Member-only story
AANE: A Review
I have mixed feelings.
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What is it?
AANE (Association for Autism and Neurodiversity) is a non-profit organization with a wide offering of autism services. They started off in New England and were formerly known as the Asperger/Autism Network and also as the Asperger Association of New England, but have since expanded some of their offerings to the entire US.
The positive
Unlike many autism-focused organizations, autistic people are directly involved in administering various parts of their programs. When I booked what they term a “resource call”, the person who conducted it was an autistic person. I would hypothesize that another byproduct of this approach to hiring and volunteering is that the website offers many ways to contact staff and not all of them involve spontaneously picking up the phone to speak with a stranger.
If you’re anything like me and would rather make a snow angel naked in the middle of Times Square in dead winter than call some administrator somewhere who is supposed to link me to services, you know how huge of a deal this is, particularly given how often these kinds places simply refuse to let you do anything but call them. Continuing in the spirit of accessibility…
