My name is Kathleen, and I live in northern New England. I've been married to my companion Dave for almost twenty-four years now; we're the parents of two teenagers, one with an autistic spectrum diagnosis, and also have other family members on the spectrum.
My goal in developing this website is to increase goodwill and compassion in the world, and to help reduce suffering. I seek to help reduce the suffering of autistic children and adults, who often face extraordinary challenges in many domains of life, challenges made more difficult by others' unrealistic expectations and demands, negative judgments, harassment and economic marginalization. I seek to help reduce the suffering of family and community members who are bewildered and distressed by actions of and interactions with autistic people, and who are concerned for their own and others' safety and well-being. I seek to help increase the capability of educators and service providers to provide effective, respectful support for those on the autistic spectrum.
Neurodiversity's resource pages index material from a vast number of websites on autism, reflecting a wide range of information and perspectives. Visitors will also find links to many one-off articles with interesting and innovative content that you only find if you do deep searches. I seek to use my skills as a librarian and web developer to "case the place," to draw attention to what I feel is some of the most substantive material available, and to organize that information with a view to accuracy and ease of use. I have made a special effort to accumulate links to as many first person accounts as possible, and to full-text versions of peer-reviewed professional journal articles available free-of-charge. Eventually I'll incorporate abstracts and subscription-only material. No doubt the opinionated reader will find links to material he or she finds objectionable. So be it! As a student in library school many moons ago, I was encouraged by my most inspiring, most radical teachers to suspend personal ideology when selecting materials for public consumption, to trust the intelligence and judgment of the library patron, to let every voice be heard.
Neurodiversity Weblog contains opinionated essays and letters, mostly by me, and also by the occasional guest. My special interests include disability rights; the ongoing controversy over autism and vaccines; the portrayal of autism in popular media, academia, and the public relations and fundraising campaigns of nonprofit organizations; the manner in which language influences perception of and attitudes towards disabled individuals; and the ethical treatment of human subjects in medical research.
Thank you so much for visiting.
