Last Saturday, Patricia Corby was arrested on suspicion of killing her 4-year-old son Daniel in San Diego. News coverage of the case reported that Patricia was “a stay-at-home mother pushed to the edge handling a difficult child with autism.” This case follows not even a month after the murder of George Hodgins, a 22-year-old autistic …
Author Archives: Sarah
Biking while dyspraxic
I feel like I should be writing some Big Ideas about autism acceptance, but those posts just sit forever in my drafts folder and never get finished. And what’s really taking up space in my brain is this tedious rant about riding a bike. I’m hoping that writing it down will free up some space …
Character education and a social model of social failure
Paul Tough’s article for the New York Times Magazine Special Issue on Education (What if the Secret to Success is Failure, 9/14/11) chronicles the efforts of administrators at two schools to implement a character education program. Teachers at KIPP charter schools in New York City use a character report card (pdf) to grade students on …
Caregiver angst writing
The recent explosion of the #youmightbeanautismparentif tag on Twitter and the Stephanie Rochester case are two good reasons to spend some time thinking about the “caregiver angst” genre: writing by parents and caregivers about pain, stress, grief, worry, and exhaustion—all usually assumed to be associated with caring for someone with a disability. A lot of …