The Joy of Autism

Personal Interest and Academic Reserach

The end of the day of Adam healing from the croup and us both watching repeats of Wretches & Jabberers for my thesis. Adam can’t help laughing at the scenes of Naoki jumping up and down to Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee –...

Published Tue, May 28 2013 7:10 PM by Estée Klar

Filed under: Activism, Adam, Critical Disability Studies, Writing, Autism and Intelligence, communication, Advocacy, Politics, Computing/iPad, Community, Living

Autistic Freedom

I’ve been thinking and planning with Adam’s team the next stages of his learning and doing our map project. Every once in a while, I got down the dark whole of blog comments and blogs that consistently regard autism, even its many complications...

Published Wed, Jun 26 2013 8:29 AM by Estée Klar

Filed under: Activism, Anxiety, Autism and Learning, Development, Art, Autism and Intelligence, Acceptance, communication, Contributions to Society, Obsessions, Sensory Differences, Advocacy, Transitions, Safety, Parenting, Law, Politics, Behaviours, Wandering, school, Movement Disturbance, Computing/iPad, Ableism, ABA, Language

Communication as a Human Right

Every morning since returning from The Communication Institute in Syracuse, Adam has been typing. I’ve realized that he actually doesn’t need the levels of support that I thought he did, when given the right equipment at the right angles,...

Published Wed, Jul 24 2013 11:56 AM by Estée Klar

Filed under: communication, Aides and Assistants

Will the real Autism Acceptance Project please stand up?

Today, I was informed that the name of the organization founded by myself but built with many autistic people, both verbal and non verbal, was taken by the creator at this site here. Ms. Zalzal, the creator of this pretty site is a web designer and built...

Published Wed, Feb 06 2013 9:33 PM by Estée Klar

Filed under: Activism

Disability Issues and the CBC

I am finding myself listening to CBC Radio One every morning. I would like to applaud the CBC for dealing with one of Canada’s most pressing human rights issues – that is the stigma of people categorized with “mental illness,”...

Published Fri, Jan 18 2013 6:58 AM by Estée Klar

Filed under: Media

Save The Merle Levine Academy

I rarely write a piece to save my son’s school, so hear me out: Due to dwindling enrollment, the Merle Levine Academy (MLA) is shutting its doors – unless more students attend. For autism and other learning disabilities, MLA has graduated...

Published Mon, Apr 20 2015 7:47 PM by Estée Klar

Filed under: school

What’s the Problem Represented to Be? Autism, School and Policy Musing

As Adam school closes, we have our Plan B which does involve his acceptance into a high school language arts community in a school devoted to social justice. Adam is in grade seven but will jump a grade. Some might say this is Ironic, no, for a child...

Published Wed, Apr 22 2015 6:48 AM by Estée Klar

Filed under: Inclusion, Single Parenthood, school, Government Services, Human Rights, Institutionalization, Policy

Mental ability and the Discourse of Disease – another comment on a Globe & Mail article on “Treating the Brain and the Immune System in Tandem”

Again, the suggestion that mental illness – an umbrella term under which autism has also been thrust – is discussed in terms of biological disease. Says the Globe & Mail this morning: “It probably brings us closer to hammering in the...

Published Mon, Jan 19 2015 8:36 AM by Estée Klar

Filed under: Inclusion, Ethics, Discrimination, Research, Media, Disability History, The Autism Genome Project, Newgenics, Critical Disability Theory, NEugenics, Science, Identity, What is Disability?, Intelligence, Accessibility, Eugenics, Institutionalization

With Tidings of Struggles and Joy

This is a short post to wish all of you a happy holiday and New Year. Adam and I have had such a wonderful year – his wish now to write a book and all that progress with his typing. Finally out of the clutches of autism schools that haven’t...

Published Mon, Dec 29 2014 9:55 AM by Estée Klar

Filed under: Activism, Critical Disability Studies, Inclusion, Discrimination, Acceptance, Joy, communication, ABA, Community, Human Rights

My Son’s Good News Journalism

Today I received a call from the school (a good call) that Adam was upset. After given the chance to type about why he was upset, he was talking about the news and of justice. He is beginning to learn about Martin Luther King. He wrote at school: “People...

Published Tue, Jan 13 2015 2:24 PM by Estée Klar

Filed under: communication, autism, Parenting, Inspiration

The Creative Potential of Tourettes and Tics

Adam’s body tics and his vocal tics now include an exceptionally loud OW! The vocal component began about a year and a half ago with grunting – I wrote a piece to be published about my perception and response to it for a peer-reviewed journal...

Published Tue, Nov 11 2014 11:44 AM by Estée Klar

Filed under: Autism and Intelligence, Acceptance, Obsessions, Inspiration, Behaviours, Movement Disturbance, Language, seizures, Intelligence, Accessibility, Tics

What Adam Said This Morning

Adam and I sat on the stoop as usual this morning for his bus to camp. Yesterday, Adam was content and happy and then his assistants reported another sudden biting incident, to which Adam didn’t seem to remember. It lasted but a few moments, then...

Published Thu, Jul 11 2013 6:56 AM by Estée Klar

Filed under: Adam, Acceptance, communication, Sensory Differences, Movement Disturbance, ABA

Thesis, Birds and Naoki Higashida

I successfully defended my thesis on the film Wretches & Jabberers this week, a day before a bird-deluge on Adam. (I’ll post this thesis to my website later this week). It is my hope that we can all promote this self-advocacy film to be the...

Published Sat, Sep 07 2013 9:33 AM by Estée Klar

Filed under: Acceptance, Book Reviews, Inspiration

Am I Disabled Too? Questioning My Identity As A Parent To An Autistic Child

Am I Disabled Too? Questioning My Identity As A Parent to an Autistic Child Estée Klar Against the background of a new “behaviour,” as it would be described by clinical behaviourists – Adam’s grunting – my writing about identity is agitated...

Published Mon, Feb 04 2013 8:58 AM by Estée Klar

Filed under: Critical Disability Theory

My Comment on CBC Synesthesia Story

Neuroscientist Dr. Tom Schweizer, here in Toronto, discuss synesthesia in a stroke patient with CBC’s Michael Serapio. It’s a cool story, but one that alerted me to the ways in which the neuroscientist and reported began to frame the phenomenon...

Published Wed, Jul 31 2013 5:58 AM by Estée Klar

Filed under: Synesthesia

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