Upcoming Live Events
ACT provides a wide-range of autism-related training to parents and professionals, mostly at Simon Fraser University's Downtown Campus in Vancouver, Canada. We also web stream events and these are open to registrants internationally. We offer bursaries to parents and professionals, targeting low-income participants.
Visit our events page to see ACT's 2018 upcoming events:
B.C. Resources
Looking for autism & special needs resources specific to British Columbia? Visit the new B.C. Resources page to find community agencies, recreational activities, service providers, support groups, education & employment, community events, the autism manual, new diagnosis hub, transition to adulthood, and much more!
Find Autism Information
Find practical autism resources with the AID search. We've made it even easier to find resources and tools for parents and professionals with a new subject listing. Free and relevant world-wide.
You can also find 自閉症社區訓練協會 (ACT in Chinese), ACT in Punjabi, Online Mental Health & Autism Project: Looking Beyond Autism, and Autism Research.
Autism Videos @ ACT
AVA - Autism Videos @ ACT covers practical topics on issues across the lifespan - free! We have nearly 30 videos, grounded in research and good practice, providing reliable, non-commercial information to help professionals and parents. ACT videos by leading practitioners from a wide-range of professional backgrounds, allow ACT to serve the autism community internationally, no matter where our viewers live. No registration is required!
Latest News
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Social Stories with Carol Gray - July 19 & 20, 2018 - Nanaimo, BC
Social Stories can play an essential role in enhancing communication and bringing down anxiety among individuals with ASD. Over the past two decades, Social Stories, and their innovator, Carol Gray, have earned the respect of parents, professionals, and people with autism, for their utility in providing clear explanations of what is often a confusing social world.
Event Details
The Essentials of Advocacy: A Parent’s Guide to Advocating for their Child with Special Needs
This presentation highlights essential information for parents, and the professionals who support them, in understanding the systems that control access to services for children with special needs.
Watch NowSearch the Autism Information Database
Search over 1,000 vetted information resources related to ASD, including online articles, videos, and websites.
Upcoming Events
July 19 & 20, 2018 - Nanaimo
July 30 - August 3, 2018 - Surrey
August 16 & 17, 2018 - Vancouver
August 24th, 2018 - Vancouver
B.C. Community Resources
News from ACT on Facebook
We don’t usually post letters from newspaper advice columns, but this one is from a mother who says that her husband doesn’t accept their daughter’s autism diagnosis. What do you think of the advice the psychologist gives her?
My husband finds it hard to accept our daughter has autism
irishtimes.com
He says she is just ‘quirky’. I am coping alone and we are fighting a lot over this
I agree with the other commenter who said that the psychologist is assigning the wife additional emotional labour. If the father is unwilling to meet in the middle emotionally then the marriage will eventually dissolve. 80 per cent of marriages involving a child with special needs will eventually end in divorce. The most fair and logical approach with a partner such as this, who is in denial, is to offer the opportunity for them to seek support while not sacrificing your own psyche in the process. I think that the mother should at this point start to think about her life and career choices and whether her current career could support herself and her children (with child support) should her marriage require dissolution.
I have a feeling than the psychologist is just assigning her more emotional work, and that is not really insightful nor supportive.
Unfortunately she will probably have to just get used to it. My sons father wants nothing to do with his diagnosis. He tells me to stop taking him to appointments and stop giving him medication. Refused to attend our parenting classes even though the company applied for double funding so he could do it at his house and I could do it at my house. Always had some excuse. It’s sad, but if I continue to spend my time and energy worrying about his dad I have nothing left for him. Do the best you can. You can’t change his dads reactions. Be happy you have a partner who works so you don’t have to be a single parent who’s working full time and taking care of your kid.
My ex doesn’t accept one of my son’s diagnoses (the kid who does well in school; ex has no problem accepting the diagnosis of the child who struggles). Note the key word: Ex. He’s not around now for good reason. I don’t have patience to baby someone who cannot rise up to support the children. I’m too busy looking after the kids to waste time convincing the ex the diagnosis is correct. So yes, I’m doing all the ASD-focused work with and for the kids almost entirely on my own, but that’s just parenting and it’s totally worth it!
“The B.C. government will begin creating a provincial disabilities act this fall. People with disabilities in B.C. are making it clear they want to play a major role in its design.”
B.C. residents with disabilities demand a say on proposed accessibility law
vancouversun.com
For Amanda Reaume, acquiring a disability meant awakening to a civil rights movement in a way made possible through lived experience.Last year, the 33-year-old writer suffered a brain injury t…“If there was more accessible housing or proper transitional housing...it would cost a bit more upfront but overall the health care system would be saving a lot of dollars in the long run.” The high costs of staying in a hospital bed because there is nowhere else to go.
Son with autism stuck in hospital as mom struggles to find accessible home | CBC News
cbc.ca
Derek Ridsdale would like to return to life as it was before his surgery, when he lived in a comfortable Calgary townhouse with his mom and spent his spare time volunteering with an autism support org...
Agreed but so is putting in, in home supports and more respite dollars as an option?? Compared to the thousands, if not millions into 1 child's care, in care! I am more concerned about this human beings welfare than I am what it costs to keep him in hospital. $1000 ++ dollar's a day for his bed? Doesn't seem as therapeutic as a circle of care around the family as a whole? Which would cost less. Stop being afraid and start putting the monies to lift and guide the fundamentals of a family, first and foremost.
“Everyone gets passionate about this because, at the core, people want these communities to be respected. The problem is that we just don’t all agree on how, yet.” An overview of the underpinnings of the debate over identity-first or person-first language.
Unpacking the debate over person-first vs. identity-first language in the autism community
news.northeastern.edu
Northeastern University's official news source
Person with diabetes? Diabetic. Person with dyslexia? Dyslexic. Person with severe mental damage? Republican.
While I can't speak for others' preferences, as a parent I'm less interested in semantics than intent. If they're speaking about my boys from a place of respect it doesn't matter much at all what language they use; conversely, I despise it when people use politically-correct terminology as a means of masking discriminatory or disrespectful behaviour.
Will Mandy from Cambridge mentioned exactly this at the ACT event in April in Vancouver. ‘With autism’ sounds like autism is in itself negative, rather than the negative aspects being the comorbidities, such as anxiety and depression. ‘Autistic’ is more a neutral descriptor. I also prefer ‘autistic’ to ‘with autism’. Plus ‘with autism’ sounds like it was acquired later rather than the person being born neurodiverse. True in some cases probably, but not mine and many others.
I don't use the puzzle pice that autism speaks they don't speak for me
I have a child that has autism.....we simply call him Braydon. Thats whonhe identifies as
I am not a person who is left handed, I am left handed
In most polls less than 15% of autistic adults prefer “person with autism...”
My kids both prefer autistic. Part of being autistic, for them, is not caring what other people think about them, labels or other PC nonsense.
Special Needs Community Events
ACT lists workshops and conferences in B.C. related to autism and other special needs that are provided by local agencies and organizations.
View Community Events自閉症社區訓練協會 | ACT in Chinese
ACT 自閉症社區訓練協會，
是加拿大卑詩省內針對家有自閉症兒童的家庭提供諮詢及轉介服務的非營利機構。
ACT in Punjabi
ACT has been able to both create and identify valuable resources for the Punjabi-speaking community in British Columbia.
View Punjabi-language Resources