Sunday, December 16, 2007

2007 Autism Blog of the Year - About.com Autism

My personal pick as Autism Blog of the Year 2007 [excluding Facing Autism in New Brunswick ] is the About.com Autism Blog hosted by Lisa Jo Rudy. Ms Rudy's views often reflect the "neurodiversity" perspective; an autism perspective which I do not share. The neurodiversity emphasis can be quickly seen in the links on the related sites portion of the blog where links are provided to the neurodiversity network of alleged "autism" bloggers. Yet, Ms Rudy has clearly been trying to present all views on controversial autism subjects including the recent battle by the neurodiversity community which successfully bullied the NYU Ransom Notes campaign into submission. The parents whose concerns inspired the Ransom Notes campaign lost a voice with that defeat but the blame for that does not lie with Ms Rudy who tried to present all sides of the issue.

Another example of Ms Rudy's attempt to present all autism perspectives is the recently posted series on autism treatments. Most of the treatments presented are not evidence based as effective autism treatments. For that reason I would not endorse them personally but I think it is worthwhile to review and discuss these matters publicly.

For trying to fairly present all sides of the many controversial autism debates my personal choice for Autism Blog of 2007 is About.com Autism. Sorry, I don't have a fancy Web 2.0 badge to offer Ms Rudy for this "award" but I do offer my appreciation.

2 comments:

  1. WOW! I'm so glad I read this when my husband and kids were around, so I could read your kind words aloud.

    Thanks so very much. This means a lot to me, especially because at this time when the "autism world" seems to be even more at odds with itself than ever before.

    Merry Christmas!

    Lisa Jo Rudy
    Autism.about.com

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  2. You are quite welcome Lisa. Keep up the good work.

    Merry Christmas to you and your family.

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