ABC News On Call Voices and Views: Autism
By Kim Stagliano
ABC News has created an online slide show called "Voices and Views" featuring six families/people dealing with autism. You'll recognize my family, that of Elias Tembenis and perhaps the others, including writer Susan Senator and the Brown Family of Texas, with their son, Preston who has dropped his autism diagnosis. Click HERE. Each story is about 2 minutes long.
Kim Stagliano is Managing Editor of Age of Autism.
Kim, your daughters look like future supermodels. Now there's a career that would pay for OT... not to mention 24/7 supervision.
ABC's editors did allow you and your hubby to make some very important points. The financial hardships and sacrifices, the big question marks about managing lifetime care... I hope that our fellow taxpayers viewing those slide shows don't simply put autism families on pedestals as noble martyrs, but instead lobby for reprioritizing tax funding back toward human services for the ever-increasing numbers of people with disabilities.
Posted by: nhokkanen | November 04, 2008 at 02:02 PM
Kim, Thank you for posting this. I think the two minute final product was appropriate in that it gave watchers a highlevel glance of your stories...the good and the bad. Anyone with with prior knowledge or experience of living with Autism can easily read between the lines to understand that it can be a life changing, yet wonderful experience...and there is hope.
Posted by: Aunt Ninny | November 04, 2008 at 12:36 PM
Robin, I can tell you we spent an entire afternoon with the camera crew. Hours and hours - and they culled it down to 2 minutes. You have no idea what the editors will do with your work.
KIM
Posted by: Stagmom | November 04, 2008 at 11:30 AM
Preston's mother speaks of how he lost his diagnosis, but doesn't say what she thinks caused him to lose the diagnosis. I know that the spots are short and one can only get so much information into a two minute spot, but this seems like a rather conspicuous ommission.
Posted by: Robin Nemeth | November 04, 2008 at 10:07 AM
Thank you, Harry. I thought I should offer up proof that I do not burst into flames upon entering a Catholic Church....
Your piece, of course, is the most touching by far. I wish you didn't have to be on this at all. You know what I mean.
KIM
Posted by: Stagmom | November 04, 2008 at 07:01 AM
Kim: BTW, what a great family church photo!
Posted by: htbenz | November 04, 2008 at 06:46 AM
Here is the rest of the website:
http://abcnews.go.com/health/autism
Posted by: htbenz | November 04, 2008 at 06:30 AM