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Shonda Schilling, the wife of retired Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, shares the painful and joyous story of her son Grant's struggle with Asperger's syndrome, and how it changed her life and her family. In this excerpt from her book, "The Best Kind of Different," she recounts her breaking point as a mother who didn't understand what was wrong with her son.

Click here to register for this event What: Dr. Grandin didn't talk until she was three and a half years old, communicating her frustration instead by screaming, peeping, and humming. In 1950, she was diagnosed with autism and her parents were told she should be institutionalized. www.templegrandin.com/ If you have seen the HBO movie "Temple Grandin" you know how important Eustacia Cutler, Dr. Grandin's mother, was to her success. Come and hear her first-hand account of raising Temple Grandin at a time when Autism barely had a name. As part of the conference, Ms. Cutler will be the featured guest at an evening reception for parents of individuals with an autism spectrum disorder. In addition to keynote presentations, multiple breakouts sessions each day will feature a choice of educational, medical, adolescent/adult, and family support strands. Lighting the Way welcomes family members, educators, social workers, childcare providers, support professionals and other community members to attend the event. CEUs and college credit hours will be available. A pre-conference session is scheduled for June 8th. Dr. Barry Grossman and Dr. Ruth Aspy, founders of the Ziggurat Model, A Framework for Designing Comprehensive Interventions for Individuals With High-Functioning Autism and Asperger Syndrome, will present a day-long workshop. Full conference information and on-line registration available at: www.augie.edu/autism When: June 9 and 10, 2011 Where: Sioux Falls Register: A limited number of stipends are available to help SD families with a member with an autism spectrum disorder attend the conference.   Please contact SD Parent Connection at 1-800-640-4553 or sdpc@sdparent.org to request a stipend.

The Kid Manual (aka Welcome to Our Asperger’s) I intend on writing plagues me the most. How do I explain it? How do I say that I need his future care-takers to re-invent their thinking? How do you tell someone that when your kid says “I hate you,” he’s really saying “I lack the ability to process and handle this situation at this particular moment in time?” How do you tell another adult, a family member and person stepping in to run your household in a time of great need that they are going to have to re-learn child care-taking from the ground up?

For most of his life, music critic Tim Page felt like an outsider. Restless and isolated, he was overstimulated and uneasy around others. Finally, when he was 45, Page was diagnosed with Asperger's, a syndrome that falls within the autism spectrum. As Page explains in the prologue of his new memoir, Parallel Play: Life As An Outsider, the diagnosis came as a relief: "Here, finally, was an objective explanation for some of my strengths and weaknesses," he writes.People with Asperger's often struggle to interact with groups and understand social norms. Page describes himself growing up as a "very lost little kid" who acted out in school by making faces at teachers and being aggressive with the other students. His ability to connect to others didn't improve with age.

The Impact on Students with LD and AD/HD The Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA) was passed by Congress in December 2008 and became effective January 1, 2009. This significant piece of legislation corrected what Congress considered to be a departure from the intent of the original ADA (passed in 1990) brought about by several narrow interpretations of the law through Supreme Court rulings. These rulings weakened the law and made it difficult for people with disabilities to receive the protection the law intended.The ADAAA also has a direct and substantial impact on Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504) -an important law that provides protections for school-age children with disabilities.   This Parent Advocacy Brief will help you understand the changes brought about by the ADAAA, how they apply to Section 504, and how these changes may impact children with disabilities, including learning disabilities, as well as other conditions such as Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD), Aspergers Syndrome, diabetes, asthma, and life-threatening food allergies.