Call for for Autism Blog Contributions

We have built up quite a strong Wines for Autism community in Facebook thanks to all of you. Woot! Woot!

Can we keep it up? Let us all spread the word about Autism Awareness, let us empower each other and educate more people while sipping a glass of wine (always to be enjoyed and drunk in mo-de-ra-tion of course).

Would you like to contribute to our Autism Blog?

If you have a knack for writing a story in any of these categories (and I know that a lot of you do) please contact us here and we will be delighted to feature you and give you all of the credits you deserve!

• ADVOCATES
• ARTISTS & AUTHORS
• BIOMEDICAL INTERVENTIONS
• EDUCATION & OTHER THERAPIES
• FAMILY’S PERSPECTIVE
• WINE TALK

Now, don’t be shy about the last category. We don’t expect you to be a Master of Wine, we just want to hear your wine stories (at home, restaurants, fundraising events, in the plane, abroad, nowhere...). Submissions should be 50-300 words in length and written for a broad audience.

Please submit your story in an MS Word or Text document with the story. Please no foul language or overly crass stories. You will be notified via email if your story is chosen and/or requires any edits prior to publishing.

Please give us your name, location and let us know if you have a personal blog. If you have a photo, images or a video you would like to include you are welcome to, just keep in mind that the image dimensions and resolution should not be too high.

Cheers to all of you!

Aug 11, 2010 at 7:48 AM

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Supporting Families and People with Autism through the Autism Trust

BUY A BRICK TODAY, BUILD THEIR TOMORROW.  

All too often I hear the ominous expression “Window of Opportunity” with the word autism and it disturbs me greatly.

Ideally, the younger a child, the earlier he/she receives massive biomedical interventions and therapies the better prognosis for his/her future will be.

Unfortunately, the reality is quite different. Not everybody will receive massive biomedical interventions and therapies at an early age because most of us cannot afford them and because most of them are not reimbursed by insurance companies. Not everybody will improve significantly let alone recover from autism.

So what do we do with all of those people who missed their “Window of Opportunity”?

Do we throw in the towel and call it quits? Do we stop treating them biomedically, do we stop giving them therapies because they are now too old? Do we lock them up in institutions or day hospitals because they cannot function properly in our society?

There is not a single family affected by autism that is not haunted with the fear of what is going to happen to their loved ones with autism when they are no longer around to care for them and protect them.

Polly Tommey,  the Founder of The Autism Trust could not have described in better words how we all feel:

“My son, Billy was diagnosed with having severe autism at age two and a half; we have come a long way since then. Eleven years on and he is a happy boy who still has autism, but now he is described as ‘high functioning‘ and his improvement is ongoing.

Through preliminary research into what lay ahead for my son, I was devastated to find that his future, like a great many other children with autism was ‘bleak’. There simply isn’t enough provision and support for these children as they approach adulthood.

Please help me and the Autism Trust in any way that you can: help us build a real future for the great many children that have autism today.”

Help us buy those bricks faster with your wine purchase.

Mar 5, 2010 at 9:50 AM

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Welcome to my Autism blog!

My blog is dedicated to bringing our community together, sharing ideas and showcasing the many writers, artists, musicians, doctors, researchers, attorneys, parents, relatives and those with autism themselves that are willing to share their experiences.

Here I will present news of the day, articles by and about the many wonderful people and organizations that are working to help children and parents affected by Autism and comments from readers like you.

Tomorrow kicks off the National Autism Conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida where I will be launching Wines for Autism with wines donated by our suppliers for the Meet and Greet event in the evening. I hope to see some of you there.

As I am getting ready to load eight cases of wine in my little car I am grateful not to be loading four large suitcases of clothes, supplements, organic food and a double jogging stroller, it brings back very special memories to me from four years ago. Then, I was flying to New Smyrna Beach, SC to attend my very first National Autism Conference. Like many parents of newly diagnosed children I had a lot of questions and a lot of fears about whether I could ever recover my son.

Dr. Rimland, 1928-2006

That conference was very symbolic to me as I had the opportunity to meet Dr. Rimland, the founder of the Autism Research Institute for the first and last time before he passed away a year later. As many of you know, Dr. Rimland put an end to calling the mothers of autistic children “refrigerator moms” and making them responsible for their children’s autism before autism became an epidemic (today 1 out of 91 children has an autism diagnosis according to the latest figures from the CDC) with his landmark book “Infantile Autism” in 1964.

Later, he brought to the world’s attention a method with proven results of helping our children called ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) from Dr. Lovaas. He was already my hero for having done all of that but he became my super hero for having developed the DAN! (Defeat Autism Now!) protocol with the help of a handful of dedicated doctors and researchers, a lot of them personally affected by autism too.

Thanks to biomedical interventions that have been developed with the DAN! protocol hundreds of thousands of families affected by autism disorders now have hope to recover their children.

Cheers!

Christine Roffi

I am proud to showcase the websites of the Autism Research Institute and the National Autism Association   on the label of our first Featured wine at Wines for Autism Uva Negra Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve 2005

Nov 11, 2009 at 9:23 AM

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