Daniella Mini

Am I Glad My Son’s Autistic?

Had someone asked me twenty years ago, “Are you glad your son's the way he is, I mean, autistic and all?” I’d have thought the person crazy. If she’d followed up with “Well, I’m glad mine is,” I’d have...Read More →

Gratitude: How to Show the Perfect Amount

“People are programmed to desire, not to appreciate.” Matt Ridley, in The Rational Optimist My autistic son Diego sure is great at many things most people never learn how to do well, including saying ...Read More →

Autism, Love and the 2020 Election

“For the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth — that Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which...Read More →

Autism and the Fascinating Power of Associative Thinking

Diego, my 26-year old son with autism and intellectual disability, loves the word “similar”. On one of our runs the other day, he began to recite this litany of similarities between movies: “Holes is ...Read More →

My Finger Picking Compulsion Feels Just Like an Addiction

I’ve been a finger picker for 37 years. I was in middle school when I began to notice and pull out flakes of skin around my fingernails. I can’t remember how long it took for finger picking to become ...Read More →

When English Is Not Your Native Language

The tricky problem of pronouncing vowels just right There are at least three words every native Spanish speaker should avoid saying in English: focus, sheet and beach. Focus (f*ck us) I know several...Read More →

4 Reasons My Autistic Son’s an Amazing Travel Companion

This summer, my family was supposed to go to South Africa on vacation, a huge deal given that we’ve never been anywhere in Africa and that my son, Diego, who has autism, has long been obsessed with...Read More →

Pursuit of Happiness: 3 Key Reasons Happiness Is Not the Right Goal

Society has come up with a generally accepted recipe for happiness. The formula includes having money (the more the better), beauty, fame, popular kids who go to college (the more prestigious the better),...Read More →

Autism & Rigidity: Got Rigidity Issues? Learn from Diego!

We were midway through our run the other day when Diego brought up one of his favorite topics: What, pray, was the plan for the day? I ran through a proposed sequence: “First we run, then take a shower,...Read More →