“art in the service of social cohesion is propaganda”: Louise Adler standing tall as always. What a legend✊🏼❤️ www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

As stated, this is an interim list which will be updated. Many people on it won't even know about the fiasco yet. People are free to make their choice, once they know about it. (What an incredible line-up has been so insulted & sabotaged. Look at this list of what the festival was going to be.)

"A Total Fire Ban will be in place tomorrow, Sat 10 January for Greater Sydney, Illawarra Shoalhaven, Far South Coast, Greater Hunter, Monaro Alpine, Southern and Central Ranges and the Southern Slopes. Hot, dry and windy conditions are forecast across much of the state, increasing the fire danger"

In an emergency the abc.net.au and emergency.vic.gov.au websites may be unavailable in your area. You can tune into the local radio stations on: Goulburn Valley: 97.7 FM Corryong: 99.7 FM Upper Murray: 106.5 FM Melbourne: 774 AM Alexandra: 102.9 FM Mansfield: 103.7 FM Eildon: 98.1 FM

Happy International People with Disabilities Day Australia!

To honor Alice—and all our disability ancestors—is to keep building that connective tissue she described. To love fiercely, politically, on purpose. To ensure the filaments they left behind continue to glow in us, and through us, long after the world has forgotten their names. We won’t.

Alice Wong taught us that disabled people don’t just leave memories behind—they leave infrastructure. Lineages of care. Methods of collectivity, survival. She named the connective tissue that holds our communities together, even across death, even across the losses that come too fast and too often.

“Don’t let the bastards grind you down. I love you all.”

📣New research Q: What do neurodivergent people think about words like "neurodiversity". A: it's complicated; they use it, but it has limitations and could stigmatise. Full paper: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... (1 of 2)

The ASA welcomes the Albanese Government’s decision to rule out a Text and Data Mining (TDM) exception to Australian copyright law, which would have allowed for AI training on authors’ work. aapnews.aap.com.au/news/copyrig...

Autumn shares a poem: “Nothing about us without us means all of us together The loud, the silent, the joyous, and the somber The future is an echo that arrives before the sound”

The first award is the Nothing About Us Without Us Award, given to self-advocates whose work fights to make sure that our community’s voices are being heard. This year, this award goes to Autumn Lauener for their tireless work supporting both the autistic and trans community across Texas.

“Most of all, we know that, whatever laundry list of activities they can and cannot do, the life of every autistic person is worth living.” – Colin Killick, ASAN’s Executive Director

“We know the world is full of autistic people, including those with high support needs, who do all those things amazingly, from nonspeaking poets, to policy experts with intellectual disabilities.”

“When the government spreads lies about autism, these lies put the autistic community in danger. They threaten our access to health care, our right to make choices for ourselves, and our right to live in the community.”

ASAN’s Annual Gala awards ceremony is starting now! #ASANGala Watch the livestream on YouTube starting NOW: youtu.be/36ZQOoLlZH8

Today in Hell yes, research: "Autistic children with little to no spoken language may understand more language than they produce, which means spoken vocabulary is not a good proxy for one’s understanding of words." journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... #autism #autistic #neurodiversity

ALL Haymarket EBooks are 80% off through November 7th ✊🏾✊🏿✊🏽

You know you've been taken in by a book when only a few pages in to the library copy, you buy your own. Conspiracy Nation by @arielbogle.bsky.social and @cameronwilson.bsky.social publishing.hardiegrant.com/en-au/books/...

Me talking about why eradicating poverty isn’t just the morally correct position but it makes economic sense as well www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10...

I'm helping to set up a community of practice to end the bullying of autistic students in Australian schools. If you'd like to participate, please get in touch using the form below. Further details in the thread following. forms.gle/RFPJag4wffdq...

Are you autistic? What did you think of the announcement yesterday? I want to hear from you for a Guardian US article: [email protected]

I am begging people to please seek out Autistic voices if you want to learn about autism. You will find that rather than wanting our lives to be prevented or cured, we want appropriate supports for ALL Autistic people (including those with intellectual disability and other co-occurring conditions).

Autistic people are not your tragedies and we should not be the subject of your conspiracies and dehumanising rhetoric. We are not mythical creatures to pity but real people with needs and desires, just like you.

It appears the foreseeable future will be even more difficult for autistic people & their loved ones because of the heinous disinformation coming from the US government &their supporters. We should not need to reiterate the humanity of Autistic people, but here we are, watching as progress is erased

@annmemmott.bsky.social posted on linkedin: "If it is safe for you to speak out, when such an announcement happens, please do so. If it is not safe, please take really good care of yourselves and those you love....."

This is an excellent newsletter. If you haven't already subscribed, now would be the perfect time so you can discover accurate and informative information about autism.

Acetaminophen/paracetamol use in pregnancy doesn't cause autism, no matter what RFK says this week. This is not an unsettled question. Evidence summarized here: sciencebasedmedicine.org/tylenol-and-...

"I practice self-care by turning off the news periodically, and stepping back from the world. I made the realization that in my fight for justice, I was hurting my own mental health." Autistic academic TC Waisman on self-compassion and resilience, at TPGA: thinkingautismguide.com/2025/09/cher...

...and struggle to access appropriate medical care, therapy, and supports. The need for neurodiversity is because we ARE struggling, not because we're not.

This is something that really gets me. That as neurodiversity proponents still get accused of being privileged or "very high functioning" or of looking at autism through rose-colored glasses... a ton of us still live in poverty, are marginally employed...

The other animation is Lightbulb Moments: Being Autistic. So much about Autistic experience is still missing from most professional accounts, which have been formulated from the outside. Many people talk about all these little epiphanies: 'I thought it was just me!' www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O6h...

First up is Discovering You're Autistic, about the experience of realising you're autistic, and the things we've found most valuable for anyone starting out on that journay. Realising that there are many other people out there with similar experiences is so powerful. www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eDv...

I'm so excited to finally be able to share these animations! Here's the @thrivingautistic.bsky.social page about them, along with the companion blogs (two of which I wrote myself). Please share them widely, if you like them. 😊 www.thrivingautistic.org/autistic-exp...

Me and Monotropism: A unified theory of autism. @fergus.oolong.co.uk – science teacher, writer and 'autist' – on single attention and associated cognition in autism; a theory with a family connection… Now with 2025 update. www.bps.org.uk/psychologist...

Stanford Neurodiversity Summit #SNS25 Day 3 starts now, with Dr. @cnicolaidis.bsky.social's keynote. Dr. Nicolaidis is the founding editor of @autisminadulthood.bsky.social (highest rated for impace of all autism journals) and also runs the AASPIRE project with Dora Raymaker. #neurodiversity

Worth a read

Next at #SNS25: Sensory Differences in Neurodivergent Individuals (featuring at least one autistic clinical psychologist, Dr. Megan Anna Neff, so that's cool)

Excited to be attending #SNS25 online! Follow @thinkingautism.com for live posting.

Also we'll be live-skeeting the Stanford Neurodiversity Summit this weekend (Sat, Sun, Mon Pacific Time), so please follow along to hear neurodivergent insights as well as neurodiversity-informed best practices. #autism #neurodiversity

They know the climate chaos coming, they know their decision will make it worse, and kill any hope of mitigation, but they did it anyway - for their own benefit. Not a principle among them.

this is really the whole thing, isn't it? we, as a culture, are so fucking hooked on the prosperity doctrine that we have to find failings in ourselves and others to explain problems our *children* have. stop trying to sound sciency when you mean to ask "why would God inflict autism on good parents"

Our Special Issue on The Social Model in Autism Research is now available online & all articles are free until 11th September! journals.sagepub.com/toc/AUT/curr... Here are some of the brilliant things you can find in it... #AutismResearch #AutRes

"In a village, we believe in independent and interdependent ways of being. One person can make a change, but we also all need to work together and depend on each other." TC highlights the role of interdependence in our culture. #AECONGRESS2025

How to reduce stress: - reducing cortisol (healthy diet, exercise, sleep, feel good experience & community) - energy accounting (mental & physical health, balanced daily tasks, personalised wellbeing goals) - individual tools, adaptions & needs as priority: "what is right for me" #AECONGRESS2025

"So what does this mean for autism?" Toudal explains impact of stress on Autistic people: - sensory sensitivities - social stressors with others - loss of sense of control (of others) - processing differences "Could these experiences influence how autistic people experience stress?" #AECONGRESS2025

How do we raise Autistic peoples QOL Listen to our narratives Ask us what we need Stop oppression Stop NT privilege of ‘we know best’ Involve not include us Believe us Stop traumatising us Pick us up when we fall Help us feel we truly belong so we don’t leave #AECongress2025 #AsIAm #AutismEurope

"We must breakdown barriers... to make sure that no one is left behind. Everyone has a right to live." Foley emphasises the importance of inclusion, accessibility & autistic people actively shaping the communities they live in - "but I know we have a long way to go." #AECONGRESS2025

I'll be moderating three panels at the upcoming Stanford Neurodiversity Summit, and am especially delighted about the session Communication As a Human Right, featuring four non-speaking panelists—as well Dr. Vikram Jaswal: stanfordneurodiversityproject.stanford.edu/events/day-2... #neurodiversity

"More intensive therapy for autistic children is not associated with better outcomes in development, according to a new study in JAMA Pediatrics." hollandbloorview.ca/stories-news... #autism