Sarah Akin

A pediatrician's reckoning with behavior therapy A developmental pediatrician explains their pivot to supporting a ban on applied behavior analysis, citing documented trauma and the need to listen to autistic voices. Learn why they now advocate for ...

Did you know that ABA therapy’s widespread adoption “was not driven by consensus among developmental pediatricians, but by insurance mandates, billing incentives, and a cultural push for normalization”?

kevinmd.com/2025/11/a-pe... #BetterWaysThanABA #autism #neurodiversity

Does anyone know of any support groups for Neurodivergent people with cancer undergoing treatment and/ or any support groups for carers? Please feel free to drop signposting below or direct message me, thank you.

This is unacceptable! I'm so sorry this is happening to you.

I do feel like they'll vindicate her at some point, just because I can't see an American show landing on a collectivist message.
(That French guy is the worst.)

I wish they'd explore her grief a bit more, because that would make her more relatable to me.

Oh, you think so? I feel like I'm the only person watching it this way! They did establish her as having some privilege. ("No more war," for instance, probably wouldn't mean that much to her.)
Even with the most recent thing, I'd be inclined to think they understand something I don't.

I'm still watching Pluribus and I still don't see how this is scary!
Apparently, the thing that makes me a unique individual is...having no aversion whatsoever to losing my individuality.

I get to know everything and never feel alone again? Where's the downside?
Like what's your problem, lady?

Perspectives shift when people feel
-safe
-curious
-included

Illustration for Mopsa the Fairy
Dorothy Lathrop

That is patently false: not only do immigrants score better than native-born Americans in tests, the mere presence of immigrants improve test scores for all students, when factoring in white flight

sesp.northwestern.edu/news-events/...

Why We’re Told Not To Talk About Politics or Religion It’s not about manners. It’s about nervous systems.

For a lot of people, politics and religion aren’t “topics.”
They’re identity and emotion-regulation systems.
That’s why they blow up holidays.
I tried to spell this out in a new essay:
ericlane11.substack.com/p/why-were-t...

If, like me, you get chapped lips in winter, try brushing them with a wet toothbrush and applying vaseline before bed.

Delighted that @maricarjagger.bsky.social’s beautiful 2026 calendar has arrived! The 2025 version brought me many moments of joy! Thank you, Maricar, for sharing your art! 🎨🌸

The autistic tendency to stay up late because:

- nighttime is when the world finally slows down (quieter, fewer demands, less sensory input)
- you’ve been randomly hyperfocusing
- “do not perceive me”
- SPECIAL INTERESTS! ❤️
- transitioning to bedtime can be hard
- your circadian rhythm is chaos 🫠

YouTube video by Ballet-ester235 Olesya Novikova - Sugar Plum Fairy

💖https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDXiSzFWAaM

Even though I do wear an autism lanyard in medical settings (when I remember), putting the onus on disabled and/or ND people to wear a "Look! Difference!" symbol like a bullseye is...😳 It's like Mark in The Peep Show going "they [disabled ppl] should all wear a sign! like a star" and I...☠️

“Looking happy isn’t meaningful if you’re rewarded for affecting happiness & punished for looking visibly distressed. Making the best of a bad situation isn’t consent.” This is a post about ABA therapy specifically & special ed in general, by Real Social Skills:

realsocialskills.org/2015/07/17/a...

This dog found a new favorite pastime😍

YouTube video by NOVA PBS Official A Black Hole Is a Place, Not a Thing | Janna Levin

She lost me by the end, but I still think it's interesting. youtu.be/0A4bAARmW58?...

Howzat! One-legged father ordered to repay £36,000 in benefits after being filmed playing cricket | LBC Shaun Rigby, from Telford in Shropshire, lost his leg below the knee at the age of two in a tractor accident and had received personal independence payments since 2016

This is exactly why we scream about how hard it is to get disability benefits and how utterly dehumanizing it can be.

This man played cricket & now the government wants him to pay back his disability support.

They want us to suffer.

www.lbc.co.uk/article/fath...

In a surprise to absolutely none of the autistic community ❤️

As a child, I found garbage bag full of (deeply disturbing) magazines in the woods behind my house. I always thought that was a strange thing to happen. But I guess it...isn't? It's a trope?

Sorry for stepping on your joke, but this actually makes me angry!

I think this is my best essay on this topic (maybe my best essay). I'd like you to read it, if you haven't.

Graphic with a red background. White block text at the top reads, "Only donate to autism orgs that:" Underneath is a white checklist with red checkmarks and black text reading, "Focus on supports, not cures "Prioritize understanding autism "Advocate for autistics' rights "Have autistics in leadership "Provide autistic-informed info "tinyurl.com/UsefulAutismOrgs" In the lower left corner, white text reads, "@ThinkingAutism #GivingTuesday" In the lower right corner, a grouping of graphics has white text reading "We're here" with a red arrow pointing to the Thinking Person's Guide to Autism logo.

It's Giving Tuesday, which means lots of autism orgs are asking for donations. But how can you know which ones are good, and which ones are … not good? Well, we have guidelines and a list, at TPGA:

thinkingautismguide.com/useful-autis...
#GivingTuesday #autism #neurodiversity

Libraries are really THE place to find out without fcking around all that much tbh

december? barely even cembed her

A Long Game: Notes on Writing Fiction Notes on Writing Fiction

Hello! Today is the publication day of my new book, A Long Game: Notes on Writing Fiction.

To celebrate, I have already received an email from a fake book club, offering to feature it in their Saturday Showcase.

(You can order it here: bookshop.org/p/books/a-lo...)

"in your post you said that --" first of all, do not conflate me, the author, with the "speaker" of my posts

It’s incredible to think how far HIV treatment has come in my lifetime & that’s a source of hope for me in facing my own illness. But it’s important to remember that this isn’t only a victory of science, but of the determination of AIDS activists who fought thru grief, stigma, silence. #WorldAIDSDay