Steve Silberman is so pissed about this Tylenol bullshit that he's screaming from the afterlife he didn't even believe in. Increased rates of autism are due to testing, a broadened definition, and greater awareness. It's not vaccines. It's not Tylenol. It's like his work never happened.

One of the extraordinary claims from the Orange Leader about autism, Tylenol and vaccines, yesterday, was that if people do as he suggests, there was no downside. "Nothing bad can happen". Just good things would happen, apparently. Thread/

Really enjoying this trip back to the forties and fifties, with all the refrigerator mother vibes and Rosemary Kennedy's 'curative' lobotomy

'Tylenol' is known in the civilised world as Paracetamol 2.4 million children born in Sweden between 1995 and 2019. Studied 186,000 children whose mothers were treated with paracetamol during pregnancy. news.ki.se/no-link-betw...

Paracetamol (Tylenol) does not cause autism, and it is a source of great dismay that autism researchers and Autistic advocates still have to spend so much time battling misinformation. Research on causes of autism systematically fails to control for the existence and behaviour of Autistic parents.

Shout out to everyone else sitting in their coat and scarf and gloves in the office because universities never seem to turn the heating on until there's actual snow on the ground

Yes, I know hybrid is harder to organise, and requires a bit more effort to ensure everyone is engaged, but if it ain't hybrid, it ain't accessible. If it's totally impossible, at the very least offer an online equivalent of whatever you're doing in person.

Here’s a poem called ‘English Roundabouts’.

I need you to understand what this country feels like right now for those of us who look different. I'm sitting here, trying to plan for Saturday, make sure I don't even need to go to the corner shop for milk, like it's Christmas Day or lockdown. Why? Because I live near where Yaxley-Lennon will 1/

NEW on Wonkhe: While new ONS figures show a lower suicide rate among students than their peers, Bob Abrahart warns this framing masks deeper inequalities and systemic failures within universities buff.ly/sjrrKLa

Just going to sit here and think about how on earth my team will manage a 56% year-on-year increase in students signing up with our Service when we've still not caught up with last year's massive increase 😭

We're recruiting up to 4 full time equivalent Disability Advisors on a temporary (3 month) basis to help us get through the first semester in our busy team. Experience in HE a must. Full details on my LinkedIn post (I know, I know) www.linkedin.com/posts/activi...

BBC News - Disabled NHS medic told she's 'not a real doctor' www.bbc.com/news/article...

It's a little galling to receive a notification saying that all staff have to do mandatory GenAI training in the next 4 weeks when I've been trying to make mandatory disability training happen for the last 18 years with zero success. Guess we know our priorities lie, eh.

I know it's tradition to complain about the NHS, but my GP just phoned me for a 4 week check in without me having to do a thing, just as he promised 4 weeks ago. This has never happened to me before. Good doctors are worth the world.

Interesting crossover between what is described here and neurodivergence

#USS pension: #UCU members received an email about 'Rule 10' revaluation at retirement or deferral. 1/4 If you are in USS this will probably affect you one day and for the rest of your life. Jackie Grant & I have written a blog about it here: josstification.wordpress.com/2025/08/18/t...

As mentioned earlier @diervilla.bsky.social!

No thanks! The thought of 14 of us yammering away to our PCs in our shared office makes me feel physically unwell

Solidarity with all our colleagues involved with Clearing. And with teams like mine that aren't involved with Clearing, but have phone lines and will be bombarded nonetheless. May the systems work and the coffee keep coming... #UKHE

NEW on Wonkhe: Claire Inglis challenges higher education’s overreliance on resilience, exposing how the narrative masks systemic failures and burdens neurodivergent students with unrealistic expectations buff.ly/T1Y2biV

Lovely night outside with the kids watching the Perseids flare past to the distant thumping and cheers from tonight's Piece Hall gig 🌠

Today is Middle Child Day but I bet you all forgot about it again didn’t you??

Today is the 47th anniversary of this clearly unimprovable photo, from a story so absurd that it shouldn’t be true, but is: the day a team of workers from British Waterways pulled the plug out of the Chesterfield Canal, and all the water emptied out

"Negative school experiences generate twice the emotional burden in autistic and ADHD adolescents compared to their neurotypical classmates, and this is significantly correlated with depression and anxiety according to a new study involving a UCL researcher." www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2025/ju...

Perhaps this says as much about the SEN and EHCP process as it does the routes into university. Many students who qualify for disability related support and funding in HE have never had an EHCP or even any formal support in school, and may well have been considered 'additional needs' rather than SEN

How Vaccines Work 🧬🧫🧪🔬💉🥽

One senses that chucking money at the problem might not fix it - it certainly hasn't worked so far. Something far more fundamental needs to shift, and I don't believe telling students to be more 'resilient', or asking untrained staff to do more is the answer www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Lovely few minutes watching this little fella tonight

My talk on 18th century histories of disability and resistance at the Institute of Historical Research is now available as a podcast www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1... Loving this! Yes indeed, autistic/ADHD people do indeed have more autistic/ADHD etc neurodivergent friendships. The research article talks about the joys and perils.

dawnjoyleong.com/2025/07/20/a... In my view, worth every moment spent reading this. About what ABA and its underlying bizarre belief-system really does to autistic people. Time to retire this ancient nonsense.

Good grief www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Particularly important on university campuses, which are notoriously hostile to many autistic and neurodivergent students and staff. The sensory environment is so rarely considered in building design (including in new buildings) or event planning. This is a belonging issue too.

Have I mentioned here that the main Wikipedia entry on autism is much better than it was when I wrote this? It's still got a way to go, but several committed people have made major improvements, and that one-man roadblock seems to have finally stood down. thinkingautismguide.com/2024/11/how-...

I know I'm a broken record here - assessment methods are (almost) never competence standards, and therefore you'll need to do something to address the inequity of traditional exams for disabled students, at which point you might as well do the same for all students wonkhe.com/wonk-corner/...

Just 7 days left until I can leave my last ever primary school 'mums WhatsApp group' and I am counting the seconds 🤣

Burnout is clinically understood as a combo of 6 factors—work overload, lack of control, insufficient rewards, breakdown in community, absence of fairness, & value conflicts—and only a fraction of it is under your control. Burnout is a systemic problem, so be kind to yourself and hard on the system.

Ableism is glorifying the 'resilience' of disabled individuals while ignoring the systemic barriers we face. Stop praising perseverance in a broken system—demand accountability and change it. #DisabilityInclusion #WeAreBillionStrong #AXSChat #Ableism

I’m going to post in this short 🧵 about gynae (anticipating a drop in followers, because we’re not allowed to talk about gynae). But it’s important & could save lives, so here goes. I’ve now received 6 blood transfusions because of a fibroid in my uterus. It was taking blood from my body & 1/

Beautiful evening in the garden 😊

annsautism.blogspot.com/2025/07/auti... New blog from me, about autistic meltdowns, shutdowns, and the misunderstandings that people may have about these. I hope it's helpful.

Sun dogs (I think?!) on our evening walk tonight

*pinches bridge of nose* for the avoidance of doubt if someone is autistic they do not have "neurodiversity problems" they are autistic it doesn't mean they're excused from consequences when they have been persistently and actively toxic and harmful over a long period of time

Yep.

Wrote this back in Feb about the Neil Gaiman allegations and it's also true for Gregg Wallace, TV presenter and green grocer, who recently used his autism to excuse abhorrent behaviour.

Today is my 10-year brain surgery anniversary! A decade ago, I was under the knife getting a Chiari decompression surgery and a fusion of C1-C2. At the time I had daily debilitating headaches, struggled to stay upright, and had lost all sense of depth perception. 1/17

Penniless and homeless, Raynor and Moth Winn found fame with their story of their 630-mile walk to salvation. The Salt Path became a global bestseller and was adapted into a major film. But we can reveal it wasn’t the whole truth. @chloehadj.bsky.social Read more:

Who wants to travel back in time to 1999, when this HEFCE/HEFCW guidance on base level provision for disabled students in #UKHE was published? It's still the prevailing piece of guidance which hasn't been superseded in the intervening 26 years. A little thread 🧵 dera.ioe.ac.uk/id/eprint/11...

Thank you @disrightsuk.bsky.social for the latest Disability Rights Handbook Updater It is such a helpful document. Impressed you managed to include the government’s u-turn of only yesterday!