Welcome to the Military Families Blog! Despite its title, this blog is an open forum for anyone to post and find information about raising a child with autism. It is our hope that the stories, dialogue, and resources shared here may be an added source of support for families touched by autism.
While some of the posts will focus on issues unique to military families, autism presents many common challenges to parents regardless of their profession. Thus, much of what you’ll read here will be widely applicable to civilian families as well. You can expect to see posts on the following topics:
- Education
- Parenting
- TRICARE
- Legislation
- Preparing for transitions
- Challenges & successes
- And much more
If you have helpful insight or experiences that you’d like to share in a post of your own, please email info@operationautismonline.org with “Blog Contributor” in the subject line and a brief description of your post. We will set up a user account for you and be in contact with you shortly.
All the best,
The Organization for Autism Research
http://www.researchautism.org
Hello there, I am glad that I ran into your site. I spend a lot of time online reading about various topics. It is always nice with such valuable information. I will bookmark this page and am anxiously looking forward to reading some of your future posts. Thanks and God bless.
Hi!
I am excited about this site! I have a 9 year old with an ASD diagnosis and a two year old that I think might fall in the spectrum as well. There are many great sites, support and resources out there for families with ASD, but none that have combined the military family. My husband is Active Duty Army, and I have felt really lost among the military family circles. The Post activities and schools and doctors have not been a great fit for my children. I think this website has a great deal of useful information and hopefully it will pave the way for more programs to meet the broad variety of needs of our military children with disabilities. I will stay tuned…..
Lesa
Lesa,
My name is Abigayle and I am a 30 year; born and raised, joined, married, and will die military. I am currently an Army wife at Fort Stewart in GA. I have four children and two of them are on spectrum. My son is almost nine years old and has Infantile Autism, Sensory Integration Disorder, and Behavioral Problems while my 7 year old daughter is about to be diagnosed with Asperer’s. I have navigated, all on my own with nothing or anyone to guide me, from diagnosis through education and back again. I have been stationed at Fort Hood as well as Mannheim Germany. I have an extensive college education and have self educated myself to expert on Autism.
I started advocating for the special education department’s families at the Dept of Defense school on post due to severe descrepencies and also did it virtually on my own; aided by a parent failed for five years by the school. In six weeks you wouldn’t think it was the same school and I am proudly still advocating for them as well as working closely with the new staff and do also advocate online for childhood mental illness and military family issues. I also have access to a lot more information through my own connections and I do it volunteer and only ask you “pay it forward”.
If you need help finding anything, talking to anyone, getting resources, navigating a school system, a mlitary school system, PCS overseas, health insurance and all your rights and benefits…I can help you on that and more and would do so gladly so you don’t have to do what I did all alone. Deployments are a bit difficult if you don’t have yourself in order with all your information and it will help if you download and then request a copy sent to your home of the military deployment guide they offer here on the website. Its an excellent resource that I have my own copy of. Please feel free to contact me abbykorinnelee@aol.com and I will be glad to speak to you via the phone after as well. Don’t be afraid to ask for help and demand answers and One voice does a lot. If you want to read my story before contacting me: hubpages.com/profile/abbykorinnelee I think its the most important part of Autism and connecting with others…personal story’s hit emotions and thats where you tug at their heart strings and pull them into awareness. Lots of luck to you; the military, especially the Army, is a hard road honey…but well worth it. Add in Autism and the colorful world they lead you in and you are in for the ride of your life that you will never want to do any differently.
Hi!
I am excited about this site! I have a 9 year old with an ASD diagnosis and a two year old that I think might fall in the spectrum as well. There are many great sites, support and resources out there for families with ASD, but none that have combined the military family. My husband is Active Duty Army, and I have felt really lost among the military family circles. The Post activities and schools and doctors have not been a great fit for my children. I think this website has a great deal of useful information and hopefully it will pave the way for more programs to meet the broad variety of needs of our military children with disabilities. I will stay tuned…..
Lesa