Liane Kupferberg Carter

This week began with World Autism Awareness Day, created five years ago by the group Autism Speaks as a locus for fund-raising and spreading the word. It comes at the start to National Autism Awareness Month, which was created by Congress back in the...

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Okay, I'm going out on a limb here.

I'm a middle-aged mom and I love Facebook. And no, I'm not playing games like Farmville, Kingdoms of Camelot or Mafia Wars. I love it for networking....

She was meant to be a companion for our cat Dizzy. She looked identical. The same kohl-rimmed eyes. The same silky, silver fur. The same sweet face. She was Dizzy's Doppelganger.

But inside?

A heart of darkness.

Dizzy, our

If you ask our son Mickey what he might like to be when he grows up, he will probably say, "A librarian. Or a Pokemon Master!"

There aren't too many jobs for a crackerjack Nintendoplayer, but Mickey is learning other skills. At 18, he attends the Comprehensive Support...

The blogosphere has been buzzing in outrage recently over controversial author James Frey's newest publishing venture, Full Fathom Five, a fiction factory that pays a stable of young writers just $250 for commercially viable young-adult novels, and...

"What a beautiful girl you are. You're in heavy purr tonight, aren't you sweetheart?" my husband Marc croons.

He's not talking to me.

He's talking to Dizzy. An eight-month-old silver-striped Maine Coon kitten with long silky fur and a lion's ruff around her sweet...

"We're trying new medication for Jake," my friend Lauren tells me. Her son, like mine, has autism and seizures.

"We saw bad side effects on that one," I warn.

"I know. The doctor told me Jake might even have hallucinations. So I said, 'Really? How would we be...

"Your child has autism."

It's a devastating diagnosis for a parent to hear. But it's a one-two punch when your insurance company then refuses to cover the critical, medically necessary therapies your child desperately needs.

When our then-2-year-old son was diagnosed with a developmental disability 16 years ago,...

1. Take your kids.

2. (Okay, forget number one.)

3. Rent a vacation house from people who don't have kids and don't like kids. Rent a house from people who are fond of model ships in bottles, glass sculptures, and white, wall-to-wall...

If you think a photographer has to be able to see, a dancer able to walk, or a percussionist able to hear, you are in for a surprise.

VSA, the international organization on arts and disability, will be hosting...

On April 2, we will celebrate the third annual World Autism Awareness Day. But there is a war raging within the autism community.

Parents are still pitted against each other over the vaccine issue, despite the fact that numerous well designed scientific studies have failed to show any...

The letter was terse. Our health insurance company would no longer cover our son's epilepsy medication unless we switched from the brand name drug to a generic form. They would re-authorize covering the brand name medication only if he took the generic drug for a month and had "a...

We were trying on hats at a department store counter when my childhood friend said it.

"I never know how to wear these," she said. "I'm such a fashion retard."

I was shocked. I said, "We don't use that word."

She turned red. "You're right. I am so sorry," she...

I am a perfume slut.

I can't be faithful to just one fragrance. I have serial love affairs; no signature scent for me. This morning, I own thirty-something bottles of perfume and 103 sample vials on a dedicated closet shelf. And that doesn't include the bottles...

The phone rings late one afternoon as I am chopping salad. Cordless receiver wedged between my shoulder and my ear, I line up a row of cherry tomatoes on the cutting board.

"Hi, my son Jeremy is a volunteer in your sports program," a woman who identifies herself as "Jeremy's...