, including training individuals on how to interact with law enforcement.

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Autism Interview #66: Kat Muir on Socializing, CBT, and Advocacy

1 CommentInterviews

Kat Muir is a speech-language pathologist employed at Easterseals Crossroads. She has a B.S. in Speech & Hearing Science and an M.A. in Bilingual Speech-Language Pathology. She speaks fluently in English, Spanish, German, French, Farsi, ASL and some Mandarin and is currently working on learning Vietnamese. She is also a member of Mensa and a public speaker. This week she shared how she has managed some of her personal struggles as well as how she works today to help others with disabilities.

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Autism Interview #64: Russell Lehmann on Never Giving Up

Interviews

Russell Lehmann is an award-winning and internationally recognized motivational speaker, poet, author and advocate who happens to have autism. His words have been featured in the USA Today, LA Times, NPR, Yahoo! News, Autism Speaks and archived in the Library of Congress.

Russell currently travels the country spreading hope, awareness, acceptance, belief and tolerance in a raw and dynamic fashion, while also setting his sights on erasing the stigma and stereotypes that come with having a disability. This week he shared some of his experiences as an autism advocate and poet.

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Autism Interview #63 Part 2: Ally Grace on Communication and Fighting Stigma

Autism Acceptance, Interviews
This post is a continuation of an interview with Ally Grace, Respectfully Connected blogger and autistic mother of five. Last week Ally discussed unschooling her children and advice for parents considering therapy for their children. This week Ally offered suggestions for communicating with your autistic children and challenges us to rethink how we advocate for them.

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Autism Interview #63 Part 1: Ally Grace on Unschooling, Therapy, and Autism

Autism Acceptance, Interviews
Ally Grace is an autistic mother of five from Australia. Ally strongly believes in challenging the pathology paradigm of autism. She blogs at Respectfully Connected about her family, rejecting conventional autism assumptions, challenging social norms around raising children, unschooling, and being autistic. This post is part one of a 2-part series with Ally. This week she shared her experience unschooling her children, as well as advice for parents considering different therapies for their children.

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Autism Interview #61: Michael John Carley on the Current State of Autism

4 CommentsAutism Acceptance, Interviews, Practical Parenting
Michael John Carley is an internationally-recognized autistic author, speaker, and public advocate. He is the founder and first Executive Director of GRASP, the largest organization in the world comprised of adults on the autism spectrum. He’s also the former United Nations Representative of Veterans for Peace, Inc. He’s been featured in many national publications and media outlets and has written several books on autism. This week he shared his perspective on the current state of autism in America, some of the differences between his experiences and those of his autistic son, as well as advocacy tips for parents.

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Autism Interview #60: Kieran Rose on the Fatigue of “Masking”

Autism Acceptance, Interviews

A campaigner for Autistic rights, Kieran Rose has turned his passion for writing to good use, focusing on Advocacy and Acceptance for Autistic and Neurodiverse people, with his blog The Autistic Advocate. The freedom for Neurodiverse and Neurodivergent people to speak for themselves and be heard is paramount for Kieran, mostly due to the fact that he has spent his whole life immersed in Autistic life and culture as an actually Autistic person, with Autism diagnoses for much of his immediate and wider family; and now two Autistic children of his own.

Kieran lives in Durham, England, with his wife, Michelle, where they run their Marketing Consultancy: www.custardandbear.com (With a little help from their three children, Quinn, Albie and Olivia). The whole family all live in a happy bubble of Sensory overwhelm and underwhelm.

This week Kieran shared some of his personal experiences as an autistic individual as well as important advocacy tips for parents and families who live with or near autistic individuals.…

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