Monday Autism News Potpourri

by Dora Raymaker · 2009-02-09 09:41:00 UTC
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a bowl of potpourri from aboveLast week's odds, ends, nearly gems, and updates on important actions--

1. S-CHIP was signed into law on Wednesday February 4! Many of you wrote to your congress folks about SCHIP this past month, and took action right here in this space. Whoot! Not only did S-CHIP pass, but the event was attended by 6 national disability advocacy organizations--including the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. Something about us with us! Double-whoot! A video of the signing is available.

2. NEW ACTION: Our work on the stimulus package is still not over yet. The senate is looking to cut out a lot of the disability-related funding that was passed in the house. If you live in the U.S., please take a moment to tell Washington to Support a Disability Friendly Stimulus.

3. Because I love art and painting, and maybe some of you do too, Christian Parrotta does not need words to communicate his vision. This article nicely let Christian's talent be his talent, no "despite" or "overcoming." I quite enjoyed both Christian's art and the entire tone of the article itself.

4. Kristina has written about synaestesia a few times, and I must confess synaestesia is also a favorite topic of mine (I have sound as image/sensation primarily, and less strongly letters, numbers, weekdays, and months as color/shape/textures). New Scientist reports a new genetics study which claims to have found some of the regions in the genome responsible for sound as image synaestesia, and they are in some of the same regions that have been linked to autism and dyslexia. This research has also shown that synaestesia is passable from fathers to sons (previously it was thought to be passed with the X chromosome). I've not read the actual study so take the science reporting with a bit of salt.

5. Monster ad update!!! Reports are that the ad has been withdrawn early. WHOOT! I've also gotten some reports that the print ads will no longer be appearing. I want to give this a few days before I say we should raise a full-on cheer, but it's looking good! Thanks everyone who has and is helping with this!

Dora Raymaker

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