More tales from the autism front. Today's questions come from the mother of "Tara," a 3-and-a-half year old who was just diagnosed. Keep in mind that I've never met these people, so I'm basically just relaying what we did in these same situations. Our son, Newt, was diagnosed with high-functioning autism at the same age and [...]

So last week, I wrote about what my son, Newt, was like as a young child and what led us to get him tested for autism. This week, I'll give you the not-so-brief rundown of what we ended up doing for school and what we didn't do for therapy. On the day he was diagnosed [...]

So for whatever reason -- search engines, moving to Wordpress, tiny elves -- I've recently gotten several inquiries about my son, Newt, and all the autism stuff we went through with him in his "youth." He's now 10. So old. I've been wanting to write the story of what happened with Newt for a long time, [...]

I'm not sure how I got myself into this, but some "friends" (and I use that term loosely because, honestly, what kind of real friends would subject me to this kind of pain), have included me in a weekly fiction writing group. Seriously though, I'm honored and touched to be part of this. These are [...]

One thing I love about our kids' school is that because they're a charter, they can do crazy assignments whenever something interesting comes up. The other day, my son, Newt, came home looking like he'd won the lottery because his teacher had signed him up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). If you're an adult, [...]

This is an ongoing series about my 8-year-old son, Newt, who was diagnosed with high-functioning autism when he was three. Since that time, he's tested off the spectrum. We think some of this is why. . .Okay, I'm going to try to make this quick because I've sort of been feeling like crap. Which kind [...]

This is an ongoing series about my 8-year-old son, Newt, who was diagnosed with high-functioning autism when he was three. Since that time, he's tested off the spectrum. We think some of this is why. . . So yesterday I was at my friend's house -- the friend who basically got our family in the [...]

This is an ongoing series about my 8-year-old son, Newt, who was diagnosed with high-functioning autism when he was three. Since that time, he's tested off the spectrum. We think some of this is why. . .One of the first things you hear about autistic children is that they're "inflexible." There are stories upon horror [...]

So last week I started a series called Peeling the Onion. I'm hoping it'll actually force me to start writing about how we helped our son, Newt, with his high-functioning autism (I've started this project several times and I always screw it up). Why "peeling the onion?" It seems like an appropriate description for a [...]