Shannon Rosa

Shannon Rosa
Location
San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA
Birthday
October 12
Title
Senior Editor
Company
The Thinking Person's Guide to Autism
Bio
For more about parenting, autism, iPads, and geekery, see my personal blog, www.squidalicious.com. Also Senior Editor at Thinking Person's Guide to Autism, www.thinkingautismguide.com.

The Chicago Sun-Times recently featured a Q&A puff piece about Jenny McCarthy and Autism One. It was the kind of outside-autism reporter's guileless autism misinformation-mongering we might have expected three years ago, but which has all but disappeared from mainstream media after Jenny's autism…

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Iz, as you may be shocked to learn if you've been reading this blog since I was dithering over whether to put her in kindergarten or first grade, will be going to high school in the fall. HIGH SCHOOL. Which means avalanches of shock and denial on my part. What the/…

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With Leo, sometimes routine trumps all. I'm guessing that's why, after almost two years of me dipping naan in saag and handing it to him, he took over the damn saag-dipping himself.


And now our boy eats spinach voluntarily, just as he does his daily dose of cod liver oil. And his…

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MAY 1, 2012 2:44AM

UU Sex Ed FTW

Iz is just finishing up her OWL (Our Whole Lives) sex ed class at our Unitarian church. She's been going for three hours every Sunday evening for several months. They've covered a wide range of topics, from dating to gender identity to STDs to reproduction to sexual identity (including a PFLAG/… Read full post »
APRIL 22, 2012 2:58AM

Autism Apps: Comic Strip - CS


And so sometimes your son's home program supervisor says, "but isn't there an even simpler app for  making social stories and scripts, you know, like a comic strip?"

A ten-second iTunes search and voila: Comic Strip - CS! For only 99 cents, even!

The ice cream story above took less than five/…

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Tell me the truth: What would your reaction be, if you encountered a kid like Leo endlessly pacing a playground structure as in the video below? If you didn't read this blog, or blogs like it; if you didn't have your own Leo, if you weren't a variation on Leo yourself…

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APRIL 5, 2012 12:55AM

Whack Those Moles

How many of you can identify with this scenario, whether in a good way or bad?


Mali is a bit disappointed with this video, she wants to know why I didn't catch her when she was yelling "Dies, moles, die!"
Photo © Thai ChuThere's a reason for the lack of posts lately: Writing and presentations and interviews elsewhere. A lot of them. Most in March because the entire TPGA team has been busy promoting the Thinking Person's Guide to Autism book -- but then last week the CDC issued a new… Read full post »
MARCH 28, 2012 3:40PM

Star Wars Yoga Class

Glad someone in our house is getting exercise. Mali has been putting Leo's Star Wars action figures through their yoga paces, letting them join the usual class of pinnipeds, Littlest Pet Shop bobblers, and trucks.

I like the photo above because some of the oak tree branches look like wayward Mali curl/… Read full post »
Lorna D'Entremont of Special Needs Book Review just published an interview with me, in which we talked about Thinking Person's Guide to Autism, the fabulous team of editors who made TPGA happen, autism, pseudoscience, parenting, and more. One excerpt below, but you should read the whole thing. Lorna/…

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I don't know if you saw yesterday's horrible, tragic news about the Sunnnyvale mother who killed her 22 year old autistic son and then herself. It's awful. It should never have happened. But there was a lot more than autism and caregiver isolation going on there. They were a family that…

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FEBRUARY 29, 2012 4:31AM

Leo's World: in MacWorld

Leo and his iPad were featured in MacWorld, PCWorld and a bunch of related sites a couple of weeks ago -- something I completely forgot to mention here on the blog. The articles focus on how the iPad has helped Leo become more independent in his learning and play, and why/… Read full post »
FEBRUARY 27, 2012 9:32AM

Autism and Subtle Successes

Mark Rothko, White Center
National Gallery of ArtI visited the National Gallery of Art when I was three months pregnant with my daughter Iz, who is now thirteen. I had never been fond of abstract art, but upon walking into a room full of Rothkos -- experiencing their luminous, subtle color/…

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Breaks are always interesting for Leo. His school prefers for doctor visits to happen outside school times, so I tend to pack non-school weekdays full of medical appointments. And outings! The former are generally tolerated with mild to moderate protests, the latter are tolerated and often enjoyed --…

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FEBRUARY 21, 2012 1:19PM

People Who Matter

I am grateful for calm, quiet, days like today. In which my kids and I get to hang out with lovely people like Rachel, who will walk with us in redwood forests, and stop to take pictures of fallen-tree -loving fungus:


And wait, not cajole or prod, while we encourage Leo to… Read full post »
FEBRUARY 16, 2012 3:15AM

Leo App Review: Injini's Write My Name

Tracing letters and words.
It's been a while since Leo sat down with a brand new app and just took off with it, but that's what happened with Injini's new Write My Name handwriting practice app ($1.99). Yay! Leo deserves a fun, crisply designed, intuitive and customizable app to help/… Read full post »
Something I didn't say on the email lists but feel comfortable saying here: This is going to be a hell of a lot of fun! Please come.

Join us at Starry Night, an evening in support of SEPTAR, the Special Education PTA of Redwood City,

Saturday March 3, 2012 from 6 pm to…

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FEBRUARY 12, 2012 4:58PM

Mali's iPad App Reviews: Puppet Pals

Many kids, whether they're on the autism spectrum or not, like to create their own worlds and their own stories. Leo's sister Mali's favorite app for total creative and instant animated storytelling is PuppetPals, a free app she uses on our iPad.


In the video demo below, Mali shows how simple the…

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FEBRUARY 11, 2012 11:31AM

Peanut Butter Toast

Leo's working hard at making his own meals, especially favorites like peanut butter toast. And I do mean working -- there are so many steps, and using tools like pot holders is not easy for a dude who is working on his fine motor control. But he's doing so well. Though…

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FEBRUARY 10, 2012 1:02AM

I Want to Ride My Bicycle...

...so my parents and school team wrote it into my IEP.



(So proud of our boy. Video stops right before some deft fence-avoiding maneuvers. Vestibular system operating at capacity, methinks)
FEBRUARY 7, 2012 3:36AM

Fair Witness

Here is what I know:

It is an alleged incident. The allegations shocked me. I hope there is no truth to them. I wasn't there, so I can't comment. But I can vouch for her character.

I saw her mug shot. I read the charges. I saw the story spread from the news…

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FEBRUARY 1, 2012 3:09AM

Wait For It...

Do you know someone who is Autistic? Do you know that many people like my son either need extra time to process input, or work best processing one thing at a time -- like sound or visual input but not both simultaneously? This can be a challenge for outside-autism people to/…

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JANUARY 30, 2012 2:37PM

Four Damned Amazing Interviews

A bit of an interview avalanche last week, each time alongside people and on sites I respect tremendously. Quite squee-worthy. I appreciate the opportunity to get the word out about autism respect, community, acceptance, hurtful stereotypes, the uselessness of pity, all that. I'm listing the posts he…

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JANUARY 29, 2012 12:59AM

The Whys & Hows of iPads & Autism

What's the big deal with iPads and autism? That's something I talk and write about, a lot.

Here's the outline from my recent three-hour Morgan Autism Center iPads & Autism workshop. I went much more in-depth on these topics during the presentation, so if anything isn't clear, do ask. Please note t… Read full post »

OCTOBER 31, 2009 11:16PM

Cat Heaven


I'm sure that's where Pat the Cat has gone. It's been four weeks since he waltzed out the door in the morning, and then for the first time in his life didn't come back when the dinner bell rang. He had been getting increasingly stiff and frail, and we are telling… Read full post »