Week 13 of Serialization: Where Does My Autistic Son Belong?
In 2019, I published Where Does My Autistic Son Belong?. It chronicles my struggle with raising my adolescent autistic son, Sebastien, and my subsequent decision of setting a home for him in Bali. As part and parcel of A Mother’s Wish initiative (amotherswish.com.sg) to raise awareness about the need to treat autistic individuals with genuine respect and empathy, I am serializing the book on Medium (please see the links below for all the serialized chapters to date, includin
A Mother's Wish Supports Free Special Needs School for the Poor in Bali
by Kah Ying Choo Photo taken in December 2019... Although the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the temporary closure of Sari Hati School—a free special needs school for the poor in Bali, the work of the school has been continuing. As you will see in the email below, the teachers are still heading out to the individual households in the villages to offer homeschooling and food to the families. This is why A Mother's Wish has been striving to do its part to support Sari Hati Schoo
Painting Series by Jean-Sebastien Choo, Self-taught Autistic Artist #18— Two Nature Paintings
by Choo Kah Ying These two paintings, completed within the first year of Sebastien's move to Bali, hark back to one of the reasons why we had sought to set up a home for him, away from Singapore. Throughout our overseas travel, Sebastien had always been significantly happier and at ease when he was steeped in nature. (I Love Nature, 8 x 16 in, water color and poster color, canvas panel, SGD140 + shipping) We feel grateful that Sebastien has been leading an active and fulfilli
The ABCs of ASD Podcast
by Choo Kah Ying Typically, my work as a Research Writing Educator and my advocacy for autism, as the mother of Sebastien, my 25-year-old autistic son, do not intersect. However, these two worlds have come together recently. After some brainstorming about a potential research study, one of my high school students, Aryan Dawer, felt inspired by what I had shared about autism to harness his interest in computer science to develop an emotional recognition software (ERS) with the
