UC-LEND Patient Resources
ASAN Start Here Guide
Too often, when parents find out their kid is autistic, they receive negative messages from all sides. Many resources available to parents stigmatize autism and talk about it as something to be “overcome,” not as a part of who an autistic child is. At ASAN, we’ve heard from many parents of autisic children who wish they’d had a better resource to learn about autism — one that cuts through myths and misconceptions and explains autism from an autistic perspective. And we’ve heard from many of our autistic community members who wish their families had access to that kind of information when they were growing up. That’s what our new booklet, “Start Here: A Guide for Parents of Autistic Kids” is for!
Find the ASAN Start Here Guide here.
Regional Centers
DDS oversees the coordination and delivery of services for Californians with developmental disabilities through a statewide network of 21 community-based, non-profit agencies known as regional centers. Regional centers provide assessments, determine eligibility for services, and offer case management services. Regional centers also develop, purchase, and coordinate the services in each person’s Individual Program Plan.
Find your local regional center here.
Center for Parent Information & Resources
Your central “Hub” of information and products created for the network of Parent Centers serving families of children with disabilities
All the materials found on the CPIR Hub have been created and archived for Parent Centers around the country to help them provide support and services to the families they serve. The CPIR employs a user-centered process, gathering the perspectives of our experienced audience—Parent Center staff members and other experts—every step of the way, to create products and services that increase Parent Centers’ knowledge and capacity in specific domains.
Welcome to the Autistic Community
We wrote this book for autistic people who want to learn what being autistic means. We hope it will help you understand autism better, and answer some questions you have about autism. We also want non-autistic people to read the book. It can show you how to make life better for autistic people.
Autism Facts for Kids
Download our most popular content and use it to educate yourself, a loved one, your students or anyone in your community for better understanding of autism from the autistic perspective.
Click here to access Geek Club Books.
UCLA PEERS for Careers
The UCLA College to Career Transition Program is an innovative offering for autistic undergraduate and graduate students who are interested in acquiring job-related, social, and practical skills for a successful transition from educational to employment settings. The program teaches students necessary skills for obtaining and maintaining a job and provides an internship experience to practice learned skills. The program creates a scalable solution to employment barriers faced by autistic individuals and serves as a model of higher education training for colleges across the country.
AASPIRE Healthcare Toolkit
This web site has information and worksheets for adults on the autism spectrum, supporters, and healthcare providers. It focuses on primary healthcare, or healthcare with a regular doctor. The resources on this site are meant to improve the healthcare of autistic adults. They were made by the Academic-Autistic Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education (AASPIRE) through a series of research studies funded by the National Institute of Mental Health.
Access the AASPIRE Healthcare Toolkit here.
Autistic Self-Advocacy Network (ASAN)
The Autistic Self Advocacy Network is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization run by and for autistic people. ASAN is a national grassroots disability rights organization for the autistic community. We fight for disability rights. We work to make sure autistic people are included in policy-making, so that laws and policies meet our community’s needs.
Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD)
The Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD) is a membership organization that supports and promotes a national network of university-based interdisciplinary programs. Network members consist of:
- 67 University Centers for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD)
- 60 Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) programs
- 16 Eunice Kennedy Shriver Intellectual and Developmental Disability Research Centers (IDDRC)
- 12 Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics Training Program (DBP)
(non-members who receive TA)
These programs serve and are located in every U.S. state and territory and are all part of universities or medical centers. They serve as a bridge between the university and the community, bringing together the resources of both to achieve meaningful change.
AUCD supports this national network through:
- Leadership on major social problems affecting all people living with developmental or other disabilities or special health needs
- Advocacy with Congress and executive branch agencies that fund and regulate programs used by people with disabilities
- Networking and partnering with other national organizations to advance the network's national agendas
- Promoting communication within the network and with other groups by collecting, organizing, and disseminating data on network activities and accomplishments
- Technical assistance provision on a broad range of topics