Welcome to the official website for the 2024 TASH Conference!
Each year, the TASH Conference brings together our constituents to share resources and success stories, learn about field-driven best practices, and network within a community engaged in shared values. The Conference is attended by passionate leaders, experts, and advocates from every corner of the disability community. Conference attendees are influential in their fields and communities, and play an important role in the provision of services and supports for individuals and organizations around the world; and include professors and researchers from leading institutions; those involved in local, state, and federal governments and public policy; special and general educators, and school administrators; self-advocates, adult service providers; students, family members, and many others. This year’s conference theme is Celebrate Together: Let the Good Times Roll!
Click on the "Registration and More" tab for additional information about our Conference location, registration, reserving a guest room, sponsorship and exhibitor opportunities, and more! The full Conference schedule is now available for viewing. Registered attendees will receive an invitation to log in and create a personalized schedule.
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Dogs can play an important role in life of a person with a disability. This support revolves around the human-animal bond. Dogs creates a sense of connectedness, belonging, and unconditional love. Dogs provide their owners with a reason to socialize and exercise, and are described as social lubricants, helping their owner to connect to other humans. Interacting with dogs helps reduce stress alleviate conditions such as depression and anxiety while increasing empathy and self-esteem. Many of the impacts dogs provide are preventative factors for suicide. A correlation potentially exists between disability and suicide risk. Moses (2018) posits that disability is a fundamental cause of suicide behavior because disability can be a chronic source of pain or stress that can spread to all aspects of life that results in social isolation and a feeling of being a burden to others. Yet, dog ownership may be balancing force to prevent this suicide ideation.
I'm a mom of two children with level 3 autism and also a poet. We live in Santa Cruz, California with their dad, and I'm their paid family caregiver. Recently I completed a chapbook of poetry entitled Wabe-sabe. Through these poems, I explore our lives and the impact that autism--and the people around us who observe but do not understand our family--have on us. My poems are through the lens of a mother, a caregiver, a Turkish-American Muslim, a guide to this world we live in. They are intended to invite you in and give you a glimpse of our experiences. In this TASH Talk, I will read a couple of my poems and invite audience questions.
