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In June of 1998, her oldest son was diagnosed with autism. Less than a year later, in April of 1999, her younger son was diagnosed with the same. They are on opposite ends of the spectrum; one is non-verbal, the other is higher functioning. Not only was she was hit with something most parents never experience, she was hit with it twice and with the highest of extremes.
As a single mother, Bonnie Sayers’ the past 10 years have been filled daily with occupational therapy; feeding, speech, sensory and floor therapies; Adaptive PE; extra work on social skills; home schooling and being a home health care worker through the State of California for her non-verbal son. Through grants the boys are able to attend summer day camp to further work on daily living skills, cooking, personal hygiene and social skills. The knowledge that her experiences have afforded her is boundless. She has been writing about these experiences for 10 years, 3 years on a site and on her own blog for approximately 6 months. She already has a following on her blog of more than 1882 people. She uses Twitter as well, with a following of almost 1900 fellow tweeters.
With her knowledge, a community of support that surrounds her, and her insight into the issues of autism, she noticed that there was growing need for “clarification” on what the faces of autism look like. With celebrities such as Jenny McCarthy “curing” her son and the vaccine controversies, Bonnie wanted to have a forum where there could be a day dedicated to promoting positive autism awareness. So, in November, just 1 short month ago, Bonnie Sayers began the
painstaking organization of Autism Twitter Day.
The best way to describe the day, other than a day to promote positive awareness, is a day where twitterers can register their twitter IDs (124 already) to follow the conversations between panel members and others in the twitter community who have children with autism, work with autistic children, are diagnosed themselves, or are otherwise interested in real information, discussions and experiences related to autism. This is scheduled to happen at various times during the day (9am PST, 10am PST, 12:30pm PST and 8pm PST) tomorrow, December 16, 2008.
As if autism tweets weren’t enough, Bonnie has organized over 50 prize donors with over 75 prizes for the day. These include:
· www.foodshouldtastegood.com
who is donating gluten free snacks, sweet potato was a hit with my son and his classroom, including aide and teacher
· www.modelmekids.com
who is donating social skills DVDs – we have one of the DVDs and good info for kids going into Middle school, kids are modeling appropriate behavior at school
· www.weieast.com/wehelp
who is donating cosmetic kit – owner of Wei East has son with autism, donating proceeds of this special kit, wonderful hand cream
· www.unos.com
who is donating 4 $25 gift cards, they have gluten free menu they have been involved in autism walks across the country
· www.aisforautism.net
two books donated by author who works with kids on the spectrum in schools, one book about a girl with the latest one on a boy in Middle school
· www.swngsetmamas.com
one of these mamas has a daughter with autism and is also going to tweet on music
