

Kyle Condon at Real World Studios with his record producer, Rob Bozas, right, and recording engineer Oli Jacobs
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By Afam Care
Friday 18th January 2013
Young Box rocker Kyle Condon could be knocking on the door to success, after recording his first single at the age of 10.
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The Box Primary School pupil, diagnosed ADHD and Asperger’s syndrome, first got the musical bug when he won the Box’s Got Talent competition at the village’s jubilee celebration last year, performing his version of Knocking on Heaven’s Door.
He said: “When I did the show, there were adults there and people who had written their own songs. I was really nervous, as I was first on, and I was the youngest person.
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…
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Kyle’s mother, Kaz Lammie, said: “Music really helps with his condition. We’ve noticed a big difference. When he is getting hyperactive, I will suggest he go play his guitar, to direct his concentration somewhere else.
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“With Asperger’s, he is very obsessive, which is a good thing, because once he sets his mind to learning something he just goes on to do it.
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“It has been really beneficial and it’s been a great focus for him. It’s been almost like a therapy.â€
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The youngster has been playing guitar for less than a year, since getting his first instrument for his birthday, and is keen to pursue a career in music.
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… The single is available to download from iTunes and Amazon. Proceeds will go towards charities supporting the two conditions.
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Read in Full:
http://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/news/10169133.New_Box_kid_on_block/?ref=rss



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The Autistic Self Advocacy Network is excited to announce the Autism Campus Inclusion project is now seeking applications for its 2013 Summer Leadership Academy. The training will take place in Washington, DC, June 9 to June 15, 2013. All expenses for the training are covered by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, including travel, lodging and food.
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The ACI summer leadership training prepares students to create systems change on their college campuses. Each participant will learn valuable skills in community organizing, creating policy goals and activism. Applicants must be current college students with at least one year remaining before graduation.
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In order to apply, please email your completed application to Melody Latimer at mlatimer@autisticadvocacy.org with the subject line “2013 ACI Application”. You will receive a confirmation that your application has been received within one business day.
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If you need assistance or accommodations at any stage, please contact Melody Latimer at mlatimer@autisticadvocacy.org.
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Made possible with support from
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In partnership with the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, Freddie Mac, an industry leader in home mortgages, is seeking a paid intern for the third round of a program with ASAN to place qualified Autistic candidates in skilled positions within the company.
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Architecture & Data Services
Freddie Mac is a dynamic environment enabling Intern Analysts to grow through a variety of experiences and responsibilities. Interns will start by learning basic core functions to understand how to work within the organization. The goal of working with the Intern program is to provide analysts an environment with learning opportunities through on the job training and courses available to Freddie Mac. This will allow analysts to build and strengthen skills as well as develop a broader set of competencies.
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Job Description
Assist team in improving documentation of the department processes. Support organization in creating department reports and metrics against data.
Job Function
2) Where feasible recommend automated solutions that allow for efficiencies within department processes
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4) Participate in the discussions with team members about found issues with processes and offer potential solutions
5) Maintain tracking log of issues to ensure the items get addressed for completion
6) Collect feedback regarding new processes once implemented to adjust where needed
A Typical Day Would Include:
- *Meeting with the  team to collect existing process information Â
- *Updating existing documentation using Microsoft standard tools and Visio Â
- *Interacting with team members, through the employee preferred form of communication, to get the new assignments as well as to receive the feedback of the work products Â
- Â
- *Learning about existing tools that could be potentially used to automate processes where feasible
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Required Skills for This Role
Knowledge of the following software: Microsoft Office Products (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), Visio, and IBM Lotus NotesÂ
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Suggested Technical Skills For This Role
Knowledge of the following software: SharePoint, MySQL, and Grails; knowledge of the programming languages SQL, JAVA, and Ruby
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Other Suggested Skills
Instructional writing, process documentation (ARIS), analysis summarization
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Skills the Intern Will Acquire
Process Management, Analysis, tools such as SharePoint, Dreamweaver
If you are interested in this position and live in, or are willing to relocate to, the Washington, DC metro area, please send your resume to ASAN at resumes@autisticadvocacy.org.

Last May, I and other advocates crashed a party – a twitter party, to be exact. USA Today had put together a live twitter chat with the nation’s “top experts†on autism – a group that notably excluded any actual Autistic people. Unimpressed, the live chat was crashed by a few dozen Autistic adults who did a great job communicating that old time “Nothing About Us, Without Us!†spirit. Liz Szabo, the USA Today medical reporter moderating the live chat, responded fairly well, apologizing and making sure that self-advocate participants were included after all. Later that day, I got a very nice e-mail from her, promising to learn the lesson about self-advocate inclusion for the future. Mission accomplished, right?
Well, perhaps not so much. Today, USA Today ran a front page feature by Liz Szabo on mental health policy, encompassing 3,024 words over three articles and including color photos, infographics and an extensive table analyzing mental health policies across the nation. What it did not include, shockingly, was the voice of a single person with a psychiatric disability. Given the topic – one article uncritically makes the case that involuntary commitment laws must be strengthened and expanded – this is a serious flaw and one that is undeserving of a newspaper of USA Today’s national stature.
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The rationale behind an error like this is baffling, to say the least. It seems hardly credible that the author could not locate a single disabled person. One understands the pressures faced by modern journalists in these times of newsroom cutbacks, but surely they can do better than this. Furthermore, the failure to speak or present the opinions of a single opponent to the expansion of civil commitment laws is unbelievable, given the stakes. Does USA Today believe that expanding institutionalization and forced treatment is so uncontroversial as to not deserve the presentation of both sides? What possible explanation could be offered for such shoddy work?
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Regrettably, the problem extends beyond Szabo and USA Today, both of whom have good intentions. Most journalists reporting on disability issues today come from backgrounds in health or medicine, where the working assumption is that physicians should drive the conversation and little difference should exist between parent and self-advocate perspectives. For many in the media, reporting the voices of those most directly impacted is an afterthought, too often forgot about in the rush to meet a deadline. This outlook has real and practical consequences.
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In the aftermath of the unspeakable tragedy in Newtown, the newsmedia plays a disproportionate role in shaping the public conversation. Policymakers and the general public look to newspapers to help determine practical solutions to challenges like gun violence. When journalists ignore the communities they are charged with reporting on, we all lose an opportunity to become better educated on the issues that face our country. Beyond that, ill-advised policy solutions are uncritically promoted without thought to their unintended consequences.
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Annoyed? Angry? Don’t just sit there and take it – do something! Here are some options:
• Send USA Today a Letter to the Editor by e-mailing letters@usatoday.com. Include your name, address and daytime and evening phone numbers (if you cannot use the phone, note this and provide an e-mail address that you check frequently). The newspaper’s website notes that letters of 200 words or less have the highest likelihood of being accepted.
• E-mail Brent Jones, USA Today’s Public Editor, with your concerns about lack of self-advocate representation at accuracy@usatoday.com.
Dec
31

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Dear Readers,
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Wishing you a very happy, healthy 2013!
Have a fun, safe New Year’s Eve!
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Love & Very Best Wishes,
Julie
xx

Dear Readers,
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Merry Christmas,
From my home to yours.
May your holidays be filled with family, peace and love,
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Julie
xx
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Personal Note:
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Connecticut has been so very kind to us this year as we took up residence in the most beautiful lakehouse, as we now divide our time between England, UK and New England, USA, training our new American friends. Our thoughts and prayers are with a fellow employee, who lost his autistic son through the devastating Sandy Hook tragedy. Our thoughts and condolences are with Ian, his family and all those affected by this tragedy.
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The Dylan Hockley Memorial Fund has been established in honour of Dylan and details are below for those wishing to contribute. Â Donations will be used to benefit children with autism and other special needs.
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All donations can be made through PayPal using the direct link below or by logging into PayPal and remitting funds to the following recipient: dylanhockleymemorialfund@gmail.com
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=TBHA4CSMNSJ3E
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Alternatively, cheques made payable to the ‘Dylan Hockley Memorial Fund’ can be sent to 34 Charter Ridge Drive, Sandy Hook, CT 06482, USA.

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In partnership with the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, Freddie Mac, an industry leader in home mortgages, is seeking a paid intern for the third round of a program with ASAN to place qualified Autistic candidates in skilled positions within the company.
Â
Architecture & Data Services
Â
Freddie Mac is a dynamic environment enabling Intern Analysts to grow through a variety of experiences and responsibilities. Interns will start by learning basic core functions to understand how to work within the organization. The goal of working with the Intern program is to provide analysts an environment with learning opportunities through on the job training and courses available to Freddie Mac.  This will allow analysts to build and strengthen skills as well as develop a broader set of competencies.Â
Â
Job Description
Â
Assist team in improving documentation of the department processes. Support organization in creating department reports and metrics against data
Â
Job Function
- 1. Create new or updated existing process documentation to reflect organization and process changes.
- 2. Where feasible recommend automated solutions that allow for efficiencies within department processes
- 3. Submit documentation to team members for review and feedback
- 4. Participate in the discussions with team members about found issues with processes and offer potential solutions
- 5. Maintain tracking log of issues to ensure the items get addressed for completion
- 6. Collect feedback regarding new processes once implemented to adjust where needed
Â
Typical Day
- 1. Meeting with team to collect existing process information
- 2. Update existing documentation using Microsoft standard tools and Visio.
- 3. Interacting with team members, through the employee preferred form of communication, to get the new assignments as well as to receive the feedback of the work products
- 4. Learning about existing tools that could be potentially used to automate processes where feasible.
Â
Tools or Technologies Needed For This Role
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Knowledge of Microsoft Office Products (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), Visio, IBM Lotus Notes
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Skills the Intern will acquire
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Process Management, Analysis, tools such as SharePoint, Dreamweaver
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If you are interested in this position and live, or are willing to relocate, to the Washington, DC metro area, please send your resume to ASAN at resumes@autisticadvocacy.org.

Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer QC announced the decision, some three months after McKinnon, 46, was saved from extradition to the U.S.
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By Chris Parsons | Yahoo! News – 1 hour 3 minutes ago
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British computer hacker Gary McKinnon will not face criminal charges in the UK, the Crown Prosecution Service announced today.
Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer QC announced the decision, some three months after McKinnon, 46, was saved from extradition to the U.S.
In October, Home Secretary Theresa May had decided not to extradite McKinnon to America on the basis of his health.
The CPS said today that consulting with the police and relevant authorities, they recommended to the Met Police that recommended to the Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police that they ‘should not commence a new criminal investigation into Mr McKinnon’.
They added that the Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police ‘has accepted that advice’.
Mr McKinnon, 46, from Wood Green, north London, would have faced up to 60 years in prison if convicted in the US.

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In their statement issued this afternoon, the CPS said that in light of the logistics of prosecuting Mr McKinnon, ‘the propsects of a conviction against him… were not high’.
They added: “The potential difficulties in bringing a case in England and Wales now should not be underestimated, not least the passage of time, the logistics of transferring sensitive evidence prepared for a court in the US to London for trial, the participation of US Government witnesses in the trial and the need to fully comply with the duties of disclosure imposed on the CPS.”
Mr McKinnon, who suffers from Asperger’s syndrome, was permitted to stay in the UK after medical reports showed he was very likely to try to kill himself if extradited.
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Both Prime Minister David Cameron, who held talks on the case with US president Barack Obama, and his deputy, Nick Clegg, had condemned plans to send him to the US.
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Read in Full:
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/alleged-hacker-gary-mckinnon-will-not-face-charges-in-the-uk-151202048.html

It’s here!
A little less than a year since we started, the Loud Hands Project is proud to unveil our first anthology: Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking, now available on Amazon. This is an exciting time for the Loud Hands Project, and we want to share it with you.
Over the last several months, we’ve gathered contributions from a wide variety of sources, more than we could ever afford to print. Some were sent in, unsolicited. Others were pulled from the earliest chapters of the autistic community, with authors kind enough to grant us permission to reprint. Others came from blogs, and still others were solicited from people responding to the following focus paragraph:
The anthology is structured around twin themes of simplicity and voice. Simplicity because autism, for all its diversity, isn’t complicated or scary or hard–it just is. Voice because autistic people have voices, otherwise we wouldn’t be silenced. These two concepts go hand in hand. Autistic brains are different from non-autistic brains–not better or worse, just different. Autistic voices, similarly, can take different forms or styles or express different things through different means than non-autistic voices. These facts are simple and neutral, but regularly obscured and overridden by cultural scripts and fallacies demanding broken, voiceless not-people stranded by huge chasms from the rest of the world in place of everyday autistics. Simplicity and voice are routinely sacrificed for dehumanization and spectacle. That’s not our baggage, but when it’s used to silence our voices and complicated our realities, it becomes our business. The Loud Hands Project is designed as a counter to that, and this anthology is to be our guiding, founding document.
The diversity of voices here is truly incredible. People of all ages, genders, backgrounds, and abilities responded with grace, passion, and clarity, articulating brutally honest accounts of the world as it is and shining visions of what we can make it into. We hope you’ll read it, tell your friends, and spread copies to your libraries, schools, day care centers and service providers and therapists. If you let them, the voices in this book can change the world.
You can view the table of contents here.
Thank you for reading. Thank you for contributing. Thank you for supporting us when we were just starting fundraising, thank you for building the vibrant, resilient community this book comes from, and thank you for spreading it around.
Julia Bascom
Project founder and organizer
The Loud Hands Project
Autistic Self Advocacy Network
Tomorrow, December 3rd, marks the International Day of Persons with Disabilities.Â
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In collaboration with the United States Internationational Council on Disabilities (USICD)and the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF), the Autistic Self Advocacy Network strongly encourages our members and supporters to seize this coming Monday as an opportunity to show your support for the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
The United States Senate has passed a motion to proceed with voting on the ratification of CRPD. Ratification would ensure that the United States remains a world leader in protecting and advancing the rights of people with disabilities.Â
You can show your support for the CRPD this Monday by calling both of your state Senators and letting them know that you encourage the Senate to approve ratification. USICD has provided sample phone messages to use if you choose to call, as well as a link to the contact information for all US Senators. You may also call the US Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121 to reach any US Senator.Â
You can also voice your support for ratification by tweeting about it. USICD has also provided sample language for tweets, and the Twitter handles for all US Senators can be found here.Â



