Last week, after a meeting with my child’s school, I’ve found myself thinking more deeply about the phrase “children with special needs." It’s a term I’ve used for years. It’s familiar. It’s common in educational and clinical systems. But the more I sit with it, the more I’ve begun to gently question what it implies. Because when I really step back and reflect, I don’t believe the needs of autistic children are fundamentally different from the needs of their peers. All childr

For many young children, waiting is tough. But for children with executive functioning delays, it can feel nearly impossible

As a parent to a neurodivergent child, I’ve come to deeply appreciate the authentic, everyday moments when my son shows me something—not because I prompted him to, but because he genuinely wants to share his experience with me. He'll race into the room holding a bug he found outside, or drag me over to see an animal he caught in his net. He’s brought me poop in his underwear (yep, that happened), shown me his couch-jumping tricks with pure joy, and proudly pulled artwork from

In the Early Start Denver Model (ESDM), we begin with a simple but powerful stance: let them. If a child wants to line up toys, let them. If they want to fill and dump containers, spin wheels, stack blocks, or open and close doors, let them. These patterns are not “wrong” or “empty.” They are authentic expressions of how that child is exploring their world. Autistic play is real play. It is meaningful to the child, even when it doesn’t look like adult-defined “functional” or