Image Credit to Freepik.com
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Image Credit to NetworkSolutions.com Stock Photos
By Tracy Peterson | September 26, 2025
(Updated from original post November 24, 2024)
Despite being a parent to a non-verbal person for over thirty years, we continue to learn. In our earlier life experience, navigating my child's autism behaviors and needs, resources were just as challenging to find as it was to get through our average day. Well-intentioned family members bombarded me with articles in desperation to find a cure. For the longest time, I refused to follow that route. I wasn't seeking a cure. Timothy wasn't sick. He didn't have a disease. But we did need help. Read more ...
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Image Credit to Pexels.com
By Medina Jones | September 22, 2025
Finding the right home can be a challenge for some families with children on the autism spectrum. Details beyond square footage should be considered when searching for a home that will benefit your special needs family. Before making a final decision, visiting the house several times might be ideal. Different times and days of the week will give you a clearer picture of the outside elements, including noise from neighbors' kids Read More...
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Image Credit to Pexels.com
By Martin Block | September 5, 2025
Parenting a child with special needs can be both profoundly rewarding and unrelentingly demanding. The day often begins before dawn and stretches long into the night, leaving little room for proper rest that may reduce patience and strain resilience. Unchecked, this type of fatigue can negatively impact your health and ability to handle the stresses that are so common with parenting a special-needs child. However, by taking an honest self-assessment of yourself and creating a plan supporting your Read More...
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Image Credit to NetworkSolutions.com Stock Photos
By Tracy Peterson | August 25, 2025
Imagine this: You go to throw something away and discover the remnants of what could only possibly be a dismantled keyboard in your trash. You immediately try to unravel where your special needs individual could have found an old keyboard in the house, let alone why they would break it into fragments of the shell and pop off all of the keys to the point that all that remained was a heap of plastic letters, numbers, and symbols. After a moment, you shrug it off and file it away as one more odd thing, and you may never get an answer out of your nonverbal individual. Read more...
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Image Credit to Freepik.com
By Medina Jones | August 22, 2025
Creating a home that supports a child with non-verbal autism isn't about copying design trends or checking off a generic list. It's about tuning into the subtle (or not so subtle) physical and emotional cues your child may be expressing in various vocal or nonverbal ways and creating a supportive and safe space that reflects their sensory needs. Many homes overstimulate without meaning to —white walls reflecting Read more...
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By Tracy Peterson | January 28, 2025
My son, Timothy, was diagnosed with "autism-like characteristics" and mild developmental disability when he was three years old and formally diagnosed on the autism spectrum in 2005. Never once did I consider that I might be on the spectrum, too. That was until I met with a counselor to navigate an exceptionally stressful point in my life.
My eldest son lived out of state; my other three were between middle and high school. Timothy's needs and specific routines often Read more ...
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Image Credit to Canva.Com Stock Photos
By Tracy Peterson | January 22, 2025
Today, our family is on our way to being worm farmers, kicking off our vermicomposting journey. One of our many goals is to decrease our environmental footprint and grocery costs in a fun, sustainable, sensory-driven learning family activity. Organic gardening is a huge part of our long-term goals, and vermiculture will help us to accomplish them while helping our son meet some of his autism sensory needs. Read more...
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By Tracy Peterson | October 24, 2024
It's hard to believe we are coming up during the holiday season. 2024 has gone by way too quickly and has not been without incredible change, growth, adventure, and a lot of self-reflection as I navigated job loss, freelancing, and ever so slowly developing my recruiting agency. The things I knew, or thought I knew, so well have been flipped on their heads. In so many ways, our world was turned upside down, and, at the same time, it brought me back to the center with a whole new perspective on how I want to move forward. Read more ...
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By Tracy Peterson | October 20, 2024
We are a family with an adult non-verbal person on the Autism Spectrum. ASD has deeply impacted our family in countless ways, including but not limited to financial, career choices, health and wellness, relationships, when and how we choose to socialize, and so much more. Despite the challenges, there are so many more joys. We choose to see our life as an adventure!
It has been many years since Exploring Our World Differently (EOWD) first entered my mind, at first as our Read more ...
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By Tracy Peterson | October 15, 2024
Hello! Thank you for your interest in Exploring Our World Differently (EOWD) and for allowing us to introduce ourselves. My name is Tracy Peterson, and I am a parent of an adult non-verbal person on the Autism Spectrum (ASD). This is a picture of us shortly after we relocated to eastern Tennessee in 2017, exploring our new surroundings.
EOWD has been part of us for many years, but life continually took me in different directions. I couldn't get myself up and going with it, primarily because with so much going on at any one time, I struggled to Read more ...
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