B is for Blogs
Blogs are an amazing resource for learning about autism from autistics. I generally avoid NT-run Autism Parent™ blogs because they tend to be about garnering pity, sympathy and attention for the parent, and it's all about them rather than the autistic, all in the name of "the reality of autism", with intimate details about things such as toileting habits, generally without the consent of the autistic.
Autistic-run blogs are a wealth of information about all aspects of autism, from a huge variety of people. They cover pretty much every topic you can think of, sometimes in great detail, and these provide the best insight of what it is like to be autistic and how autism affects people, from a first-hand perspective. The best thing? Because they are autistic-run, you can be sure that these things are being written with consent. And consent is crucial because a lot of the Parent blogs don't have that. In addition, such blogs are frequently from an outside perspective, so the internal things (emotions, thoughts, etc) are not clear are visible. With autistic-run blogs, the inner thoughts, feelings, etc can be written about accurately.
They're a great way of communicating our experiences. A lot of us find written communication easier than spoken - it allows more time to think, we can structure and rearrange as we see fit, it affords the opportunity to carefully select precisely the right wording, it's far more likely to be coherent, it's a great way for those with speech difficulties and who are nonspeaking to express themselves and their experiences, they add our voices to the autistic community, they can help us realise that we are far from alone in difficulties, experiences and so on, and entries can be revised and edited before anyone ever views them.
Blogs are easily accessible on a variety of devices, they can be really easy to set up and they can be nice and easy to personalise.
Your best resource for insights into and information on autism is those of us who are actually autistic. We live it, we experience it; we are the experts.
Although not comprehensive, here is a list of blogs (alphabetical order by blog name) by autistics that I recommend, a number of whom I consider as good friends. Many of them also have corresponding Facebook pages and some, like Giraffe Party, are more active there than on their blogs, so if you're a Facebook user, look for them there, too!
Emma's Hope Book (joint with her mother)
Hello Michelle Swan (formerly Michelle Sutton Writes)
The Autism Wars (mother of autistic children)
Watch Well (Cal Montgomery)
You can find a much more comprehensive list here (both active and defunct), compiled by An Autism Observer:
I don't know which ones on the comprehensive list are good blogs and which are bad, pro-Autism $peaks, pro-ABA, ableist, etc. At some point when I get the chance I'm going to check them all out one by one!
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