Monday, April 13, 2026

Top 10 Autism Awareness/Advocacy Organizations and Groups


Listed below are this blog's choices for the top 10 autism organizations and groups.


1. United Nations 

https://docs.un.org/en/A/RES/62/139

2. Institute of Neurodiversity 

https://ioneurodiversity.org/

3. Autism Speaks https://www.autismspeaks.org/

4. The Arc of the United States 

https://thearc.org/

5. The ARC of Tucson https://arcoftucson.org/

6. Autistic Self-Advocacy Network

https://autisticadvocacy.org/

7. Academic Autistic Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education

https://aaspire.org

8. Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee https://iacc.hhs.gov/

9. Association for Autism and Neurodiversity https://aane.org/

10. Autism National Committee 

https://www.autcom.org





Tuesday, April 7, 2026

The ARC of the United States

 Seal of Approval


The ARC of the United States is a Washington D.C. based organization that was started in the 1950s that stands apart from other autism organizations. In 2019, Consumer Reports rated the ARC of the United Stated one of the top organizations under the mental health and disabilities category. The ARC of the United States was originally called the National Association for Retarded Children (NARC). Then changed to National Association for Retarded Citizens. In 1992 the National Association for Retarded Citizens assumed its present name the ARC doing away with the pejorative use of the word retarded. 

The ARC of the United States has over 500 chapters in every state except Maine. The ARC of the United States gets a thumbs up; way up 👍

Monday, April 6, 2026

Movie and Event Review: The Reason I Jump and event at the Loft in Tucson, Arizona

     On April 30 there was a viewing of the documentary The Reason Why I Jump at the Loft Cinema. The Reason Why I Jump is an excellent film that described the world of the person with nonverbal autism. The movie review website Rotten Tomatoes gives The Reason Why I Jump 97% and it has one several awards where it one the Audience Award for World Cinema-Documentary at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, Best Documentary at the 2020 Denver Film Festival, the Best Foreign Film as the Rome Film Festival among others film festivals, and a New York Times Best Seller

    The Reason Why I Jump is based on the autobiography by a thirteen year old Japanese boy Naoki Higashida, and translated into English by Keiko Yoshido and her husband David Mitchell being published in English by Random House.

    The Book has not been without controversy though. Organizations, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association have espoused the method of communication used to facilitate communication is pseudoscience. Doctor and parent of a child with autism also claim the communication methods used to write the book are a myth.

    Autism self-advocates Dani Bowman and John Elder Robinson were doing a panel at the Loft Cinema. What seems odd about this panel is the author, translator, nor any of the people with autism will be involved in this panel.

        Despite the controversy and oddness surrounding The Reason Why I Jump, regardless of who the author was of the book, the book and documentary feature do a great job at describing the element of nonverbal autism