From the Ann Arbor [Michigan] News:

Tim Hull is graduating with his classmates at the University of Michigan this week, and will be going on to graduate school at the U-M School of Information. Hull, who has Asperger’s syndrome, has completed the requirements for a major in computer science and will finish the last requirement this summer for a second major in history.

Hull found his own way through U-M, but it hasn’t been without challenges. He was the center of unwanted attention last fall when it was revealed that derogatory comments referring to his disability had been made on a Web site by members of the university’s student government, where Hull had become an elected representative.

For Hull, who also has physical eccentricities — he sometimes rocks in his chair and flaps his hands involuntarily — the experience diminished the sense of belonging on campus he had achieved by serving in student government. The incident led to the resignation of the then-president of the student body, and Hull continued on with his passion for student government.

See earlier posts here and here.

From the Cincinnati Enquirer:

Ohio high school students with disabilities like Drew Lane (left) are benefiting from a volunteer hospital internship program that teaches them trades and job skills. Lane has Asperger’s syndrome.

Organizers say the goal is competitive employment after graduation. “When these students were in high school they were often the last person on the totem pole in their class. But here in this program they get to experience success and learn skills and you can just see their chests puff up with pride,” said project coordinator Tony Huff.

Kids boost social skills by teaching pets

From CBS Early Show:

Dog trainer Kathy Santo has started a program called “Paws Four Autism” that helps kids in New Jersey connect with others by learning to train their family pets. She says the program helps kids learn to maintain eye contact with their dogs, which in turn helps them develop relationships with people.

Santo demonstrates her techniques in a video on the CBS site that also features student trainers Gower Nibley and Brittany Wilkes.

A link on the site carries resources about autism for families. Sadly, its use of language is not always sensitive — one page leads readers to “notable sufferers,” including Thomas Edison and Jane Austen.

Can you tell it’s World Autism Awareness Day? From ABC News’ Good Morning America, another story:

After benefiting from the growing availability of early diagnosis and therapy, more students across the autism spectrum are heading off to college. Schools are trying to adapt, and a few are setting up programs that provide students with support in such areas as life skills and social interactions. Among the schools featured is Marshall University in West Virginia.

From Chicagotribune.com:

Alexander Plank, a college student who is on the autism spectrum (he has Asperger’s syndrome), tells Chicago Tribune blogger Julie Deardorff that he opposes the whole idea of a “cure” for autism.

He believes parents of autistic children need to love them for who they are. It is not a “disease” he says. It is simply how these children are wired.

… He says one of the primary misconceptions perpetuated by the media, he says, is that “Autistics want to be cured.”

“Most autistics, in fact, do not want to be cured because they’ve already accepted autism as part of their personality, identity and lifestyle,” he wrote.

Newsweek reexamines anxieties surrounding autism, a mystery with no known cause. The uncertainty is fueling an ongoing vaccine debate and harsh divisions within the autism community about how to view and treat the disorder. While some feel that autism is a disease in need of a cure, others are calling for neurodiversity, the idea that differences in human behavior should be celebrated.

“Our feeling is that the autism spectrum is an intrinsic part of our personality that cannot be separated,” says [Ari] Ne’eman, [president of the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network and a 20-year-old university student with Asperger's syndrome.]

And he worries about research that might one day locate genes and other markers that could help doctors test for autism. Researchers say such knowledge would allow them to intervene early, during a critical window of development in the first year of life. Ne’eman’s fear? That autism will become like Down syndrome—essentially selected out of the population.

An accompanying chart of NIH research funding shows autism is expected to receive $128 million this year, or approximately $85.33 for each of the 1.5 million people diagnosed.

Of the conditions named, Down syndrome receives the smallest amount of research funds, both in the aggregate and on a per capita basis, with a total of $17 million or $48.57 per person diagnosed.

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In an interview on Wisconsin Public Radio, author Jonathan Mooney says our culture’s concept of normal is damaging to everyone, not just people who are identified as different.

Mooney, who had dyslexia and didn’t learn to read until he was twelve, is the author of “The Short Bus: A Journey Beyond Normal.” His book documents a four-month journey that he took around the country in a converted special-ed bus (the “short bus” of the book’s title.) Along the way, Mooney came to terms with his differences as he confronted his preconceptions about other people who have been labeled as disabled.

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