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.
Autism as originally defined by Dr. Sukhareva, and later, Dr. Asperger, was understood as a condition that could be found in any segment of the population, discriminating by neither sex nor ethnicity. However, when Leo Kanner redefined and codified autism diagnosis in the United States, his definition explicitly leaned on then-contemporary sexism, and implicitly on racism and classism, to define “real†autistics. This talk will explore this history and discuss its impact on autistics in the generations since, ranging from ongoing differential access to formal diagnosis, to disproportionate pathologization and violence against BIPOC autistics in institutional settings, to how ideas about "female autism,†race, and wealth pervade debates about self-diagnosis. We will then open into a discussion about intersectionality, implicit and explicit bias, and promoting autistic advocacy that centers the concerns of historically marginalized groups.