Support Group Announcement

 Hello everyone,

This week the support group will be Saturday 6 June 2026 at 1:00 pm.  This week we will be meeting at the Eegees located at 243 E Speedway Blvd. The closest street is 5th ave. This week there will be a topic/workshop. In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month contiuation from May, I will be doing  part 2 of the 60 minute workshop on creating a mental health maintenance and recovery plan, and the new concept  called a mental healthcare power of attorney. We now have a Google Meet link for those that have an issue leaving their home. It will be up at this meeting. Please see this message's footer for the link. 

See you then

Regards, 

John

Support community location: 243 E Speedway Blvd, Tucson, AZ

Community Office Phone: (520) 314-6896

Community web site: www.tucsonautismadvocacy.org

Community  social   networking site: https://www.meetup.com/Tucson-Adult-Autism-Support-.

Google Meet link: To join the video meeting, click this link: https://meet.google.com/hnz-opbt-mos

Children of the Stars

 

   The organization Autism China says that "autism and China are seldom heard together." Children with Autism in China are often called children of the stars. Some claim that the term is pejorative but it is not. It is a poetic, affectionate term referring to these autistic children. Children of the Stars is also the name of a 2007 50 minute long documentary about autistic children in the People's Republic of China at the Stars and Rain School, a school for autistic children. The documentary seems to not be available on DVD or streaming but the trailer can be found here.  

    The documentary follows 5 year old Feng Jia Wei and his parents who traveled across China to enroll their son in the school that is also the first NGO dedicated school to autistic children. A long synopsis of the documentary can be found here. Even more recently, new advances have been made in neuroscience using accupuncture in treating autistic children with co-occuring conditions.

    Nevertheless, The children of the stars is fraught with issues. The mother of Zi Han tells her story. The mother who chose to remain anonymous thought her world collasped. The mother stated that children are often disallowed from participating in regular school with other children.

    In conclusion, let us embrace the children of the stars and adult autistics in China as we embrace the rest of the world's autistic children and adults.

Thanks for reading my post. Please leave a comment, whether you agree or disagree to drum up some discussion. Thank you!

Traveling with Children Who Have Autism: Does the TSA Cares Program Work?

 

    Traveling with autistic children, especially  when flying can be potentially probematic. For example, the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) has a TSA Cares program. Does the program work? TSA thinks is does. This is how it works. If a person with special needs, including autism needs an accomodation a request is submitted by phone or online at least 72 hours before the flight. Once arranged a pasenger support specialist will meet the parent and child at the ticketing area and perform the accomodation. There is a Reddit post where the poster had a positive experience with the TSA Cares program. 

    Organizations like the Washington Autism Alliance also looked favorably upon the TSA Cares program. TSA even has a notification card for those with special conditions. Despite the views some might have of TSA, whether negative or positive, the TSA Cares program works.

Thanks for reading my post. Please leave a comment, whether you agree or disagree to drum up some discussion. Thank you!

Training Law Enforcement Officers How To Respond to People With Autism-Does it Work, Part 1?

I have participated in training law en-forcement (LE) and other first responders in what do when encountering people with autism. On Facebook I commented about it, and someone replied that it does not work and there is very little evidence for it. I asked what does the poster suggest. The poster replied that there should be mental health crisis response teams. What are the facts? Does the training of LE effect the treatment of autistic people? There is plenty of research demonstrating the lack of education of LE in handling encounters with autistic individuals (Gardner & Campbell, 2025; Sereno-Ferraro & Schuler, 2026; Hinkle & Lerman, 2023). It is true that there is not much research discussing the success of training of LE in interacting with autistics, but there is not evidence of the alternative of mental health crisis response teams. What needs to be done is research verifying whether training LE or crisis response teams will work.

References

Gardner, L & Campbell, J.M. (2025). Training law enforcement officers about    autism: evaluation of adding virtual        reality or stimulation to a traditional    training approach, 55(8), pp. 2643-       2650. Journal of Autism and             

Developmental Disorders

Hinkle, K.A. & Lerman, D.C. (2023). Pre-

paring law enforcement to engage

successfully with individuals with autism spectrum disorder: an evaluation of a performance-based approach, 53(3), 887-900. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disabilities

Sereno-Ferraro, A & Schuler, R. A.        (2026). Evaluating community-inormed training module for autism recontion in policing, 33(2) 409-429. Psychology, psychiatry, and Law.