Greetings friends, Warm wishes to you. :) I, for one, am hopeful that the next generation of autistic youth will have easier, healthier lives than those of us who've come before them. Awareness is the first step towards inclusion...though there is still much ground to be covered for the lives of autistic persons to become less precarious. I am sharing this email which I received today from the PHAC (Public Health Agency of Canada) regarding "World Autism Awareness Day" in case anyone else missed seeing it. (directly copied and pasted) Hello,   On April 2nd we come together for Wor ..read more

"Something groundbreaking for basic income is happening in the Canadian Senate. Bill S-233 (An Act to develop a national framework for a guaranteed livable basic income) is one vote away from passage in Committee. If it is passed in Committee, it returns to the Senate where we have every expectation that it already has the votes to pass Third Reading and be sent to the House of Commons." (from PEIWGLI Update # 15) Just popping by to ask for your kind support. Please copy, paste (and possibly personalize, if you wish) the below letter and send to PEI Senator Jane MacAdam whose vote ma ..read more

On Wed. Nov. 22nd, 2023 PEI made history with release of a landmark paper on Basic Income. This collaborative effort was the result of many, many volunteer hours by amazing and diverse specialists from across Canada. Thanks to this report, with its concentrated focus on the nuts and bolts of what a 5-7 year Guaranteed Basic Income demonstration project could look like here on PEI, Islanders (and all Canadians) can get a better feel for how a basic income demonstration rollout would happen. We estimate that this proposed GBI benefit would put Prince Edward Island on a path to meet its poverty r ..read more

Please help put the pressure on Ottawa for a no strings attached Basic Income Guarantee NOW! Dear friends, I am reaching out yet again at the end of another week of just awful world news. If you need a break from reading emails and blog posts and are choosing time away from digital technologies I very much understand and respect that. If you have a bit of time and energy to briefly read on, thank you. All the awfulness in the news of late is enough to shut this deep feeling heart down, but instead of shutting down altogether I somehow am choosing to honour the grief I feel (gentle, deep breath ..read more

This is a very interesting/insightful thread I copied from Twitter before the storm, in the 'how does this total stranger know so much about my life' category. Some of our conversation at the meeting Saturday reminded me of it so I thought I would share. Written by Dr Sam Porter @PerinatalBirder His Twitter profile describes him as "#Neurodivergent Consultant Perinatal Psychiatrist" and he describes this thread "Here’s a thread I’ve written for psychiatrists to help them pick up recognise when their patients are autistic, because 1 in 5 are!" He's from the UK so some of the acronyms are unfami ..read more

This article from The Guardian is about the UK but I'm sure this happens in Canada as well, maybe not as much because I think its more difficult to get diagnosed as an adult in Canada. "In recent years, the number of people diagnosed with autism has rocketed; a study of diagnosis trends, published in August, found the median age for diagnosis is 10 for males and 13 for females, and there was a 787% exponential increase in its recorded incidence, in the 20 years to 2018. " At least they're talking about diagnosis here and not autism itself. In the recent CAHS assessment prepared for the Federal ..read more

Autistic spiky profiles and positivity! is about something called "spiky profiles" which is a term I was not familiar with but according to the writer its a common term in the 'autistic community' :) Although I wasn't familiar with the term, it is certainly a concept I'm familiar with"we are good at some things, bad at other things, and the difference between the two tends to be much greater than it is for most other people"from Neuroclastic. Most other people referred to here meaning people who are not autistic and not adhd. The article describes the common autistic traits and describes how t ..read more

This article was recently shared on twitter. Are Co-occurring Conditions Part of Autism? This was written by Max Sparrow It's a couple years old but I thought it was interesting especially when you consider the way autism is defined compared to what non autistic people often think it is. It talks about the many co-occurring conditions that autistic individuals may have and yet those conditions are not actually autism. But at the same time you're more likely to get a diagnosis for autism if you have other conditions co-occurring with autism. And that includes conditions like intellectual disabi ..read more

I saw this on Facebook this morning from the Autistic Self Advocacy Network . Although I've already posted a couple other descriptions of autism, I enjoyed this one because its not as clinical and its also not all negative. "Autism is a developmental disability that affects how we experience the world around us. Autistic people are an important part of the world. Autism is a normal part of life, and makes us who we are. Autism has always existed. Autistic people are born autistic and we will be autistic our whole lives. Autism can be diagnosed by a doctor, but you can be autistic even if you d ..read more

I saw a thread on twitter recently that started "Still investigating what it means to be semi-speaking" and continued with a list of examples of what semi-speaking means for the OP. I found it very interesting for a few reasons. I first heard about this condition a few years ago, some people refer to it as selective mutism or being semi verbal. It is basically "an anxiety disorder in which a person who is otherwise capable of speech becomes unable to speak ... usually co-exists with social anxiety disorder." The condition is not specific to autism and not all autistics have this condition. To ..read more