Wilderwood was started in 2018 by Dr. Rebecca Evanko and Dr. Mark Evanko. The program continues to evolve, embracing its mission to provide equine-inspired, autistic-led programs, research, and services for autistic people – especially autistic women – and the broader community, and to educate about horses and autism.
There’s more on our story in the award-winning documentary, Hautism and Wilderwood, which can be viewed below. The documentary outlined Wilderwood’s original program, which was a nine-month curriculum. Though Wilderwood’s programs have now expanded and adapted to the needs of our participants and community, the philosophy of Hautism remains at the heart of our program and all that we endeavor to achieve.
Identity-first language
Wilderwood endorses and uses identity-first language when discussing autism and talking about autistic people. This means we speak and write about autistic people and not people with autism; we say autistic, and not have autism. We also say autism spectrum rather than autism spectrum disorder.
While the autistic community, and we at Wilderwood, are acutely aware of the politeness and respect that originally inspired person-first language (that is, see the person first rather than the disability), our autism is so much part of who we are — much like someone being black, or gay, or deaf — that “autistic person” is how we prefer to be described, and is the language we use at Wilderwood.