Amanda is a documentary filmmaker and autism activist currently engaged in making a feature film about the world autism crisis. The Pilgrims: The Journey to a New World for Autism. Narrated by Aidan Quinn. She is the mother of a young child with autism.

Blog Entries by Amanda Copeland

The Tenderness in the Autism Journey

11 Comments | Posted August 31, 2009 | 11:48 AM (EST)


So many blogs that gain popularity or a strong reader base are lighthearted, fun, teasingly profane -- in a word "perky". When considering how to approach autism from any perspective but heartbreak and devastation, the task is a slippery pig. We do have our profane in the autism experience, and...

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The Price of Intervention: Autism Underground

60 Comments | Posted July 28, 2009 | 10:12 AM (EST)


My daughter was diagnosed with autism several times. The first time was by her first preschool teachers, who told me they were not qualified to diagnose, but that I should seek professional diagnosis for a syndrome they had seen many times in other children over the years. The second time...

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Maximum Platform Versus Basic Floor: The Case for Autism as its Own Universe

49 Comments | Posted May 6, 2009 | 01:39 PM (EST)


When you first get the diagnosis on your toddler, this tiny being, this round, soft, angelic, helpless thing of a human who is beholden to you for its safe-keeping and survival, your guts fall on the floor. If you are a first time autism parent, you don't even know what...

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Autism, Love, and Revolution

Posted March 27, 2009 | 01:07 PM (EST)


Welcome to the journey of autism: the journey of my life as a mother, as a filmmaker. I once had a daughter who was perfectly formed, with a smoothly functioning nervous and immune system, and then autism became my life's journey. Autism, love, and now, revolution.

Lila was...

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