Tag: Autism

Need More Information About Advocating For Your Family Member?

Written by Valerie Melroy on October 28, 2025.

Voice and Vision is pleased to announce that the first chapter from our 2015 book, Help and Hope: From Families Who Have Walked the Walk, has been updated and is now available free on our website. “Advocating for and Supporting Your Family Member” contains essential advocacy tips for families supporting loved ones with developmental/intellectual disabilities, mental health conditions, autism, addictions, and other challenges. Peer support, an integral part of Voice and Vision’s...

Using Communication to Drive Care: Supporting Your Loved One with a Disability in a Medical Crisis

Written by Maria Miller on August 6, 2024.

Photos of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) Device sample pictures.

Supporting your loved one with communication challenges can be a daily stress: caregivers use strategies to meet basic needs, grow social skills, and encourage authentic relationships. Sustaining everyone’s mental health is also a key consideration, because when a person struggles with communication, their behavior can reflect their frustration and complicate fruitful interactions. Patience and knowledge of the person’s communication style are always necessary. During a health crisis,...

An Invitation to a Free Webinar – “It’s About the Journey: Supporting Our Children with Autism to Live Their Best Life”

Written by Sheri Shifman on April 23, 2021.

This blog below was written one year ago by guest author, Jennifer Halberstein. She is a Team Leader on the Voice and Vision, Inc. Independent Monitoring for Quality team. See her bio below. We are reposting her blog as she is speaking on Voice and Vision’s upcoming Webinar – “It’s About the Journey: Supporting Our Children with Autism to Live Their Best Life” on Thursday, April 29. You are invited to join Jennifer and Sheila Garcia as they discuss: ...

A Change of Perspective About Autism

Written by Jennifer Halberstein on April 24, 2020.

This blog was written by guest author, Jennifer Halberstein. She is a Team Leader on the Voice and Vision, Inc. Independent Monitoring for Quality team. See her bio below. When a family member is diagnosed with Autism, so much information is thrown at you all at once. Supports, services, IEPs, waivers, and therapies are just a few of the words that you will hear. Doctors talk about deficits and limitations. Schools talk about specialized settings and modified...

Overcomers: A Peek Inside a Life with Autism

Written by Mindy Haas on April 30, 2019.

During Autism Awareness month, many organizations share facts and statistics about autism as part of their campaigns. I like this and I learn a lot from it, but I’m not always good at remembering them. And I think that’s ok. Don’t get me wrong. The facts and figures are great for raising awareness. However, I believe a true shift in perspective occurs when one gets to know the stories of the families and individuals behind any given cause. I’m also...

Autism 101: The Basics

Written by Mindy Haas on April 12, 2019.

A colorful autism awareness puzzle background with wood texture illustration.

Since April is autism awareness month, we wanted to do our part in bringing awareness. Here are some basic facts about autism you may not already know. A Brief History of Autism Swiss psychiatrist Eugene Bleuler first used the term autism in 1911 to describe a subset of his patients, who he believed to have schizophrenia. It means ‘isolated self’ and derives from the Greek word ‘autos’ (self). In the 1940s, psychiatrists began to use the term to describe...

Overcomers: Parenting Multiple Children with Special Needs

Written by Kathryn Lerro on October 23, 2015.

The term “special needs child” is commonplace these days. It’s likely we all know someone who has a child with special needs. It’s understood that parenting a child with special needs is a huge undertaking and a labor of extreme love—the thought of parenting more than one of these unique children at the same time, however, is mind-boggling. Recently, I met Anne*—a wonderfully upbeat woman who has three children—all of whom have “special needs.” As if coping with her children’s difficulties...

Overcomers: Parenting a Child with Asperger’s Syndrome

Written by Kathryn Lerro on April 18, 2015.

Amber had never heard of Asperger’s when she realized something wasn’t quite right with her then three-year-old son, Taye. Their pediatrician repeatedly told her not to worry; but as a mother, Amber knew better. She spent the next three years scanning the Internet, trying to figure out why her son was so different from other children. When she heard someone mention Asperger’s on a TV show, she immediately went to the computer and searched for the symptoms. What she read made the pieces...

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